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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-01-16 e HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 2nd Session January 16, 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The second session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 3: 12 p.m. in the Hawaii County Councilroom, Hawaii County Building, Hilo, Hawaii, by Mr. Kimiaka Sakata, Chairman. The roll recorded the following: Present: Mr. Kimiaka Sakata, Chairman Mr. Spencer Kalani Schutte, Vice Chairman Mr. Richard Ishida, Member Mrs. Amy Iwamoto, Member Mrs. Gloria Kobayashi, Member Mr. Akira Omonaka, Member Mr. Herman Sensano, Member Mr. Joseph Trulson,, Member Mr. Basilio Yagong, Member Mr. Matsuo Yanaga, Member Absent Mr. Harlan Cadinha, Member and Excused: Also Mr. R. B. Legaspi, County Clerk Present: Mr. Ed Kozohara, Election Supervisor Mr. Hideo Kuniyoshi, Director, Department of Liquor Control Mr. Guy Paul, Chief of Police, Hawaii Police Department Mr. Martin Kaaua, Deputy Chief of Police, _ Hawaii_ Police Department Mr. [MTarty_ Sebastiaj Chairman, Hawaii Police Commission i rir-boi✓0. ,rc L h rt ri_, ; / Mr. Akira Fujimoto, Manager, Department of Water Supply Mr. Edmund Hohu, Deputy Manager, Department of Water Supply Mr. George Tangen, Fiscal Officer, Depart- ment of Water Supply Mr. Jerry Saito, Water Commissioner, Chairman Mr. Ed Silva, Personnel Director Mrs. Kay F. Ramos, Recorder APPROVAL The Chair called for the approval of the minutes OF of January 8, 1979. MINUTES : Mr. Schutte moved that the minutes be approved as circulated. Seconded by Mr. Trulson and unanimously carried. COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to take up the CATIONS : following order of business, communications: Comm. 3: Letter from R. B. Legaspi, County Clerk, dated December 27 , 1978, submitting listing of reference sources and materials. MR. R. B. LEGASPI: This is the listing of reference sources that was requested by Commissioner Trulson and this is all what we have in the Council Services Division. We are receiving, at the present time, more materials which might be of interest to you, and it will be on the agenda as communications for the next few meetings. Again, may I explain that these documents that are listed are single documents and some of them are very voluminous. If you want them, you' ll have to go downstairs and check with our Legislative Auditor, Mr. (Harry) Takahashi, to either sign them out or try to get copies, if they are not too voluminous. That' s for Communication No. 3. Comm. 4: Communication No. 4 is drafted by our office regarding the ramifications of the special election as opposed to the regular election and I think the letter is self-explanatory. If you need further information, we do have in our audience, our supervisor of elections, Edwin Kozohara, to further explain the process if you so desire. Comm. 5 : Again, Communication No. 5 is the result of the discussion last week about a possible election in November and what we ' re doing here for you is to give you the mandated deadline as far as the conduct of the elections are concerned. Working backwards, the election day is November 3. We' re working backwards for the specific deadlines, 45 days as required by the charter and the 60-day deadline as required by the Hawaii Revised Statutes. We've chosen November 3 which is a Saturday as opposed to a weekday because this is the only time we felt that we could get the school buildings for use of election purposes. Weekdays would be almost impossible to get these facilities. We've chosen the 3rd as opposed to the 10th because of the proximity of the Veteran' s holiday that should follow the 10th weekend. NEW The Chair called for a motion to suspend the rules BUSINESS: in order that the Committee may take up New Business : Mr. Omonaka moved that the rules be suspended. Seconded by Mr. Schutte and unanimously carried. - 2 - DEPARTMENTAL The Chair directed the Committee to take up the OVERVIEW: Departmental Overview. DEPARTMENT Mr. Hideo Kuniyoshi read and presented his statement- OF LIQUOR (See Attachment I - page 1) CONTROL: MR. KUNIYOSHI: Now, I' d like to explain the organizational and functional makeup of our department. At this time, Mr. Kuniyoshi submitted the organizational chart for the Department of Liquor Control. (See Attachment II) The. Department of Liquor Control is composed of three divisions. I have on the top the Mayor and Council which appoints/removes the Liquor Commission members and the Liquor Control Adjudication Board members; the Council also approves the rules and regulations of both bodies ; and the Mayor and the Council appropriates the funds. The block on the left is the Liquor Commission, this is the legislative body. The one on the right is the Liquor Control Adjudication Board which is the judicial body, and I, as the Director of Liquor Control, represent the Executive Branch. I' ll briefly try to explain the powers of each of these groups. The Liquor Commission is composed of seven members appointed by the Mayor, confirmed by the Council on a geographical basis throughout the County of Hawaii. The Liquor Control Board is made up of five members on the same basis. Item No. 1, on the Liquor Commission. It says appoint and remove the Director, primarily, after I leave the office. This refers to my successor. Prior to the Charter, I was a civil service employee and therefore with the adoption of the Charter, I am what you call, grandfathered by the Civil Rules and Regulations. It' s someplace in here, I think under the Transition of Positions. It says that all department heads or deputies who have civil service status are covered until a successor is appointed. Item No. 2, this is the primary duty of the Liquor Commission. The primary job is to consider granting or refusing, or renewal of liquor licenses. The meetings are held once a month, primarily to consider these areas. The third is the rules and regulations. From time to time we do amend the rules and regulations of the Liquor Commission, and at that time, this body is the one that does the adoption of the rules. Fourth, it says other duties provided by law not inconsistent with Charter. This refers to the State law which I just mentioned, Chapter 281. Under this state law, I made reference to Chapter 281-17. This section gives the powers and duties of the Liquor Commission. Some of these powers and duties are naturally divided with the adoption of the Charter because these powers and duties provisionally had to do with adjudicatory functions. So the powers and duties which originally were only given to one body have been divided. The adjudicatory functions are referred to the adjudication board, and such things as granting of the licenses still remain with the Liquor Commission. - 3- - Some other functions have been given over to me, where once upon a time the Liquor Commission appointed the head, they also appointed the staff. Under this Charter, I, as the head of the department, have the power to appoint the staff and train them. So all I'm saying is that the functions that are not given to the Board or to me are granted to the Liquor Commission as yet. One example I' ll give is this. It says that "one of the powers of the Liquor Commission is to limit the number of licenses of any class or kind. " So this is one of the powers that the Commission can do to limit the number if they wish, whether it' s retail license or dispensor licenses. The other powers and duties, most of them are already incorporated in the rules and regulations of the Liquor Commission. So primarily, like I said, item No. 4, the duties are spelled out in Chapter 281-17 of the State Liquor Laws. Now, I go to the Liquor Control Adjudication Board. This is the judicial body. The primary duty as stated is to hear and determine complaints of violations, liquor laws, and rules and regulations and at the same time impose fines or punishments if any violations have occurred in the opinion of the adjudication board. The third is the Director, Department of Liquor Control. I am the administrative head. I have the power of hiring, therefore, the recruiting, training and the removal. I administer the services to the Liquor Commissionwhenever they meet and to the Liquor Control Adjudication Board. I also prepare the budget for the total department which includes the operations of the board and the liquor commission, and I'm in charge of the enforcement and licenses. The enforcement and licensing is the day-to-day operations which takes up most of the time of our department. So these five powers are more or less under my direction. (Mr. Kuniyoshi then read his recommendations - See Attachment I - Page 2) MR. OMONAKA: Your Department is set up on the so-called commission system. Is this kind of set up working okay? In other words, you answer directly to the Commission rather than to the Mayor or the Managing Director? MR. KUNIYOSHI: May I answer you in this manner. As you noticed on the chart, primarily, I just render administrative services to the Liquor Commission. That only deals primarily, as I say, with the hearings on liquor licenses and on the adjudication board when we have filed complaints. Ordinarily, under the charter, the charter states that the Mayor shall have general supervision over our department. So in essence on day-to-day operation the Mayor has general supervision over me. On day-to-day operations, as I said, the Liquor Commission meets only once a month. Only, as I say, hearings, so I really am not under the supervision of the Liquor Commission nor the Adjudication Board. I don' t know whether I made myself clear or not. MR. OMONAKA: What about the system of appointing liquor commissioners? You have any comments with regard to that? Are you satisfied on how the charter is set up in terms of the numbers, for example? Where they come from, as another example? - 4 - MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes, I have no quarrel with that. As far as the appointment of commissions, I have no say. It' s up to the executive branch, the administration, and for the Council to appoint and the confirmation thereof. As far as the Liquor Commission body, seven, well, primarily they represent the major districts. I think it' s a good idea for the commission to be represented by major districts -- Kona, Kohala, Ka'u. And, as I say, the number differs. On the commission you have seven members. On the adjudicatory board you have five members. As a judicial body, I think the number five is a good number. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Mr. Kuniyoshi, you said thought° you are grandfathered in so that after your tenure, the Liquor Commission will appoint a director. MR. KUNIYOSHI: Correct. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Not the Mayor then? Is this true on the other islands? MR. KUNIYOSHI: No. You see on the other islands, for example, the executive heads of the Honolulu Liquor Commission and the Kauai Liquor Commission, my counterparts, are under civil service. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Honolulu and---? MR. KUNIYOSHI: And Kauai, they are civil service. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Just like you. MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes, except I'm grandfathered. In the case of Maui, I' ll give you a good example. The person who retired was under a similar situation. Even the Maui County grandfathered because the prior head was a civil service employee, just like I am. Recently that person retired. So the present director of the Department of Liquor Control on Maui is still an appointed person, did not come through the civilservice rules and regulations. So the present head of the Maui Liquor Control is not civil service employee. In other words, he can be removed by the Liquor Commission. Well, for good cause. The only problem with this, now that you've mentioned it, in a sense it doesn' t make sense because the commission appoints the director and on the day-to-day operatibns this person is under the control of the Mayor. There may be conflict. It appears that once in awhile I am accountable to three bodies. One, to the commission to pro- vide the services , the other is to the Liquor Control Board. In fact, four. The other is to the Mayor under my general supervision, and I'm accountable also to my staff. So at times when the four different bodieshave conflicting ideas of what should be done, then I'm faced with the problem of trying to make a decision based upon input from four different bodies. And this sometimes entails a lot of problems. My concern is this idea of the commission appointing. After that, the commission has no say because after all, 99 percent of the time, I 'm under the general supervision of the Mayor. So assuming - 5 - that whoever replaces me is appointed by the commission, assuming there' s a case of removal, on what basis can a commission really deliberate because they only see the director once a month during the commission hearing. Assuming there' s a conflict. The Mayor feels that since he' s under my general supervision, he knows more about the operation of the department. Assuming that there is a conflict between the Mayor and the Commission as far as removal is concerned, then there is a problem right there. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Kuniyoshi, under the present charter, the Mayor elects or permits or chooses seven members to the liquor commission, five members to the liquor control adjudi- cation board. Why is it that only the liquor commission chooses a director? Why not the liquor commission and the liquor control adjudication board? MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes. That' s the thing that I was just trying to say, that I don' t know what the rationale is. I don' t know why the rationale. Why on this , really. MR. TRULSON: In your opinion, based on the present charter, like you say, you have many heads to report to. What would your recommendation be as far as having a more direct, one person reports to the control it all? What would your recommendation be? MR. KUNIYOSHI: My recommendation would be, because the commission and the adjudication board only meets 12 times a year and they are unaware of the daily operations of the department, that the person that has the most access to the information is the mayor who has general supervision. I would, well, I haven' t really given much thought to this. I had just assumed this, but in a way, I could see your point that why only one body should appoint when the adjudication board has just as much say in that manner. I really don' t have an answer as to the appointment of my successor. Whether the Mayor should have it, I have no idea, because based primarily, we are an operating department. MR. ISHIDA.: Mr. Kuniyoshi, you've been in this position since ' 58 when the Charter was originally adopted? MR. KUNIYOSHI: I came a year prior to that. That' s why I'm familiar with both systems of operation. MR. ISHIDA: You' re the only one under the charter since the charter has been adopted. MR. KUNIYOSHI: Correct. MR. ISHIDA: Now, as far as, based upon your experience, you raised certain problems theoretically for today. Now, inspite of that, is this present system workable or not? MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes. I would say that the present system is workable. - 6 - MR. ISHIDA: Now, can you give us any reason as to why possibly any changes should be made because of your 10-year experience? Has there been any conflict that you could see resulting or are you more or less saying that because you were .; grandfathered in, you' re a special situation, that a person who follows you in might be confronted with the problem? MR. KUNIYOSHI: Okay. My answer to that would be as far as the organizational setup, I have no quarrels. My only concern is, as Mrs. Kobayashi said, is that because the liquor commission appoints the director, in a way, it' s very difficult for a person in that position. Who is he accountable to? MR. ISHIDA: You don' t find yourself in difficult position? MR. KUNIYOSHI: At times I do, because the liquor commission would like to tell me certain things, the Mayor tells me certain things, my staff tells me certain things. It would remove many problems that this appointment power would resolve somehow. I would agree with you. I don' t think one body should be the appointing authority under this present setup. Naturally, if this board after the deliberation feels that the commission and the adjudication board should be combined into one body you may have less difficulty, your question would be resolved. As I said, prior to the adoption of the charter, we were under the other system which still prevail in the County of Hawaii and the County o;f Honolulu. As you say, it doesn' t concern me but in a way whoever my successor is may have that problem, you know, hierarchy, the way it' s set up, the way the responsibilities, who is he responsible to. MR. ISHIDA: Were you involved during the drafting of this present charter? MR. KUNIYOSHI: No. I'm only familiar because on the first charter commission, I was the liaison officer to the first charter commission. MR. ISHIDA: Are you aware of the principles or the policies, why this system was adopted? MR. KUNIYOSHI: Frankly, I don' t think I was ever called before the second and third charter commission and that ' s why I didn' t give any input. If I was called before the second and third charter commissions, these organizational setup was deliberated upon, I would have made comments at that time. I would have maybe posed the same question that I'm posing right now. MR. SENSANO: Mr. Kuniypshi, we are now operating under the charter but you' re telling us that the Mayor controls you sometimes and then the Liquor Control Adjudication board. Shouldn' t you be responsible to the body that appears as an appointment group under the charter? Or are you still, if we are now operating under the charter and the Mayor appoints the Liquor Commission which in turns is supposed to appoint you, then aren' t you supposed to be responsible to the liquor commission alone? - 7 - MR. KUNIYOSHI: I don' t know if I really understand. As I said, we moved from the old system, which at that time, I was under civil service. The reason could be this. Because under the old system, the old liquor commission made the appointment of myself and the staff, so it could have been that the rationale was that as far as the appointment of the staff, we left the power with the liquor commission. Mr. Sensano, I'm not appointed, as I said. This appointment and removal of this position would happen whendmy successor comes in. As I said, we' re all under civil service and it was only one body, at that time. We didn' t have a liquor control adjudication board. Also, there was not a third body which I have for that position. It was under this , everything was under the liquor commission. Total operation and the preparation of the budget, the appointment of myself and the staff. I don' t know if I've answered you. MR. SENSANO: No, I'm just curious because if the charter is the law under which you' re working, then I should think that you should be responsible only to that body which is supposed to appoint a man in your position under the charter. MR. KUNIYOSHI: But you know, Mr. Sensano, the liquor commission is composed of seven members who are not con- nected fulltime with the government. As I said, they only meet once a month. They only deliberate on the matters of issuing liquor licenses. As far as the liquor commission, the total membership, most of them are not familiar with the daily operation. So in that sense, there is some conflict because, as I said, frankly, I dohnot report to the liquor commission on the daily operation which takes up 90 percent of our time because according to charter, I'm not required to report to the liquor commission nor to the adjudication board. If there is anything else that I have to report, I have to report to the Mayor because I'm one of his department heads. We do report at cabinet meetings what is happening to our department, our programs, our objectives, our goals. For example, the past Sunday we had a meeting with the Mayor and the Mayor would ask us what is your program for the year 1979? Reporting to the liquor commission, I don' t think there is any ideal such a thing, because this is a day-to-day operation. So I would say as far as reporting, I think the general supervision should be under the Mayor, but I have no answer to this idea why only the liquor commission has the appointive authority. MR. SCHUTTE: What you' re trying to say is that with the implementation of this charter, you said you were the director of liquor control prior to that. Your status then moved as the director of liquor control under the charter, however, you are not governed by the charter until your successor comes in. Is that what you' re saying? That your position is not governed by the Charter?tn MR. KUNIYOSHI: When you say, whether I'm governed by the charter no, I'm governed by the Charter. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Sensano asked you when you moved over into this position under the charter, are you not governed by the charter? Is that correct? - 8 - MR. KUNIYOSHI: Organizational set up. MR. SCHUTTE: Well, then if you do come under the charter, then under the charter now, you are responsible to the com- mission as the charter says. MR. KUNIYOSHI: I'm only responsible as far as pro- viding administrative services to the commission. In other words, such services as, say, an applicant applies for a liquor license. Before the applicant, when he applies for a liquor license, he' s required to provide many documents which has to be compiled and those documents are compiled, the inspectors makes a report based on the documents and that report is presented to the liquor com- mission. At that time, the liquor commission will review the report and this report, for example, covers such things, as the application itself, whether it' s a corporation, whether the articles of incorporation is a part of the report, We require financial statements of the applicant; we require personnel history forms of the applicant; we require a lease, which it says a lease must be a minimum of one year with option to renew; we require such things as a sketch of the premises in case, if it' s a restaurant or bar operation; we require restaurant facilities, exit, this and that. We require a liquor store, etc. So, as far as the liquor commission under the charter, I'm solely responsible for providing the necessary information which the liquor commission needs in order to deliberate upon a liquor license application. MR. SCHUTTE: I understand. What I'm trying to get at, Mr. Kuniyoshi is this. Under the charter the director of the department of liquor control shall be appointed by the liquor commission and may be removdd by the liquor commission. The director of the department of liquor control shall be, and it just lists the number of items that you've just mentioned. What I'm trying to say, under this charter, as it stands today, you come under the liquor commission. 'Is that correct? As it states here? In other words, can the liquor commission decide to remove you from your job? MR. KUNIYOSHI: Not for the present time. MR. SCHUTTE: Why? MR. KUNIYOSHI: As I've said, I'm a civil service employee. I'm covered under, maybe I should be specific. Do you have the transitional provisions Section 15-4(e) ? If you would read that, myself and other department heads or deputies who were civil service at that time. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Correct me if I'm wrong. The Liquor Commission meets twelve times a year? MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes , the first month of each month according to the rules and regulations. - 9 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: From what I gather right now, you are responsible to the liquor Commission, to the liquor control adjudication board plus the Mayor. MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: And from what I gather again, rather than be responsible to the Liquor Commission because of the fact that you have daily things going on, it would be much better for you to be under the Mayor because according to Section 7-3. 5, "Administrative Supervision. The department of liquor control shall come under the general supervision and control of the mayor. " So, are you saying that perhaps as the present setup is not as workable, that it would better that the director, department of liquor control be under the direct supervision of the mayor because of the working situation, daily situation, rather than be responsible to the liquor commission? MR. KUNIYOSHI: As I said I'm only responsible to the liquor commission for providing administrative services and to the board. I would prefer. . .well, according to the Charter it says general supervision. The question of general supervision is still not clearly spelled out. The same thing with the mayor and the council. Supposedly, the charter is supposed to set up what is considered the administrative duties and what is considered as the charter, I mean the County Council duties. But no matter where, sometimes there are gray areas where the power lies. In this case, primarily as I said, I deal with the Mayor on the day-to-day opera- tions. The only idea, it could be, and I don' t think it happens often, but there may be some possibilities that some of the liquor commission members may feel in the past, present or the future, because the commission appoints the director, that they feel, some of them they feel, that the director should come under their supervision. And then I say that there may arise a conflict as to which way the director should listen to. To the members of the commission or to the Mayor? So all I'm saying, that maybe it should be specifically spelled out that if there is no change and the commission should appoint my successor, it should be clearly spelled out somehow that the commission and the adjudication board has no supervision for daily operation that they should be vested only in the Mayor. It looks like in the charter that it' s kind of spelled out but I don' t know whether this is clear enough. Maybe it should be spelled out more clearly. MR. TRULSON: The liquor commission has seven members and the control adjudication board has five members. If there were the liquor commission with its seven members and the control adjudication members with five, twelve members total, comes under one heading and then they would choose the department heads directly. Would that be a more workable solution than the way it is now? One of them selects you, and yet you are answerable to two, plus the mayor. If you had the twelve members, and those twelve members could spread off into a subcommittee, that would be the adjudication board, but if there was twelve of them to select a director, would it be a straighter change? - 10 - MR. KUNIYOSHI: Well, let me say it this way. Assuming you combine both bodies under one as previously instead of twelve members originally, I think originally under the old commission we had only five members. Right now we are only con- cerned with the appointment, the power of the liquor commission to appoint my position. On the other hand, as I stated in my presentation, I believe in primarily the separation of both powers and I listed my reasons. So in a way, there is a conflict over there. I still say, as far as I am concerned, these two bodies should be separated, not because of the question of the problem of this director, to me this is minor. I believe totally it should be a separation for the reasons I listed. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Chairman, maybe I can enlighten the commission members. If my memory serves me correctly, under Article 7, we have three departments setup by where each depart- ment head, like the police and the liquor and the personnel services, is selected by the commission members. I believe the intent was to take politics away directly from the Mayor and have the commissioners appoint the department heads. So I believe this was the intent. Rudy, do you recall that? MR. LEGASPI: Vaguely. MR. OMONAKA: So this is how we set up these three different departments. You' ll notice that away from the parks and recreation and the other ones, these three different departments are set up differently. So each of these three departments, the commissioners select the head. This is how we set it up and I believe the thought behind it was to get away from the so-called politics where the mayor directly appoints. And so, like Mr. Kuniyoshi says , there is no way the commissioners can get involved in the day-to-day activities of the department. The Charter Commission provided that the Mayor was the general super- vising authority overall. I believe that' s the background. MR. LEGASPI: I recall that for the police com- mission, but I didn' t recall the discussion for the liquor commission. That was true for the police department, selection of the Police Chief. MR. OMONAKA: So this is where you' ll notice in Article 7 , you have three different departments set up other than compared to the other departments. So I believe this was the intent. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman, can I ask why it was limited to these three departments? Do you recall? MR. OMONAKA: Well, like the police department, you know, direct politics involved. Same with the liquor, civil service. I believe this is the intent as compared to the parks and recrea- tion or the fire department, these'_2commissioners adopt rules and regulations that have effect. Liquor can adopt rules and regulations. - 11 - MR. KUNIYOSHI: Mr. Ishida, basically, all the departments are divided into two categories. One, the direct appointees of the mayor, because these are direct appointees, because they don' t have a commission form underneath. The other is the four departments under the commission form. The other one I would like to add is the department of water supply. The water commission appoints the head of the water commission except the water board is in a way semi-autonomous as compared to the rest of the departments. There are some departments who are directly under civil service like Committee on Aging. I can state that even under this system, I have not had major problems. It has been workable. Most of the time both the adjudi- cation board and the liquor commission have not interferred into the daily operations. So I didn' t have that conflict of the com- mission telling me what to do and maybe in direct orders from the mayor. Generally the commission has been well and as I said I've more or less, been given directions day to day directions under the mayor. It' s not that much of a big problem. MR. SENSANO: Mr. Chairman actually about how many employees are you concerned with? And you mentioned that you do promote temperance. I'm not quite aware of what kind of a temperance promotion program your department carries. MR. KUNIYOSHI: Our staff consists of ten. Myself, I don' t have any deputy even though the charter permits a deputy. I've just one office staff, a secretary-reporter, one supervisor, supervisor-investigator, seven investigators, five operating out of the Hilo area, coverage as far as Kohala, coverage as far as Ka'u. We have two permanent staff for the district of Kona. Both of them are stationed in Kona. As far as, as I said, Mr. Sensano, the preamble, as I said, are basically the goals of our department. The term goal, in my opinion, means it' s an ideal, and most of the time, ideals that can never be accomplished:;.: But at least you set up the goals. We have the preamble. Well, the liquor commission through the processing of bringing applicants into our business, because our business, is as I said, involves drug, they are supposed to consider applicants who are supposed to be fit and proper. That' s the term in the law. So by only issuing licenses to licensees who are fit and proper in a way you are promoting temperance because you want to bring in people into our business that are of good character. That' s 'incone way. The other way of promoting temperance is through the adoption of rules and regulations to prevent any violations that may occur. These rules are basically preventive measures, so that by preventive measures you may eliminate undesirables from coming into our business and this way, this could be indirect ways of promoting and enforcing temperance. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Kuniyoshi, just briefly in summary. Is it my understanding, as far as you' re concerned, that you don' t really see much of any major defect on the present setup? - 12 - MR. KUNIYOSHI: True. MR. ISHIDA: Although you have raised certain inconsistencies which appear, even so you still feel that the pro- visions are such that it' s workable and functional. MR. KUNIYOSHI: I think so. I would agree with that. As I said, I'm for the retention of the present setup no matter what. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, Mr. Kuniyoshi. HAWAII The Chair next called on the Hawaii Police Department POLICE representatives to present their testimony. DEPARTMENT: MR. RICHARDS: Members of the Charter Commission. My name is Herbert M. Monty Richards. I'm Chairman of the Police Commission. I would like to thank all of you in behalf of the Police Department for having the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss a few matters of concern that are currently in the charter. I would like first to call attention to 7-2. 5 , paragraph "c" from the charter which points out and I quote, "take charge of and keep the county jail. " This is no longer a county function as it has been removed by state law. We would like to see this deleted. Another section which we would like to see deleted -As section 7-2. 7 , and I quote, "The police department shall come under the general supervision and control of the mayor. " We feel that this is ambiguous as it tends to point out that the police department has an awful lot of bosses. We feel that the mayor should not exercise supervision and control over investigators, beat patrolman or others in the department because we feel they should take their orders directly from the Chief. I would like to point out also that actually the administration still has control over the police department by the budget and we feel that this is certainly strong control. I understand that Mayor Matayoshi is strongly in favor of a non--pol-itical police department so, therefore, gentlemen, we would like to see Section 7-2. 7 deleted. There is one other section which we would certainly wish this body to consider, modify, and that is Section 7-2. 2. This would be increasing the size of the commission from seven members to nine. I believe the method of appointment is covered under section 13-4. The reason for this modification is we feel. it would give greater public participation and greater flexibility in the appointment of commissioners according to population. A third reason, but it is a reason somewhat less important than the first two, is the quorums would be more easily obtained and during certain times of the year, either due to illness or people off the island and out of the county, this has become a problem. Therefore, we would like this body to at least consider this modification. - 13 - I would like to thank all of you and I'm prepared, as I believe these two gentlemen are, to answer any questions that this com- mission may have. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman, I have a question. Under Section 7-2. 7 , administrative supervision, this is the same thing that I was questioning, I think we discussed as far as the liquor control board is concerned. The charter sets up a commission to take politics out of these three agencies and yet the cover-all is Section 7-2. 7 which says administrative supervision shall come under the general supervision and control of the mayor. This I believe is what we were talking about in the liquor control section. I noticed that every one of these three section 7 ' s contain same administrative supervision laws. Second question, the commission, as set up the mayor, what is their provision? What do they do? What is their job outside of selecting the Chief of Police? Too many times we can have a commission and it gets in the way of the people that they select to do a job. I think this has been shown in the past. Itgives the Chief of Police certain powers, but what is the guideline for the commission. Where does their power end? Now these three, the liquor control, the police department, the department of personnel services, as Akira mentioned, they were set up under this one section because they wanted to take politics out of these particular agencies. Yet, we have a tie-in on the bottom of which puts it right back into it. Where is the guideline to the commission? Any of you have any answers to that, yet? MR. RICHARDS: Mr. Vice Chairman, taken from the statutes, Revised Laws of Hawaii, the jobs, so-to-speak, of the police commission are as follows, as I understand them. No. 1, is to appoint or remove the chief of police; No. 2, enact rules and regulations governing the appointment of police officers, rules and regulations governing probationary appointments and rules and regulations governing suspension or dismissal of an employee, in addition, the police commission may abolish a position or an office and determine the layoff procedure upon that abolishment; No. 3, the police commission may approve appointments of police instructors; No. 4, the police commission shall hold hearings on complaints; No. 5, the police commission shall delineate the duties of the Chief of Police; No. 6, the police commission shall review the organization of the police department;'+ and 1No. 7, the police commission shall receive, review and question reports from the chief. ) Mr. Vice Chairman, does that answer your question? MR. SCHUTTE: Yes, it does. What you' re saying is that the police commission obviously stands on top of the chief of police at all times and he can be removed regardless of the position of the mayor. Is that correct? - 14 - MR. RICHARDS: That is correct and the police commission in no way meddles with the day-to-day operation of the police. MR. SCHUTTE: Section 7-2. 7, on the bottom has nothing to do with the police commission as far as their decision? MR. RICHARDS: Yes, I mean there is this ambiguity which exists, which we would like to see--- . MR. SCHUTTE: Spelled out. MR. RICHARDS: That is correct. MR. SENSANO: If it were necessary to discipline the chief of police, who would discipline him? MR. RICHARDS: If it were necessary, if the commission felt that the chief of police personally should be reprimanded, the commission would do it. If it was felt that the chief should be removed, the commission would do it. MR. SENSANO: But you don' t have supervision of the chief of police? MR. RICHARDS: Well, the chief of police serves at the pleasure of the commission and hence you do, in fact, have supervision in the not day-to-day, you don' t call the chief up and say what are you doing today, chief, but if crime takes off, if there are problems within the department, there seems to be a deterioration of leadership, there seems to be a problem where the chief is unable to do the job effectively, why then I think that is the unpleasant job of the commission to take care of things. If it requires dismissal, unfortunately, so be it. If it requires reprimand, then so be it. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Richards, Section 7-2. 2, Police Commission, you requested that we consider enlarging it by two mem- bers, is that correct? MR. RICHARDS: That is correct. MR. TRULSON: Where would you suggest those two members come from? What area? MR. RICHARDS: I have no particular areas involved. That' s why I cited Section 13 which outlines how nine-member commissions are appointed. I think it would be along those lines. MR. OMONAKA: I believe the present police commissioners are appointed on the basis of where each - you have a district station -- you have seven. So this is where you have seven com- missioners, I believe. MR. RICHARDS : Actually, in the police, you have nine districts. - 15 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: So actually your recommendation would be that you want to increase the commission members from seven to nine? MR. RICHARDS: We would like this body to consider that. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You will work it on this basis that it will be easier for you people to have a quorum if you have nine members rather than seven? MR. RICHARDS : Yes. Primarily there would be greater public participation. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Also, you are basing this increase on the base, on the need in the sense of if you have a larger population in one certain section, you would see more participation from that area by increasing the commission members from that specific area? MR. RICHARDS: IL could be done that way, yes. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: As far as the police commission meeting is concerned, what is the percentage of commissioners present at the meeting. Do you find that many of them are absentees or do you really have a quorum at the meeting most of the time? MR. RICHARDS: I have found, Mr. Chairman, in my short tenure as a commissioner that the meetings are very well attended. We have had problems, however, when there have been vacancies that have not been filled and sometimes this does create a problem where as you have what appears to be a little more than a quorum, if all those appointed commissioners are able to attend. One or two that are off-island or ill can present a problem. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: At the present time, is the police commission up to seven members. MR. RICHARDS: No, sir. It' s currently at five. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman. Section 7-2. 7, you have indicated is ambiguous. Apparently, there have been difficulties in application. Can you enlighten us a little bit more as to why has it become ambiguous. MR. RICHARDS : Mr. Chairman, I would like the Chief to respond to that question. CHIEF OF POLICE: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to be very frank with you. I want to preface my statement by saying that Mayor Matayoshi is the best mayor I've ever worked for. He has been extremely good in working with the police department. He has told me time and time again, you do your job and you' ll get no interference from me. And I appreciate that. That' s the kind of mayor I like to work for. But that hasn' t always been the situation. I can remember two instances when I was personally involved when a mayor gave improper or even illegal instructions - 16 - to the police department and because of Section 7-2. 7, the police department is put in a quandary as to whether or not this order has force and effect and is something that has to be carried out. The order is clearly illegal, there isn' t as much of a problem, but if the order is improper but not illegal, then you do have problem. In my situation, I can be fired tomorrow. I think that' s quite a hatchet hanging over my head to make sure that I do everything right. Section 7-2. 7 adds a second hatchet which I think is unnecessary. MR. SCHUTTE: Chief Paul, other than what your commission chairman Mr. Richards says, ask or request that we change or add, have you any additions that you would like to make in regards to this charter as it involves the police department, or your working ability? Are there any changes that you can foresee? CHIEF PAUL: Except for the items mentioned by the police commission chairman, I have found the charter a very good document to work with and a great improvement over past practice. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman, I would like to go a little bit more on this Section 7-2. 7. I think it is very crucial in our review. As far as the department is concerned, have there been any inter- pretation as to Section 7-2. 7. CHIEF PAUL: This is another problem for us. There has not been a definite interpretation, and the problem is to find out the intent of that section, we have had to go back to the old charter commission members and ask them what did you mean when you enacted this? The answer we 've gotten is in itself ambiguous. They told us that, verbally now, not in writing, they told us that even though the police department is supposed to be non-political and away from the authority of politicians who are able to try to get political advantage out of the department, they added that in as a catch-all to cover anything that might have been missed and I found that very hard to understand. This was the explanation I got and as I said, it' s not an official explanation. MR. ISHIDA: Has there been any interpretation from the administration, the mayor' s office, as to what this pro- vision means? CHIEF PAUL: Well, if we wanted an interpretation of that, we would have to go to the corporation counsel and the corporation counsel is appointed by the Mayor. So we prefer to take the route of going to the charter commissioners and find out from the source what was meant. MR. ISHIDA: Then it' is my understanding that as far as enforcement is concerned, there has been no official inter- pretation or instructions made of this provision? CHIEF PAUL: That is. correct. MR. ISHIDA: And you don' t know if either, whether the mayor' s office or anyone from that or any other department of the administration made any interpretation of this provision. - 17 - CHIEF PAUL: No. To my knowledge there has been no official interpretation. Nothing from any of the agencies. MR. ISHIDA: Then I take it that it is the department' s position, although they have nothing officially done, that you have interpreted this position to be ambiguous, and that you feel that this position has in effect created a situation where you find yourself in a predicament where should there be conflicting instructions or request from the commission and the mayor you are in a quandry as to which should govern. CHIEF PAUL: You put your finger right on it. That' s exactly it. MR. ISHIDA: The only thing I want to make sure is clear is that the department has made their own conclusion or determination or interpretation of this provision that that is in fact the situation. CHIEF PAUL: That' s correct. MR. ISHIDA: This I think applies to the other two departments under the commission, this Section 7. Since we do have this catch-all phrase at the end of each of these provisions and I think its a valid point. I think it' s going to be very beneficial as far as the commission is concerned that we get minutes of this particular area of the three charter commissions to find out exactly, in our mind, if we can ever develop it. Maybe as, Chief Paul has indicated, the results may be what he got from the commission members where it' s still ambiguous. And if that is so, it might be incumbent upon us to clarify. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Ishida, I think probably this should be cleared up through the Corporation Counsel' s Office, to see how this things works and I think we can have clarification on this. MR. ISHIDA: The thing is, will the Corporation Counsel be able to make a legal interpretation of it? The only thing is I think it would be incumbent upon us to read the minutes of the past charter minutes to make our own determination to see whether in fact how we should interpret it. MR. SENSANO: In the day-to-day operation, Chief Paul, now I read this word supervision. If my supervisor. is working with me, it' s going to be with me everyday. Now, which group do you work with, the commission or the Mayor. CHIEF PAUL: I work with the commission. MR. SENSANO: So actually, they are the ones that supervise, isn' t that right? If I read the term supervision correctly and if I understand the meaning of the word supervision. CHIEF PAUL: That is correct. Yes sir. MR. TRULSON: Chief Paul, Section 7-2. 7 , as stated, the police department shall come under the general supervision and control of the police commission, that would more suit your desires? - 18 - CHIEF PAUL: Yes, there' s two way of doing it. Deleting it or spelling it out better. MR. TRULSON: The countytj:ail, is that now under the state? CHIEF PAUL: It' s a state function, yes, sir. MR. ISHIDA: You read from the revised statutes, I believe, the part as far as the duties of the commission. MR. RICHARDS: Yes , it was Chapter 52. MR. ISHIDA: My question was since it' s not listed as to what the duties of the police commission is here in this specific charter, do you feel that it should be? Or is the clarification, as far as you stated in the statutes , sufficient? MR. RICHARDS : I would think that, personally, as stated in the statutes would be sufficient. If there was some feeling at the part of the commission that they be delineated, as long as they followed the statutes and were not too confining, in other words , I would have no objection. Well, personally, I would think thatY ou did this for all commissions you might end up with quite a thick charter which, in other words, it may be muscle-binding to your commissions. I believe the state statutes gives the overall, let me say, the playing field. I would think that that should be sufficient. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Mr. Richards, do all the counties operate the same way? MR. RICHARDS : No. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Do the police commissions on Maui and on Oahu, for instance, have the same power to appoint and fire the chief? MR. RICHARDS: I quess they do at that point. MRS. KOBAYASHI: They have basically the same authority over the chiefs? MR. RICHARDS : Yes. The County Clerk informed the Commission that they could recall the department heads if there were further questions or inquiries of the departments. The schedule is flexible enough to permit this. DEPARTMENT MR. EDWARD SILVA: Mr. Silva read and presented his OF s'tagement. (See attachmentIII) PERSONNEL SERVICES : - 19 - MR. TRULSON: Mr. Silva, excuse me if I appear a little confused. Who trains your personnel right now since July 1? MR. SILVA: If you look into the budget message which we sent to the;.:mayor, the personnel department has prepared about 43 or 45 training programs. And the point that I'm making when we look at the basic documents, up to, I think it was 1978, as I cited in my presentation, there was a section in the statute which gave considerable training responsibility to the director of personnel services and that section has been repealed: So there is no section in this statute giving that responsibility to the department of personnel services even though in the spirit of cooperation we do whatever we can to take initiative in the training area. Of course, regardless of where the responsibility is, if you look at all the good text on management, they' ll tell you that every supervisor, every department head, is responsible for the develop- ment and the training of his employees to get the maximum pro- ductivity. My concern is when you refer back to the Maui case, of course that case is a long, difficult and complicated case and I do not want to ovdrsimplyfy it, but what it' s saying is that the personnel function has been reserved by the legislature for the legislature and it doesn' t give the authority to anyone else to meddle in the personnel functions as spelled out in the statutes. So the point I'm making is at one time, as of last year, the statutes had this provision giving responsibility for training to the department of personnel services. But that has been repealed. So then I'm saying that the charter should state that that responsibility should be in the department. And, really, answering your questions specifically, the training responsibility is in the department. Now, but we at the request of the Mayor have done whatever we could to develop training programs for the departments. I hope I've answered your question. You see, training is an inherent part of a supervisor' s duties. He has to be concerned with training and development of his men. MR. TRULSON: I agree. I think I understand that part. If the new employee comes now, according to the statute, who would train the employee? MR. SILVA: That section giving that responsibility to the personnel department has been repealed. MR. TRULSON: So there is an advisory committee on training? MR. SILVA: Yes. The new law which went into effect actually takes the responsibility for the development of the state-wide training program with state officials, specifically the department of personnel services in the state. But the guide, the development of the state-wide training program, the new law also creates an advisory committee made up of the directors of the outside island counties. I believe the universities , the union representatives, representatives from the state department of budget. - 20 - MR. TRULSON: You know their reasons for that? MR. SILVA: Well, I would think that part of the reasoning is that in many of the jurisdictions there' s just no training money and the development of government personnel, especially qualified supervisors and managers, safety, which is under OSHA which is also very important developing people with knowledge in safety and the Highway Safety Act, mandates the training of equipment operators with equipment over, I believe, 10 tons, many of these things, are now mandatory under the law and people have to be trained to carry out the functions. The Counties have been slow in the development of training. MR. TRULSON: Perhaps, what is happened the counties maybe don' t have the money for it, so the state has taken over the training instead of each individual county? MR. SILVA: Actually, what has been done is that they have just created another resource which the counties can draw on. In other words, if we needed equipment operator training, or if we need an instructor on safety or we need an instructor on executive development, we can go to the state advisory committee, state our needs to develop a program then we would draw from that source. But it doesn' t make much, I can' t say it makes much sense, but it' s better if we have a state-wide and coordinated training programs because if you develop, let ' s say, a safety instructor, if you start from one end of the state, by the time it' s finished with the other end, it ' s time to start over again because people retire, people die, people get promoted. And as it is right now, if you want to get somebody to train any specific area, it' s difficult to determine who the qualified people are to train in those areas. There' s no specialized resource. So with the development of the state-wide training plan, one of the objectives is to develop a central resource. If you say we need training in safety, we can go to these resources or you got so-and-so in your community, that' s a qualified instructor, or they can say you can go to the community college they have a :pfogram or they may have experts in the state building and they may furnish the training for you. There ' s certain kinds of training, I feel, that the state could establish on a permanent basis like in safety, supervisory training, equipment operating training and I'm sure there' s a whole lot of other areas where they could actually establish a faculty to work eight hours a day on a continuous basis. Because I know that by time they get finished going through the state, as I have pointed out, it will be time to start over again with the new employees who have come in and also, maybe after three years or four years or five years, to have refresher courses in some of these areas. But as it is today, if you want somebody to train in an area, you got to do some searching. And you still may not come out with people that you' re entirely satisfied with. MR. TRULSON: This is the type of program that the heavy duty equipment operators have, I see them practicin.g— down here. A gentlemen comes up from Honolulu, where he works for the state, and he trains the people who will become trainers or is the supervising field: - 21 - MR. SILVA: To train in that area, you have to be certificated. You have people like Alex Demello, who are really experts in his area, and Joe Dart. We have a couple of county employees which we sent to school to become certificated and they train. But not anybody can train. They have to be certificated. What you see in Bayfront, could be training and it could also be Officer Dart actually testing people t;or give them their licenses, operate that kind of equipment. They!:re not actually taking over the training from the county but they are just really giving us another resource. If we want to use, we can. We can still develop our own program, but my philosophy has always been if we can use Federal funds or if we can use state funds or state resources, that' s what we have been doing to save our money. I don' t know if this should be publicized too much but that' s what we've been doing. I would like to emphasize that my concern is the responsibility, being that it' s been repealed from the statute, should be pointed out in the charter. I would like to add that if you look at the present charter, you have a statement like that in the police department which says the department head is responsible for the training of their employees, but you do not find that in the other departments. So my proposal is to put that in the general section under the executive branch to say that all department heads are responsible for training. It doesn' t mean that they will do the training, but they have the responsibility of making sure that their employees are trained so that they can perform efficiently and not take a new man and put him on $50, 000 piece of equipment and have that thing in shambles in six months. MR. SCHUTTE: Section 7-1. 6, administrative super- vision of the department of personnel services shall come under the general supervision and control of the Mayor. Any comments? MR. SILVA: Well, here again, I've always felt that the civil service commission should have full jurisdiction over the personnel department. I can see for administrative purposes you may have to assign the department of personnel services to sub and in this case the mayor would probably be appropriate. MR. SCHUTTE: No, what this refers to, it gives the mayor the general supervision and control of the department. MR. SILVA: That' s right. So my point I'm making is that for administrative purposes, not supervision and control, but for administrative purposes the department should be assigned. MR. SCHUTTE: Why is it that you did hotiiii.clude this in your request for----? MR. SILVA: Well, in my proposal I did leave that out. The proposal that I submitted, on page 2, I did leave that out. MR. SCHUTTE: Have you had any problems in the past? - 22 - MR. SILVA: Well, basically, it' s not good to have two bosses., In fact, I feel like I got three bosses, and as long as they all go in the same direction, I' ll have no problem, but if they start going in different directions, then it' s going to be very difficult. The three bosses, I define, No. 1, that' s the State Legislature; No. 2, the Civil Service Commission; No. 3, the Mayor. And as I say, as long as they all go in the same direction, there' s no problem. But if they go in different directions, then I'm going to go right down. MR. SCHUTTE: You mentioned the state. Is that merely because of the statutes you have to abide by, but not by day-to-day work. MR. SILVA: That' s right. I have to follow the statutes. If you look at the Supereme Court decision, it states that we fall under the jurisdiction of the statutes, so we have to do what the statutes tells us to do. If the mayor comes in or anybody, for that matter, even the Civil Service Commission, they ask me to do something that' s contrary to the statutes, I would have to say "no" , and I have done this on occasion. And I might say that some people get quite disturbed when you tell them "no" . But what you have to do it. It' s either that or go to jail. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Mr. Silva, going back to this training thing, you said that you would like for it to say that each department head be responsible for training his employees, not the personnel services department? MR. SILVA: Well, this is one of the items. What I'm trying to do is to make this responsibility clear because the statutes, up to July 1, 1978, there was a section in the Hawaii Revised Statutes, Section 76-38, which gave the personnel directors authority and responsibility in the training function. That entire section was taken out. MRS. KOBAYASHI: And the reason was because they set up a state-wide training program? No? MR. SILVA: That could very well be part of the reason. Then after July 1, 1978, Act 48, Session Laws of Hawaii 1978, they repealed this section on training which gave the local director the authority for much responsibility in training and they set up this new organization which where they put the responsibility for an overall statewide training program with the state department of personnel services and they left the directors of the counties, and some of the other people that I mentioned earlier, as advisors. MRS. KOBAYASHI: So that' s why you want the Charter to say that now, since the state law was changed to repeal this , you want the departments now. You want--- . MR. SILVA: I want to make it clear. - 23 - MRS. KOBAYASHI: You want the Charter to put it in each department head is responsible. MR. SILVA: That' s right, and I might add you already have that in the present charter for the police department. So, instead of limiting it to one department, say all departments are responsible. MRS. KOBAYASHI: But then would that not involve additional employees_ somewhere? MR. SILVA: Not necessarily. MRS. KOBAYASHI: You can still utilize the other resources that other people have. MR. SILVA: If you say that the department head is responsible, it doesn' t mean that he would have to train or anybody in his department would have to train. He can come to me because I sit on the state advisory committee which is by statute. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Do you presently, within your department, have training officers? MR. SILVA: I have one training officer. When they come to me, I go to this advisory committee, I tell them what we need and we discuss it. If there is a need, the program is established, because they make an effort to establish a program or they have resources to refer me to. Then we get these people to come in and give the training. But what I am saying or trying to say is we don' t want department heads to feel, oh, I got nothing to do with that. So we' re saying "no, " you've got to train your people so we can increase the quality of public service and better the productiv'i`ty, this kind of thing to give us a better county government or better county administration. To me it' s a very important function. I would like to emphasize, what I'm trying to do is focus the responsibility, instead of leaving it all very vague. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Silva, at present in your department, are your personnel all certified personnel, Office-wise. Whose working in your department? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You do want to have a training program so you can certify certain personnel to work in specific areas? MR. SILVA: Well, certain kinds. The instructors, for example, the people who instruct on the road for these people operating heavy trucks, they should be certificated. But if we say that the department is responsible for the development of the training program, then he would come to me and tell me he needs this kind of training and I could contact the people in the state to see if they have these instructors. They could come over and give the training. But there are other alternatives. As I said, the State advisory committee on training is only one alternative. It doesn' t mean that we cannot establish in addition - 24 - to that, our own training program. The department can have its own training program separate and independent from all of the other resources. But in actual practice, what I've been doing is if I can get the resources elsewhere, it will save us money, because you have many programs that are federally-funded or funded by the state, and if I can get these resources to come in and give us the training, I take these resources and so we save the money. It' s more economical sometimes to create training instructors in a certain field for that kind of work for statewide service, because if each jurisdiction is going to try and duplicate the five jurisdictions, it' s going to be very expensive. But if we can have one resource, this is one of the objectives of the state advisory committee on training, if we can get one resource and use the same people for the whole state, we expect it to be cheaper. It would be cheaper than each jurisdiction trying to go its own way. You avoid a lot of duplication. Let me emphasize. It doesn' t mean that we cannot have our own training program separate and apart from all of that. It' s just another resource. But for the Hawaii County government, I would like to see it made very clear that training is a responsibility of the department. I don' t see why I should even have to come hereand say this because I think that' s management. Everybody knows. You pick up a good textbook, on management, it is a supervisory function. But in the past there has been some question and I would like to see this clarified once and for all. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Silva, right now as the charter reads, which gives you your major duties, one happens to be in the area of personnel development. As it states it here, it is not sufficient. MR. SILVA: I don' t think that' s sufficient because as I pointed out the--- . MR. SCHUTTE: This personnel development, what does that refer to? MR. SILVA: Personnel development refers to training. MR. SCHUTTE: Isn' t that what we' re talking about? MR. SILVA: That ' s right. That ' s exactly what we are talking about. The point I'm making again is that, if you look at my submittal, HGEA versus Maui County, it states, "it was not the intent of Article 7, Section 2, to grant to the political subdivisions authority to adopt charter provisions on civil service which would conflict with statutes" . So, you cannot have a charter pro- vision which is going to conflict with civil service laws. So, the civil service law has been repealed, and that responsibility has been given to the state advisory commission or committee on training. MR. SCHUTTE: So, they've just created another agency, is that right? Statewide? - 25 - MR. SILVA: Yes. But the point, I'm making is that you cannot put anything in the charter that' s contrary to statute. MR. SCHUTTE: Getting back to this section right here now, this does not solve your particular -- you' re looking at having it written in as it is with the police commission that the police chief will take charge of the training, etc. ? MR. SILVA: Yes. MR. SCHUTTE: And this portion here that makes one of your major duties, the personnel training or the personnel development which does not take in the training, spell it out sufficiently? MR. SILVA: It does. But my concern is you cannot have anything in the charter which would be contrary to the statutes. And right now it' s vague. If they can actually improve that pro- vision in the charter. MR. SCHUTTE: What you' re saying is that this particular provision here in the charter is in conflict. MR. SILVA: Yes, it could be in conflict. It could be. It has never gone to court. Other issues have gone to court and the charter provisions have not held up. But the essential thing to remember is that, any charter provision contrary to the statute -- and I might say that this is only in personnel services, and when you have a chance and you look at the Supreme Court Decision, you' ll see it -- anycharterprovision contraryto the statute is invalid. So what I did with my proposals is to insureL' that there would be no conflict. This is the reason why we say that the commission and the department will be established and function according to statutes. There' s no conflict. MaybeIIcan read just one section of the case. Let' s just refer to it as the Maui Case. This was a statement from Delegate Ushijima, John Ushijima was a delegate at that State Constitutional Convention and they quoted him. It says, "Delegate Ushijima, Chairman of Standing Committee: Well, Section 2 is the charter provision, (Charter 2 of the State Constitution) . We have by our action given certain areas constitutional right insofar as charter provisions are concerned, and that is in the field of executive, legislative, administrative structure and organization. " Now, this is the key. "I think the committee report is very clear as to the reasons why we left out procedure and personnel. We have had lots of witnesses who testified that insofar as personnel matters are concerned, we should retain it on a statewide level and retain the philosophy of Act 188 which is presently in force. " So in other words, what they' re saying is that the personnel laws are general laws of statewide concern. And there can be no provision contrary to these laws. Come to the conclusion in this particular case, it says, "Any inconsistency between Chapter 9, of Article 8 of the revised charter, " our charter -- but we are talking about the Maui case but the principle is the same -- "Part III of HRS, Chapter 76, would result in the latter prevailing. " So, personnel apparently is one area where the legislature has said, well, we' re reserving this power. We don' t want anybody else doing anything in this area. - 26 - I don' t want the Charter Commission to feel that I'm taking a real strong position on all of this, in fact, I was asked to present my views and that' s exactly what I'm doing. If you think they' re correct, after you research them, then you accept them. If not, you just discard them. But I'm giving you what I feel is my honest judgment and opinion. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Silva, No. 3, you said the statute gives the commission the authority to set the director' s salary up to May, then repeal that. What is the reasoning for this? Removing the authority from the commission and apparently left it up to the counties. At this time, your salary is set the Mayor? By the County? How is it set? MR. SILVA: My salary is set the same way as with all of the other departments, the mayor makes a recommendation to the Council and the Council accepts or rejects, if they want to, the recommendations made by the mayor. Up to 1977, the Civil Service Commission was supposed to set the salary of the director of personnel service. And I say supposed to because prior to the implementation of the present charter, the civil service commission did set the salary of the personnel director, and when the charter came in, the mayor we had at that time, advised us that if there were any conflicts between the charter and any other laws, we were to follow the provision of the charter. And in good faith, we accepted that guidance. So then the Mayor made the recommendations to the council. The salaries were set that way from the imple- mentation of the present charter to this amendment in the law. For that period of time, we were really not following the statute and it was brought out during the Maui case. This case, well, I'm not a lawyer, but this is the first case I know of where the charter was tested to this extreme. It was made very clear that the statutes should prevail over the charter. I guess that the other directors, feeling that they wanted to have the salary set in their own jurisdiction, that that particular section of the statutes changed, so it' s now left with the counties. There are other things. If there' s anything that you don' t like about the civil service law and you want that change, then you go to the legislature and get it changed. MR. TRULSON: So you feel better if yoursalary was set by the commission who appoints you instead of the mayor. MR. SILVA: Yes, definitely. The reason for that is I would like to think that I have one boss and one boss that' s going to influence me in everything that I do. If I don' t do the work well, these are the people sitting on me. They appoint me, they can fire me, they should set my salary, also. MR. YANAGA: Mr. Silva, in other words, in the previous report we had by the police department, they' re recommending to delete that administrative supervision. Are you saying the same thing? To delete your section 7-1. 6? MR. SILVA: Well, I would say eliminate supervision and control. I think that should be controlled by the civil service commission. - 27 - MR. YANAGA: Take out the supervision and control. MR. SILVA: Yes. Traditionally, and maybe this might be the time to eliminate tradition, I don' t want to really have a closed mind, but traditionally, the efforts in a merit system has always been to try and keep the system politically free as much as possible. That' s always been a goal in establishing a merit system. And this is the same thing where you hire and fire, so that we could call the shots the way we see them and not influenced by elected officials in any way so that we can be clear with the other parties. And I think that all of you would agree that, at least I've been taught that it' s an actual political science that the man who controls the purse, he controls your salary, he controls your budget, he controls you, he controls everything else. And if you' re going to be hard-headed about it, you' re not going to last very long. MR. ISHIDA: Just a point for clarification, Mr. Silva, on this general provisions, administrative supervision, which states "department of personnel services shall come under the general supervision and control of the Mayor, " do you find that it consistent with you being appointed by the commission? MR. SILVA: Well, it depends on the Mayor that you have. It could be. How do we define the word supervision. I think that supervision and control, the way it exists in this situation is very vague. I really don' t know what it means. MR. ISHIDA: Socybuchave never had the opportunity or the occasion to have that provision interpreted to you? MR. SILVA: No. I might add that the Mayors have not really tried to come in and tell me how to run my department. They haven' t tried to make technical decisions, but what do they mean by supervision and control? MR. ISHIDA: Would I be correct to assume that as far as you are concerned, that you really don' t know what that provision entails, covers? MR. SILVA: If I would go by the technical super- vision, that means the mayor would have the right to come and tell me how to run my department, how to do the technical work, and how to do everything in my department. And, yet, if he would do that he would be in violation of the statute. MR. ISHIDA: So my question is, if you accept that to be the correct interpretation, Section 7-1. 6, then you are stating that you find there is a definite, obvious inconsistency, you think. MR. SILVA: If they would exercise control -- . MR. ISHIDA: Well, I'm not saying whether he will or will not, but under your present interpretation of this section, he does have the authority, under your interpretation--- - . - 28 - MR. SILVA: He must be consistent with the statute. MR. TRULSON: The civil service commission is appointed by the Mayor, and that' s a non-paying position.. MR. SILVA: Right. MR. TRULSON: And they appoint you. MR. SILVA: That is correct. Speaking of the element of pay, what some ofthese people go through, its terrible. I think they should receive some compensation. Because I tell you, some of these appeals that come up, they have to do a lot of work to provide decisions, it' s like being a hearing officer. This may not be the department' s position, but here again, if anybody asks me for my opinion I' ll give it to you straight what I think. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you. DEPARTMENT MR. AKIRA FUJIMOTO: Mr. Fujimoto read and presented OF WATER his statement: (See attachment IV) SUPPLY: MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Fujimoto, you' re saying that you would like to see it remain as it is here in the charter. MR. FUJIMOTO: Status quo as we are operating right now. If the commission goes along with us, we would like to sug- gest some improvements. There' s some conflicting portions of the charter, . . . MR. SCHUTTE: This is what we' re interested in, what portions of this existing charter section that deals with your department of water supply do you or your staff want to have changed. Are you satisfied with it as it stands today? Or would you want some provisional changes as far as certain areas. You mentioned that you would like it kept as a semiautonomous department, fine. Is there anything else that you would like to see changed? This is what we' re interested in. MR. FUJIMOTO: In order to be the same, we've beten operating because of the interpretation of the Corporation Counsel. But there is some portions of the charter, especially relating to conditions that creates a doubt whether we come under the Mayor or the commission. MR. SCHUTTE: Are you referring to any specific section? MR. FUJIMOTO: Yes, Section 8-5. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Mr. Chairman, could we go back before he gets into the particular sections of the charter? I, myself, don' t know what is meant by a semiautonomous. I don' t think anywhere in the presentation was there any definition of what it means to be semiautonomous. - 29 - MR. FUJIMOTO: Well, that has been the problem of lot a of the commissions. The way we interpret it is that we are part of the government. Our commission is appointed by the Mayor, approved by the Council and it' s always been that way. Then the commission appoints his staff, manager and deputy. But our salary. is kind of regulated by the Mayor. They don' t set our salary, and our staff who comes under the personnel department, we have to go through the personnel department. So really, we are not fully auto- nomous but we conform to a lot of the laws, the rules and regulations of the county. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Where are you autonomous, then? MR. FUJIMOTO: The part in the budget. We're just like- 'a business organization. MRS. KOBAYASHI: So the monies that you collect for water, you keep? MR. FUJIMOTO: Its ' used to operate our department. We donl' t come under the County' s budget. Our commission, we' re just like, a .business. Our commissioners are just like your board of directors. We' re the employees, appointed by the commissioners. Our stockholders are our customers. So the commission works for the interest of the stockholders who are our customers. So, in other words, our budget comes through the revenues that we collect, on how we operate. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Are your employees under government? Are your employees members of the union? You have retirement system? You' re represented by a government union? MR. FUJIMOTO: Well, we' re not, but our employees are. MRS. KOBAYASHI: So, they would fallunder the various collective bargaining units. And is this the way the other counties are set up? MR. FUJIMOTO: Yes, most of the other counties are like this. 'I think only Maui, right now, comes directly under the Mayor. Honolulu is semiautonomous CHAIRMAN S_;AKATA: Going back to that section that we' re just taking about, are you referring to section 8-5, on this Administrative Supervision? MR. FUJIMOTO: Well, this is one of that, Adminis- trative Supervision, but we've been interpreting this as, since . the Mayor is the overall representative of the County, he' s the one that really coordinates the program. He sets the directionof where_ the county goes, and all the rest of us should follow where we're going. That' s how we interpret it, Of course, he' s the boss of my commission. I come right under the commission. I think 'there is a good interpretation ofwhat it means. But this hasn' t been causing us that much problem as far as our department is concerned, but it' s good to have clarified what they mean by administrative. ' - 30 - MR. HOHU: We have another recommendation in regards to a section of the charter under the water commission, Section 8-2(b) "Adopt rules and regulations which shall have the force and effect of law relating to the management, control, operation, preservation and protection of the waterworks of the county. " If you noticed on Page 31, under Section 13-7, it says, "except as otherwise provided in this charter. " We look at the charter and we say that the water department is the only exception, but it goes on further to say that "all rules and regulations having the force and effect of law adopted by any board, commission or administrative head of a department shall be approved by the council and the mayor before going into effect. " However, . as you know, the Department of Water Supply must comply with the Charter in regards to public hearings. They've got to comply with all the provisions of the administrative procedure act and the water commission must hold public hearings in all these things. Therefore, the water commission does hold public hearings and we . have- followed the charter insofar as public hearings are concerned. We have to follow the adminis- trative act procedure, then why does it need another body toapprove the amendments to the law? In addition to that in Section 91-3 (c) , Revised Laws, of Hawaii, it states that all board of water supply do not need this requirement. So we have in the past, on advice-' of counsel, on one occasion, we did not goto the council and the mayor to get approval of our amended rules and regulations. Then another counsel says maybe we should get their approval. But in the end, the existing corporation counsel says that itis not necessary. So, we' woubd. like to see that (b) under Section 8-2, the words "without approval of the council or mayor" be added:., because it is not necessary. So the new. one would read, if the recommendation is accepted, it would read as such, adopt rules and regulations .which shall have the force and effect of ; aw relating to the management, control, operation, preservation and protection of the waterworks of the county without the , approval of the council or mayor. V MRS. IWAMOTO: So another question is, back to page 31, will there be a change in the wording? MR. HOHU: No, Because it specifie _ s.,- it. I believe, it says "except as otherwise provided, " then if it' s written into Section 8, wouldn't that be an exception? . MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. .Hohu, this provision Section 13-7 , . "shall be applicable to service rates for fees, license fees,, nda other charges" , what you specifically ask is not necessarily the operational of the fees---? This particular rule, Section 13-7, pertains only to this pro- vision of this section shall be applicable to service rates, fees, licenses, in other. words, I'm reading this, this is the only time when it involves license fees, rates and other charges. MR. HOHU:. ' Regarding water rates. Yes, you're correct. We haven' t checked with our corporation counsel as far as the interpretation of whether that would include the management control and operation would include water rates. We haven' t checked that out, yet. But if we were to amend it, then the rules and regu ;ations, setting of rates would also have to be amended, too. - 31 - MR. SCHUTTE: That' s what I'm saying. This particular section that you mentioned only comes into effect when it involves, in other other words, you only have to have the approval of the commission and the Mayor or the Council when it involves license fees or ratesand so forth. This doesn' t pertain to anything else. MR. HOHU: No, i:t-cpertains to rules and regulations, too, in the first sentence. The first, provided in this charter, all rules and regulations having the force and effect of Taw adopted shall be approved by the Council and the Mayor before going into effect. MR. SCHUTTE: Right down below it says "the provision of this section shall be applicable service rates, license fees and other charges" . MR. HOHU: I see what you mean. But our Corporation Counsel has directed at one time to do it; at another time, not to do it. So we' re taking his advice. We didn' t want to violate the law. So we are operating on his advice. MR. TRULSON: My understanding is that the water commissioners are appointed by the Mayor, approved the Council. Is that correct? MR. HOHU: Yes. MR. TRULSON: Even semiautonomous your budget does not have to be approved by either? The mayor or the council? MR. FUJIMOTO: That' s the interpretation that we have from the Corporation Counsel because the powers of the com- mission, as I have mentioned, water commission now, manage, control operate waterworks, etc. , adopt the rules and regulations which shall have the force and effect. So with all these powers the corporation counsel, at one time, advised us that we don' t have to have the approval of the Mayor or the Council but it should be registered with the Council. MR. TRULSON: ,But you do have to have a public hearing for your budget? MR. FUJIMOTO: We do., MR. TRULSON: I'm trying to, in my mind, figure out a reason for that. You take in revenue. Would it be that you don' t want that revenue for whatever reason to go to any part of the county' s expenditure? It' s only solely for the water department? MR. FUJIMOTO: Right now, it' s kept by the treasurer and it' s a separate water fund. MR. TRULSON: But it stays in the Department of Water Supply. It does not go to any©other division or commission of the county. 32 .- MRS. KOBAYASHI: What would the benefits be? Because you' re semiautonomous, are our rates lower? I don' t understand. All this. time I didn' t realize you were semiautonomous. So, I don' t know. Well, maybe we need to go back to the charter, first and second and third charter minutes again as to why you are semiautonomous. What would the benefits be and what would the disadvantages be? MR. FUJIMOTO: Well, water being a very important commodity, we' re just like a public utility. I think it can be run better with one organization just concentrating on nothing but water. It doesn' t have to go to different committees. We can work things faster, accomplish more if we can concentrate our efforts on water. Water is our business. MR. TRULSON: If you were not semiautonomous, what other would you have to do? MR. FUJIMOTO: Well, we' ll have to just operate just like a public works department. We' ll have to make a reports to the Finance Committee or the Public Works Committee and they' ll have to go to committee to committee before we can make a decision. Under our water commission, we just stay within the commission and department. They are standard. I would like to mention here that our accounts are audited by an independent auditor, same as all utilities, same-,as the county, and right now the council appoints the auditors to audit our books as far as financing and legislative auditing. They check on our operations. MR. OMONAKA: Under this set up, will this give you an incentive to be more efficient? MR. FUJIMOTO: That' s right. Through my experience, I find that-- I used to work for the public works department'pprior to being with the water department. I find that our employees are motivated because they have a very important duty to the public. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Mr. Fujimoto, what if you were autonomous? What would happen then, you think? You know, com- pletely outside of the county, like Helco is, for instance? MR. FUJIMOTO: Then, the part is the finances. We' ll have problems with finances. Like Helco, their stockholders, they've got a problem with their stockholders. They've got to make so much profit for their stockholders. Who is our stockholders? Our stockholders are the customers and they' ll profit. So whatever we make is for the interest of the public, our customers. We can make sure that their water services is good, they have good water, and wherever we extend our system, we can do that. We don' t have to tack on too much profit, or we don' t have to worry about those things. And we' d like to be responsible to the public, that' s one of the things. Another thing, too, is fortunately, we can go to the legislature to get CIP funds. They cannot. They have to float their own bands and thiss one of the reasons why the cost of electricity is high as compared to water. - 33 - We have other suggestions, too, dealing with management, our employees, how we can deal with that because it says if we go according to the other portions, our employees, I have permission to appoint them for my commission; but after I appoint them through personnel, then we follow the provision in this charter, then I have to get approval of the mayor and the council, which I don' t think the intent was that. That portion of that section can be placed within the board of water supply section. MR. YANAGA: What' s your provision right now? MR. FUJIMOTO: I have permission from my commission. I justify it with my commission. It' s included in the budget. Unless it' s budgeted, we cannot have any new hires or increase in pay. This is the first the time Council requires that I have to back to the Council and justify this person. The rest of the Council, they used to just to change the salary ordinance, that' s about it, because our employees' position has to be in the salary ordinance. MR. OMONAKA: Excuse me, you' re not asking that you have the right to reclassify employees within your department. MR. FUJIMOTO: No, no. Classification comes under personnel. MR. OMONAKA: Only to add personnel. MR. FUJIMOTO: That' s right. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Any clafification or question? Okay. Thank you very much. RECESS : At 6: 30 p.m. , the Chair declared a short recess. RECONVENED: The meeting reconvened at 6:35 p.m. The Chair directed the Committee to return to the order of business, Communications : Mr. Schutte moved that the Committee return to the order of business, Communications. Seconded by Mr. Trulson and unanimously carried. Comm. 3: Letter from R. B. Legaspi, County Clerk, dated December 27, 1978, submitting listing of reference sources and materials. Comm. 4: Letter from R. B. Legaspi, County Clerk, dated January 2, 1979, regarding ramifications of a special or regular election and other suggestions relative to the election processes. - 34 - Comm.. 5 : Letter from R. B. Legaspi, County Clerk, dated January 10, 1979, submitting deadline regarding the election processes mandated by the Hawaii County Charter and the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Mr. Omonaka moved that the communications be received and filed. Seconded by Mr. Schutte and unanimously carried. The Chair directed the Committee to take up the next order of business, Business of the Day. (a) ; BUDGET OF THE COMMISSION: MR. SCHUTTE: This budget was prepared by myself. It kind of relates around the budget that was submitted by the Mayor' s office in the portfolio that we got the first day that we were together. However, I have gone over that and revised it somewhat to come out with some type of workable budget and it' s based on 36 weekly meetings. That' s because we' re looking at a target date of November 1979, as a date for a special election. That would close everyting up in September of this year. (Mr. Schutte read and presented the proposed budget - See Attachment V) MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to clarify the point of legal counsel. This is just a rough estimate. I don' t have any one individual that would say yes to this. After consulting various individuals, this is something that we came out with that may be workable. As to how much time is to be expected, I don' t know. Even after today' s hearings, I, in my mind, have many questions I would like to have the person go get the material so we can review, read, and if we ask the counsel to do this or ask the counsel and secretary, probably they can work together. . Possibly this may be a fair sum, I don' t know. That' s rationale behind how these figures were arrived at. Mr. Trulson moved to accept the proposed budget. Seconded by Mrs . Iwamoto. MI Yan_ ga-mo_7-- Mr. Yanaga moved to amend under Public Hearings to delete "Mt. View" and insert "Puna" . Seconded by Mrs. Iwamoto and unanimously carried. MR. ISHIDA: Adopting this in this present form, are we bound by it? In the event we find we need more funds, what happens then? MR. SCHUTTE: I believe this is merely a guideline. We know so much dollars has been set aside for this commission' s review. It' s just a matter of setting up the guideline in which to follow, at least to my knowledge. Now, we only put a 10 percent - 35 - overhead over the entire budget, hoping this can contain any overall that we may run into which could be very well be our legal expenses. It' s my knowledge and we can only put something like this together with the idea that it' s going to run according to budget. However, if anything should run over budget, it would be the legal portion of it, because everything else is pretty well tied in. A big question mark is the legal portion and the amount of time. If you broke this amount of dollars on legal counsel back down to meetings, you' re looking at about $280 per meeting. Now, if you pay an attorney, legal counsel $50 an hour so he' s here for three orfour hours, we' re well into it anyway. So we' re looking at this as being a retainer and hoping that we' ll stay within that budtet. But that override, we' re looking at helping out the legal side of it because we think if there is any override, it may be in that portion of the budget. MR. OMONAKA: In working out the calendar for our target date, we have scheduled just one public hearing throughout the representative district. Perhaps the second public hearing can be intended as going out in terms of selling of the charter, or amendments to the charter. MR. LEGASPI: Again, it' s scheduled in that fashion. It' s flexible like your scheduling tHround of public hearings prior to the first draft. And after a completed document) for the public education, you have a section for education, public services you could go for second round. It might be a good idea. But it' s flexible enough so you could accomplish that, two hearings. Vote on the motion to adopt the budget. Unanimously carried. (b) SELECTION OF THE COMMISSIONS SECRETARY CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I feel that since now we have budget and roughly we know how much we' re going to pay a secretary, I think we should put this in the ad. We should put an ad for secretary. And then whoever submits their application to be secretary, then I think, we should go to a selection committee and then select a secretary. Right now, I have one application for a secretary. I think it would be fair for the rest of the women that are willing to work to have an ad in the paper. What do youppeople think about this? MRS. KOBAYASHI: Mr. Chairman, can you get somebody by next week by doing that? Isn' t that what we need to do? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I don' t know what to do in this case. If we just go right ahead and say, okay, we have one application, that' s it and we did not make it public, job appli- cation for this position. I don' t know what kind of action is going to happen? MR. LEGASPI: I think it ' s imperative that you have a secretary on board as soon as possible. Again, you' re trying to be democratic but the best way is to find a qualified person and hang on to her. - 36 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Okay, fine. MR. LEGASPI: I was going to say that the first commission, Dr. Noda, hired his personal secretary. It worked very well because they were together all day they exchanged information. MR. ISHIDA: There was no public guideline? Okay, fine. MR. LEGASPI: Again, this is minor thing. Nobody is going to fault you even hiring your mother or mother-in-law. We want her to be on board. Commissioners left the decision to the Chair to select a secretary. MR. OMONAKA: What about other legal things like insurance, unemployment, workmen compensation, prepaid medical? MR. LEGASPI: She ' ll be on a contractual basis. She ' ll have to arrange that. We' ll have to draft her contract where she' ll be responsible for those things. (c) APPROVAL OF THE COMMISSION' S RULES OF PROCEDURE AS AMENDED. MR. LEGASPI: Mr. Chairman, Item C was discussed at the last meeting. We' re just finalizing the amendments that you were talking about so it' s being presented in its final form. If you so wish, you can adopt it as presented. Mr. Trulson moved to adopt the rules of procedure as presented. Seconded by Mrs. Kobayashi and unanimously carried. (d) CONSIDERATION OF THE COMMISSION SCHEDULE, CALENDAR AND TARGET DATES. MR. LEGASPI: We talked about this again per your direction. We worked backwards from your decision to have an elec- tion schedule for sometime in November, setting a date on November 3, which will be a Saturday for the reasons given, that the public facility, school will be available during the weekend and not a weekday. And working backwards, the charter says that not later than 45-days, the digest of the proposals that you intend must be published and also that the Hawaii Revised Statutes states that 10 days prior to the 60 days of close of filing, the election proclamation stating the purpose of the election shall be filed. So, working on those two dates, we've come up with a proclamation for the election to be August 25. In addition to that, again, we need - 37 - some lead time to prepare the proclamation as we have to take it to the printers to proofread, typeset, and we also have to convert this multi-language, in conformance to the voting rights act. So we need about 15 days. We checked with the Lt. Governor' s office, anywhere from 10 to 15. To be sure we said 15 days. So we' re talkingsubmission date to the CountyClerk of August 10, meaning that te complete work should have ben done by that paricular date. Submission to the County Clerk, August 10. Again, working backwards, we' re allowing you the balance of it to review, research and to draft that particular document. Again, not knowing what your intentions were, there is room for flexibility here. What we've listed are the key dates that you should ; know `, as far as the mandated election deadlines, and the balance is up to you as to what you want to do. Again, the formating of the agenda as you requested, review of the departments, and then we've set aside one date to evaluate the various forms of government same date, we've considered the proposals for reapportionment which has been talked about, and you can continue discussion following that particular date. Again, it' s flexible enough you can continue, you can go for a whole month, if you want to discuss the various forms of government. Public hearings, we scheduled a public hearing for the various council districts-- Hilo, Honokaa, Waimea, Kona, Ka'u, Puna. But again later on in the calendar, you' ll notice open dates as far as the public education speaker service. You don' t have to approve this at this particular meeting but take a look at it. You know what' s coming off next week, similar review with the department heads. So, if you would like to go home and sleep on this and come back with your own ideas as to how you want to divide the calendar, that might be a better idea. MR. ISHIDA: Rudy, on this August 10 date, that' s the critical date. Everything must be there, at least our part of the draft, adopting of any amendments or what not, must be done by that date. MR. LEGASPI: Yes. Again this date is not a mandated date. The critical date is the 25th of August. This is when the election proclamation must be published in the paper, but it would be impossible without us reviewing it to be handed to the newspaper for printing at that time. So we' re talking 10 to 15 days lead time. MR. ISHIDA: I understand. My only concern, Mr. Chairman, is that I feel that we have to have public hearings as early as possible for purpose of factfinding and factual gathering so that we can give the residents of this county an opportunity for their input. And if we' re going to schedule these hearings once a week for this six various districts, I think we do have a problem whether we can really fit them in. I would assume that after we have adopted a tentative draft, then we would have to go out for public hearings again for the criticism, critique anyway. That' s another six weeks. I don' t know now. August 10 becomes a critical date. I' d like to see it done, but I can also anticipate problems. - 38 - MR. TRULSON: Is there a requirement as to how many public hearings we must hold? Like I know the way it' s set here, it starts in March with public hearings, at least six for input. And then in October, although it says speaker service in public education, it' s sort of---. MR. ISHIDA: But we would have already completed our work by August 10. That' s the prime. MR. LEGASPI: There is no mandate for a public hearing, but I think if you don' t have it, you' ll be criticized for not having it. MR. TRULSON: I feel we should have it but, if we' re to meet a deadline, is having one of them is sufficient? MR. ISHIDA: I don' t know. I wouldn' t recommend that we go ahead and just have one set of public hearing. I think we still have to get a fact finding, otherwise I don' t know how we can consider working on the amendments. MR. LEGASPI: I think Akira and I had some discussion on this, my strategy or previous strategy was to have a document draft for the people to react at the public hearing, but again that' s your pleasure. Like I said, this calendar, I suggest that you take it home, look it over, and make suggestions next week. We can continue the departmental review. Mr. Ishida moved to defer. Seconded by Mr. Schutte and unanimously carried. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, at 6:47 p.m. the meeting was adjourned until Tuesday, January 23, at 3 :30 p.m. /s/ Kay Ramos RECORDER - 39 - MR. TRULSON: Is there a requirement as to how many public hearings we must hold? Like I know the way it' s set here, 1 it starts in March with public hearings, at least six for input. And then in October, although it says speaker service in public education, it' s sort of---. MR. ISHIDA: But we would have already completed our work by August 10. That' s the prime. MR. LEGASPI: There is no mandate for a public hearing, but I think if you don' t have it, you' ll be criticized for not having it. MR. TRULSON: I feel we should have it but, if we' re to meet a deadline, is having one of them is sufficient? MR. ISHIDA: I don' t know. I wouldn' t recommend that we go ahead and just have one set of public hearing. I think we still have to get a fact finding, otherwise I don' t know how we can consider working on the amendments. MR. LEGASPI: I think Akira and I had some discussion on this, my strategy or previous strategy was to have a document draft for the people to react at the public hearing, but again that' s your pleasure. Like I said, this calendar, I suggest that you take it home, look it over, and make suggestions next week. We can continue the departmental review. Mr. Ishida moved to defer. Seconded by Mr. Schutte and unanimously carried. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, at 6:47 p.m. the meeting was adjourned until Tuesday, January 23, at 3:30 p.m. '��-' \„_ _"-- ' RECORDER - 39 -