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At the same time they were all part of the county and the <br /> feeling was that as long as they were part of the county <br /> you had to have somebody put all the pieces together to <br /> coordinate it. Just like in any big business the chief <br /> operating officer is responsible and he ' s got to effect some <br /> form of coordination. I 'm afraid we may have been a little <br /> bit optimistic about what that would do. <br /> One of the things that was being discussed <br /> at that time for example was the computer which the Board <br /> of Water Supply has, being used for a county computer. <br /> It would never happen. When they are talking computer now <br /> I understand they are talking about a completely separate <br /> one. But the idea behind it was basically to have the <br /> mayor at least have a crutch that he could lean on saying <br /> okay, I 'm responsible for the overall supervision. To get <br /> back to what I said earlier, it is people, it is people. <br /> If people want to make something work they will make it work. <br /> MR. SCHUTTE: One other thing. Why was it <br /> that everything seems to relate back to that -Board of Water <br /> Supply? Because of its semi-autonomous position? Can you <br /> give us some background on that. <br /> MR. KOEHNEN: Well the background on that <br /> is in the old state special laws where they were set up <br /> that way. It was thought that water was such an important <br /> thing that you didn 't want it exposed to "politics" in any <br /> way, shape, or form. That was the old thinking and I guess <br /> it went back practically to missionary days , I don ' t know. <br /> But whatever the case, water was sacrosanct and so you put <br /> it under a commission , you divorce it completely from the <br /> rest of county government. Yet it is a governmental function. <br /> So our problem was how do you get this thing <br /> back into the framework of government without antagonizing <br /> them completely and without them making a major issue of it. <br /> What we came up with was a compromise. It did give them a <br /> separate water commission. To get back to the way your <br /> things change over ten or fifteen years. At that time, I <br /> don ' t think it would have been possible to make them straight <br /> departmental agencies and have it sell. At this time, maybe. <br /> A lot of what we did in this thing was patterned after <br /> Honolulu. It ' s inevitable. We took the Honolulu charter <br /> and said ah, this looks good, that looks good. You 're <br /> starting from scratch, you know, you have got to start some- <br /> where. So a lot of that was picked up from the Honolulu <br /> Charter. We had several charters from theamainland. We had <br /> the Maui Charter. They had worked one out by that time. All <br /> of these things we looked at. We tried to pick the best of <br /> each. But if you look at what has happened in Honolulu. <br /> They have succeeded. They have taken away the autonomous <br /> setup of the Board of Water Supply and it is now a department <br /> of the county government. And whether we can do that or <br /> whether it is desirable to do that or not, I don ' t know. <br /> That is something that you people are going to have to argue. <br /> But at that time we couldn ' t have done it. Maybe now you <br /> could if you feel it is desirable. <br /> -18- <br />