CHC 1979-02-13 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MR. TRULSON: If he would ,advise us what his recommendations are as referred to the language of the Charter instead of the code. MS. GARCIA: Yes , this is all dealing with the code. Now, Number 2, County Council ' s acceptance of County Clerk ' s recommendation to delete the words "without proper consent" at the °end of the sentence in Section 7A. That is the code, not the Charter. Number 3, Councilwoman Lai ' s recommendations. Were you provided with any of the materials from Council- woman Lai in her presentation to the Council on February 1? If you will notice Section 14-3. Disclosure of Interest. What she is talking about when she refers to Section 6 and Section 6A are those sections in the Hawaii County Code which are the identical , or almost the identical, language of Section 14-3( a) (b) in your Charter. The Charter states, in subsection ( a) "It shall be incumbent upon all employees or officers of the county to: ( a) Make full disclosure in writing to his appointing authority or to the council in the case of an elective officer, the possession or acquisition of any interests , financial or otherwise as might reasonably tend to create a conflict with the public interest. " And then the language continues, of course. Now, in the code, the language is almost identical except that it provides that there shall be a certain period of time within which the employee or officer of the county shall make this disclosure. And as it is written in the code, presently, it implies that upon your election or appointment within 20 days of your election or appointment as an employee or officer of the county, you must make this disclosure pursuant to the Code of Ethics. But what was happening is that people were being elected two months before they actually took office. Under that language it says, "within 20 days of your election or appointment as an employee or an officer of the county". Now, Ms. Lai , for example, was elected let ' s say, October 15 but she didn ' t take office, we' ll say, until January 1. I don ' t remember the exact dates. But to explain this to you, if she is elected on October 15 . She doesn ' t have to go into a runoff in the primary. She' s elected November 15 and you have almost two months that pass before she actually assumes her responsibilities as a Councilwoman. And, yet, the code says that'Awithin 20 days of your election as an officer, or your appointment as an employee of the county, you must make this disclosure. Well , this is not so bad for employees , but for elected officers , it is extremely difficult because they haven 't even assumed office yet and they are. . .they -10-