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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-03-06 ' HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER . COMMISSION MINUTES 8th Session March 6, 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The eighth session of the Hawaii CountyCharter Commission 9 ., was called to order at 3 : 35 p.m. in the Hawaii County Council- • room, Hawaii County Building, Hilo, Hawaii , by Mr. Kimiaki Sakata, Chairman® The roll recorded the following: Present: Mr. Harlan Cadinha Mr. Richard Ishida Mrs. Amy Iwamoto Mrs. Gloria Kobayashi Mr. Akira Omonaka Mr. Kimiaki Sakata Mr. Spencer Kalani Schutte Mr. Herman Sensano Mr. Joseph Trulson Mr. Basilic, Yagong Mr. Matsuo Yanaga h€torney Stuart Oda Recording Secretary Joan Carnett DEPARTMENTAL The Chair called for the rules to be suspended TESTIMONY: and departmental testimony be accepted. Mr. Schutte made the motion. It was seconded by Mrs. Kobayashi and unanimously carried. MASS TRANSIT: The Chair introduced Mr. Barney Menor, Deputy Managing Director of the Mass Transit Agency. MR. MENOR: Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman and members of the Charter Review Commission. My name is Barney Menor, Deputy Managing Director. I also serve as coordinator of the Mass Transit Agency, subject subject of this review. Ordinance 153 , effective October 1, 1975 , amended Chapter 2, Article 5 'of the Hawaii County Code, thereby creating the Mass Transportation Agency. The major points of that amendment include: 1. That the transit coordinator be exempt from Civil Service and shall be appointed and removed by the Mayor. 2. The transit coordinator shall be responsible for the administration and operation of county mass transpor- tation. With the above authorization, bus operations commenced on December 15 , 1975 as a demonstration project. The project is currently under evaluation. I believe that the Mass Transit Agency should maintain its status as an independent agency either as a part" of the Mayor ' s Office, or apart, but reporting directly to the Mayor ' s Office. Any change or addition in the responsibilities of the agency can be accomplished by ordinance within the frame- work of the existing charter. Mr. Chairman, I 've attached a brief overview of the mass transit system, our table of organization and also a copy of the ordinance which created the Mass Transit Agency. If you have any questions , I 'd be very happy to answer them. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Menor, do I understand that your authority as far as your department, the Mass Transit, is received pursuant an ordinance? MR. _MENTOR: Yes. MR. ISHIDA: Is there anything in the charter provision which covers your position? MR. MENOR: Well , that section 2. .no, I mean , Article IV, Section 4-2. That is the only thing that refers to the creation of an ordinance. Other than that there is nothing in the charter which refers to ,transit coordinator. MR. ISHIDA: You are not saying that your agency should be specifically mentioned in the charter, or are you saying that? MR. MENOR: No, I am not saying that. I 'm saying that it should be the creature of the ordinance that created it. You see, at this time, because we are still a demonstration project, it is pretty hard to tell a Charter Review Commission that we are a permanent agency. Until such time that the County Council decides that it wants to make the transit agency permanent, it should be a subject just for the ordinance alone. MR. ISHIDA: You are completely responsible to the Mayor? - 2 - MR. MENOR: I report directly to the. Mayor. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Menor, what a.: e your future projections on this mass transit? Can you envision this thing continuing? .What does it look like from where you stand, right now? MR. MENOR: From where I stand, right now, I think, first of all , that the service is vitally needed and it is being used by a great number of people considering the amountC;of equipment that we have. We started from a figure of 18, 000 passengers a month to, today, where it is about 36,000 to 37,000 passengers a month. I think the biggest objection to this system would be the amount of subsidies that the County of Hawaii is paying. Which, in effect, is out of a budget of $560,000 ;Fares only cover about one-third of that amount. We are thinking in the future, and this is fact now, that the Federal Government would come in and help the county subsidize its operating expenses. A law has been passed (;in Congress and this is in process right now. Where the County of Hawaii would be eligible for up to $150, 000 in subsidies. MR. SCHUTTE: This $560;000 figure, is this a county subsidy? MR.MENOR: No, that is the total budget of the Mass Transit Agency. MR. SCHUTTE: Of this amount, how much is the actual paying public contributing? MR. MENOR: Of that amount, about $180,000. MR. SCHUTTE: Do you feel that with this federal money you would be able to take care of the expenses of operating this agency? MR. MENOR: Well, even with the federal money, I don ' t think we would be able to take care of the expenses one-hundred percent, simply because the public isnot yet, I think, ready for a fare raise, which would equalize expenses and revenue. So there would be some subsidy from the County of Hawaii yet. MR. SCHUTTE: And you are saying that there is a possibility of $150,000 from the Federal Government in subsidies. So with that in mind and with the paying public, we are still looking at subsidies of $160, 000 or maybe $180,000 from the county. MR. MENOR: That is right. MR. SCHUTTE : With this in mind, how does the future look of having to go to the council right now, or in the future and asking for this kind of dollars? - 3 - MR. MENOR: Well, I don ' t know, Mr. Schutte. I think it is going to depend on the council ; on the statistics that we present to them during the budget session. MR. SCHUTTE: You don 't get the feeling that this might be a trend that they would be willing to accept? MR. MENOR: I think they would. My feeling is that this system will become permanent. MR. SCHUTTE : But at the moment because it is still on a trial basis, it should just remain as an ordinance until such a time that. it is actually put on a permanent basis. MR. MENOR: That ' s right. MR. SCHUTTE: Thank you. MRS. KOBAYASHI : Should this Mass Transit , Agency, and this is all should, become a department and become permanent, which department would it fall under? MR. MENOR: My feeling is that I would prefer it remain an agency apart from any established department. , My reason for that is because from our eperience in the last three years it seems as though that particular function doesn 't belong in any established department but is a function apart from present operations. It seems to be operating efficiently that way. MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Menor, I haven ' t had the chance to go over this entirely but from what I can see here, the county owns 15 buses and the balance is contracted out. Who does all the maintenance? MR. MENOR: Since December of ' 77, the county took over the maintenance functions. MR. SCHUTTE : Okay, now, I look here at your recap and the maintenance of these buses that the county does, does that come under. Public Works? MR. MENOR: No, we have our own base yard, or base yard facilities and we have our own mechanics. And we have a budget from which weexpend moneys for maintenance purposes. MR. SCHUTTE : Is that listed here? I see, two automotive mechanics. And you have a "contractual". . . MR. MENOR: Our drivers are still contracted out to Laupahoehoe Transportation Company. In other words , we handle the maintenance and we pay the Laupahoehoe Transpor- tation Company a certainamount of money to supply us with the drivers. - 4 - MR.. SCHUTTE : Then the mechanics are employed by the county? ,. With your own base yard and the. whole thing. MR. MENOR: That ' s right. • MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, Mr. Menor. PLANNING The Chair called upon Mr. Sidney Fuke, Director DEPARTMENT: of the Planning Department. . MR. FUKE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, again, for giving me this opportunity to appear before this commission. I 'd like to note that my comments today are not based upon personalities, past or present. Rather they reflect . my objective assessment of the basic structure of government. A planning director, like any other cabinet officer provides technical and professional advices and imple- ments policies. As such, it generally should not matter whether the position is "subject to council confirmation. Part of the practical difficulty_, however, comes in articulating a position, such as to the State Legislature, which does note"have a consensus. between the !Mayor and council . Under those circumstances , who does the Planning ,Director represent? Additionally, the executive branch under the present charter is largely responsible for implementing policies. To achievemaximum efficiency and effectiveness in policy implementation, coordination of all departments and implemen- tation direction must be set by only one branch, and that is the executive. Conceptually, council confirmation of various cabinet officerssuggests a marriage of public policy-making with implementing functions. Such a blend, however, may dilute the effectiveness of policy implementation. As such, for administrative purposes as well as to assure an environment for implementing,:;✓-policies efficiently, I would respectfully submit that the council confirmation re- quirement be deleted. This position is predicated upon the present charter ' s basic thrust of separation of powers. Where there is an integration of two branches , such as under the former Board of Supervisors or the Chairman approach or the British Parliamentary form of government, confirmation would be appropriate. . The concept of separation of powers impl( es that each branch would have the ability to provide "reasonable checks" on each other. Accordingly, to make this concept mean- ingful ,. the legislative branch should have its own staff support. Care, however, should be exercised to avert a direct duplication of functions relegated 'to the executive branch. - 5 - The Planning Departmentpresently consists of its Director, Planning Commission, and Board. of Appeals. Each entity has its specific functionwithin the structural frame- work of the department and thus provide the necessary level of checks and balances which are so vital to the planning process. As such, I do not foresee any great need for any significant changes in the department' s structural organization save for those mentioned herein. In the past , I have noted that the Planning Commission has heard and acted upon a multitude of variance requests from the subdivision and zoning codes. Under the existing language, only the Planning Commission is empowered to perform this function, although many requests have involved rather minor deviations from the aforementioned codes and could conceivably be processed administratively. In that regard , I would like to suggest that appropriate language be inserted to allow the Planning Commission to delegate some of its variance functions to the Planning Director. As the bulk of the commission 's activity right now focuses on such requests , the amount of time to concentrate on broad planning policy matters is quite small. In the matter of the Planning Board of Appeals, there should be §neater clarity in the phrase "sustain the appeal. " For example, if a person ' s variance request were denied by the Planning Commission and the Board of Appeals "sustains the appeal , " does this mean that ( 1) the variance is granted or ( 2) the variance is remanded to the Planning Commission for reconsideration. If the variance is granted by the board, then there should be such language in the charter. Presently, only the Planning Commission, according to the charter, can grant variances. I would like to further suggest that the reference to item (e) of the Planning Commission 's functions relating to State Land Use Commission boundary changes be deleted. By state statute, the Planning Commission does not automatically provide recommendations. Perhaps, and to best accomodate any possible change to the State Land Use Law, it may be more appropriate to broadly reference the Planning Commission ' s role as may be required by that law. Subsection ( a) of the Planning Director' s function should be amended to reflect the director being the technical advisor to the Planning Commission as well ® Additionally, subsection (b) should be amended to make the director responsible in preparing not only the basic general plan, but any revisions thereof. Subsection (g) should also reflect the director ' s ability to assume some of the functions delegated by the Planning Commission. I would also like to suggest that a new section to clearly indicate the director' s role in formulating other plans, such as the county development plans ; or critical planning-related functional plans like tourism, as well as in assisting other agencies develop their functional plans such as sewer or water to ensure compliance with the general plan. - 6 - Finally, there should be a general provision which would makethe director the principal enforcer of the general plan. This would be similar in concept to the States Coastal Zone Management Act and State 'Pl.an .where an agency, which is the State Department of Planning and Economic Development, has been assigned the responsibility of ensuring compliance with those laws. As you may be aware, I am presently studying the entire general plan process, particularly as it relates to the amendment process. While there will be a need to amend the ordinance itself, some changes to the charter may also be needed to strengthen and preserve the integrity of thepplanning process. This study should be completed within the next two months , and I will so give you my recommendations on that portion. . I am prepared to answer any questions the commissioners may have. . MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Fuke, the gist of your initial statements seem to indicate that you feel definitely that as far as the department heads are concerned, it is unnecessary to have council confirmation. Now, as I read your statement, it 'seems that I detect that you seem to indicate that there is a conflict as far as to whom you are representing whether the executive or the legislative branch. There is a confirmation problem. Do you see that definitely as an inconsistence of position:20 MR. FUKE: As I pointed out, Mr. Ishida, this is like from administrative purposes it provides a conceptual problem in terms of when you go down to the legislature or when you express policy positions , it doesn' t necessarily reflect the position of the administration of the Mayor. Or generally, in a situation where you have a greater blend between the legislative and the executive branch, I think, when you have council confirmation it becomes easier to have that cabinet officer speaking the position which would, gener- ally, be reflective of both the legislative and the executive branches. The basic thrust over here, . . .what I am suggesting is that if there is going to be an emphasis on the separation of powers then I think that council confirmation should not, be required. The other aspect of that, of course, is in relation to if the executive branch is made responsible to implement policies, somebody has to set the stage in terms of how you are going to coordinate these implementations and the best way to achieve coordination, of course, is to put it all under one house. If you have council confirmation there is, I think, a practical problem of finding out, well , what if the legislative, and executive branch differs in terms of how policy should be implemented. Then who, like in my situation, who do I turn to? Do I totally remain detached from the situation or do I get embroiled in any conflicts,, .f they arise? - 7 e I just felt, again, based upon experience as well as just looking at it in a total context--separation would make it much cleaner. MR. ISHIDA: The difficulty I 'm having is that it seems to me you feel that if you go through the confirmation process you feel that you may havetwo masters. I, personally, don ' t see that and I 'm having some difficulty to accept that concept. Is this what you are saying? MR. FUKE: Well , I guess when I evaluated the whole thing-this is why I wasn ' t prepared the last time- I had to really think about it and I had to ask myself the basic question, initially, why council confirmation in the beginning? And I couldn' t come forth with a reason which was convincing in my own mind why the position needs to be confirmed. Or for that matter, any cabinet position should be confirmed. I see the Planning Director' s position as, essentially, to be no different than that of Chief Engineer or the Parks Director or the Finance Director where, essen- tially, we not only implement policy but we advise the Mayor, we advise the County Council in terms of different policy areas. Meaning the planning arena, the public works , the drainage and sewer, the finance director and the fiscal policies. I could not, necessarily, understand in reading the previous minutes, as well as just trying to understand broadly why council confirmation in the beginning. And, again , ILJ:Oting from practical kinds of problems, I just felt . maybe it would be better to just clearly make the separation. MR. ISHIDA: Would I be consistent in under- standing your position that you can ' t see, yourself, the distinctionin why the Planning Director should be confirmed and maybe the Chief Engineer should not be confirmed. Is that correct? MR. FUKE: Could you repeat that question? MR. ISHIDA: As far as I understand it. . .is that you have a. difficulty to establish any rationale as to why ( 1) the Planning Director must have council confirmation as opposed to the Chief Engineer having no council confirmation. MR. FUKE: That ' s right. Essentially, because I see the Planning Director, the Chief Engineer, and the Finance Director as having both policy implementation as well as advising in policy formulation functions. . MR. ISHIDA: Then my next question would be, do you feel that to be consistent you should take the position whether all the department heads should be confirmed or none at all? MR. FUKE: That is my feeling, right. As I had to preface my initial comments to say that if °you look at it purely from a detached standpoint, since the •Pl'an'ning Director' s position is merely to provide advice and to implement policies established by the legislative branch, then whether the position is confirmed or not is supposedto be immaterial. - 8 - But when you come down to the practical aspects of it, when you do, have conflicts between emphasis in terms of policy implementation then it puts the 'administrator in a rather uncomfortable position. MR. ISHIDA: To your experience, Mr. Fuke, have you found yourself in this position where if there is a policy difference between the administration and the council that you are faced with a quandary as to who or what you should implement? MR. FUKE: I will make an answer to your question in this regard, like, when I testify before the State Legislature, for example, I would have to say that the position represents the position of the administration. Then again . there are, indi�r,ect comments like aren' t you also supposed to be representing the legislative branch because they have confirmed your position and saying in so confirming you' to that position are sort, sof like suggesting that you could bethespokesman for the legislative branch as . well. But I have, traditionally, taken the position that I am speaking for the _administration at the legislature except where concurrence on the proposed bills have been reached between the Mayor and the County Council_ prior to coming forth with the .testimony=. MR. CADINHA': Mr, Fuke, then if the position of planner is merely to respond to the,executive,:or_legislative branch, why even have the position? In other words, the branches themselves could dictate what the plans should be. MR. FUKE: I 'm not saying that the position of the Planning Director should be merely only to implement. One of the basic requirements of the Planning Director is to advise in policy formulations. To not only advise the Mayor t/. also the legislative branchas well. I don ' t see the role also. as . spe ,led out in the chatter as being Planning Director merely only responding to different kinds of crises but rather to also assist in the leading process. MR. CADINHA: I have the same problem under- standing, I think, that Mr. Ishida does. In other words , what I 'm asking is that your view as a planner seems to me, by existence, to be the primary view that you should take. it/: sounds like whatyou are telling us is that the function of the planner is relegated to being a political football , if you will , and thatpresents occasional problems in taking a position. I know it is an appointive position and that by nature there is • - going .to be someof that, but , theoretically the charter wants a planner, wants a professional to sit. there and to work every- thing down to the bottom and give his best opinion as a planner. MR. FUKE : That is true. And part of the problem comes about in having under the existing system of Mayor appoint. and council confirm, the potential for that position to be used to the political advantage or disadvantage of .either the legislative or the executive branch exists. - 9 MR. CADINHA: And by removing council approval you think you would remove that? MR. FUKE: Quite possibly. I don ' t think that would be the total solution. I cannot help but somewhat agree, in reading the papers , with the comments made by Mr. Koehnen in the sense saying that regardless of the kind of institutional framework that you have it is the people housing the institution that is more critical. In a sense, appearing before the Charter Commission--and I 've read quite a bit of literature dealing with organizations for planning departments and planning relationship with the executive and legislative branch and there are several alternatives in terms of how you handle the planning commission or planning director. One alternative is, of course, like with Hawaii County, you have a planning director which is appointed and confirmed by the council . You have situations like in the County of Maui and also the City and County of Honolulu where the planning director is appointed by the mayor, no council con- firmation. The situation in Kauai , on the other hand , represents a different form of how you handle the planning situation. They have an executive commission. The planning commissioners are appointed by the mayor, confirmed by the council and the planning commissioners appoint the planning director. MR. CADINHA: Which do you favor? MR. FUKE: At this point in time, I think that in the interest of overall coordination, I would suggest the system of mayor appointed planning director. I would like to suggest however that the commissioners nevertheless not close their eyes to alternative options. What I have just tossedout are alternative ways of looking at the planning relationship not only in terms of the administrative structure but the planning relationship as it relates to the legislative branch as well . The situation like with the State Land Use Law, for example, you in a sense have the representationof ' executive commission which is a State Land Use Commission which is appointed, again, by the governor, confirmed by the State ' Legislature. The Land Use Commission then appoints their executive officer who in a sense serves in the same capacity as the planning director on Kauai . Part of the rationale behind the State Land Use Commission approach as well as the. Kauai approach is to further eliminate the appearance of politics within the planning process. ' MR. CADINHA: Mr. Fuke, . do you think the Board of Appeals is necessary at all? - MR. FUKE: ,My initial ".comment.,' .I guess , to Mr. Ishida, the last time was that perhaps maybe the Board of Appeals or some of the functions of the Board of Appeals should be abandoned. Again , I read literature about planning organizations and I cannot help but feel that almost all of the literature leans toward the retention of the Planning 10 - Board of Appeals. Especially when you have a. Planning Director that is empowered to make decisions like the Planning Commission. What I am proposing, here, is to relieve some of the ministerial kinds of functions of the commission. That the director be empowered to handle' administration of certain variances. There is a potential , I think thatz-and human beings will be human beings- -for the director under certain occasions to abuse his authority. Perhaps under that situation before going over to the courts, there may be® ®there should be an administrative layer of relief. Someone to put the Planning Director in check saying, I think you kind of went out of line over here. You should have a system where the planning, and again , I 'm also reminded like the Planning Commission, they, too, once in awhile, they are human beingsq as weil!y and they may be, at certain points, subject to abusing their authority. We have one case, right now, before the Planning Board of Appeals appealing a denial of a variance by the Planning Commission. In the beginning, I was thinking well the Planning Board of Appeals, how many times do they meet? They meet about four times a year. They probably handle about thrediior four applications a year. But then again I came to the general conclusion because they meet infrequ- ently, does not necessarily mean that their functions are not needed. It is somewhat analogous to the Board of Ethics you know, they don 't necessarily meet frequently but they are needed. I think that after doing more thinking about it, I think there is a need for this kind of check within the administrative area. CHAIRMAN<,SAKATA: Mr. Fuke, at present now, you don ' t have anything to do as far as on the Board of Appeals, the members that are appointed by the mayor. You don ' t have anything to say as to the appointment of these people? MR. FUKE: No. The mayor appoints; the council confirms the Planning Board of Appeals. The Planning Board of Appeals is assigned to the Planning Department only for administrative purposes. What we do + ?s make arrange- ments for per diem and whatever; make the agenda and all that stuff. When the Board of Appeals go through a hearing and the decision is against an action that I have made then what normally happens is that the corporation counsel represents me and the Planning Board of Appeals is represented by a legal counsel provided by the State Attorney General ' s Office. Just to further eliminate the ;appearance of any kind of conflict. ' CHAIRMAN SAKATA: So then any citizen of the state can be on the board, in other words, as long as, appointed by the mayor. In the county, rather. - 11 - In other words, there is no criteria as to, say, that whether the person has any knowledge whether about planning or anything of that sort. He just simply sits on the Board of Appeals. MR. FUKE: That is correct Just to make sure, Fagain, ' that the decision maker doesn ' t abuse their authority. MR. SENSANO: Mr. Fuke, perhaps I misunder- stood you when you first appeared before this group. But at that time, I came away with the feeling, after hearing your statements that you were not happy with your relationship with other departments. Particularly with Research and Development, Parks and Recreation, Public Works and the Department of Waters Supply. Reading your statements today and listening to you, I find your statements are altogether different from what I initially understood concerns you. Could you explain--you allude very lightly on your relation- ship with the other agencies in the last page of your report today, the third paragraph--could you explain some of these concerns which you initially expressed when you first appeared before this commission. MR. FUKE: When I appeared before the Charter Commission what I said in that point in time was that I wanted to reserve comments on because there were certain areas that I wanted to study. Particularly, the relationship between our office and Research and Development. Invariably, the question came up whether the Water D.e,p,ai^:tment, should be under the mayor or an executive type of commission. Specifically, again, my initial reservation was more without studying the charter, was trying to see whether some of the research functions of both the Planning Department and the Research and Development Department could be combined. Again, I looked at the language of the charter and it appears to me there is sufficient latitude within the existing language to allow greater consolidation. Right now, even without making any changes to the charter, for some of the research functions to be combined. Then I also asked myself the question , well what about the development end. Should, for example, R '& Das a"r whole be combined with planning or planning combined with R & D. Then, basically, my conclusion was no. What really made it more clear to me was that I went on a field trip with the rest of the cabinet officers. About three weeks ago we went up to Kohala and in the process, on that field trip, we looked at the various Kohala Task Force projects and I know that the Research and Development Department were kind of like sitting on it. And I . was asking myself, can your office legitlmately handle those kinds of functions and still provide the overall broad planning coordination functions. And I couldn ' t really say,byes. I looked at also, R ,& D ' s efforts right now in trying to coordinate the tourism program either with ASTA or the Travel Writers ' Association program 'in;;JI17.,na,2l - 12 - later on this year And . I - asked myself whether we could do that, legitimately, within the planning arena and I couldn ' t,, . say, again, yes. The reason why largely because the basiccem- 1 {phass af� n planng STs, :to provide overall coordination. Making sure there is a balanceaof concerns. Not only between a.gri- culture 'and tourism and the other economic activities. But, once, for example, .the Planning Department :becomes the head of a. tourism program like for the` ASTA, convention or heads a major program like overseeing the Kohala Task Force Agri ' culture Development and acbually. gets involved with the implementation, what unfortunately happens w=ithout realizing it 'is that there is a somewhat diminished credibility in terms of the planning functions being more or less -:broad and objective. and being able to balance all of these different kinds of concerns. . Take for example if you were' to really push, very strongly on the tourism program and then all of a • • sudden there is a tremendous change in terms of emphasis maybe . not towards tourism. So, I 'm kind of Wandering, in the back of' my mind, how would' people look at the overall planning process of the County of Hawaii when the County of • Hawaii process has been oriented towards tourism development and I think we run that kind of risk. • A good case in point. .another example, rather, is the . whole geothermal' energy development program or the search for alternate energy. That started way back in the early ' 70 ' s and finally we begin to feel the fruits of that effort. But if that program was not initiated back way in the early ' 70 ' s, we wouldn ' t be as far as we 'are right now • in terms of energy development. Back in the early ' 70 ' s what we were concerned with from the planning end, there was • a strong emphasis on the environmental aspect, trying to get a broader planning umbrella. as reflected in. the general ' plan. . I saw planning as being more of trying to : balance all of the different kinds -of concerns ; the agri- culture; the tourism; the water; the sewers ; the pas and recreation. Just as much as how it becomes unreasonable for the Planning Department to. handle fully the functions of the, Water Department or the functions of determining where the ' seWer program should be; where the parks should be; I think . . it would also be difficult for the Planning Department to actually implement a tourism program, or an agricultural program. I think our role would be more instrumental in making sure that when these kinds 'of plans are developed that • theyall fit together. This is why, as it relates to my . comments on page 3 saying .that there should be a statement • that the Planning Director should' be responsible in preparing plans. As it right now reads, the Planning Director prepares only the general plan. ' And I don ' t think that should be the sole responsibility' for preparing plans -by the Planning Director. . The Planning Director should also 'be responsible in preparing plans as >they relate to tourism and as they relate to agricultural. Functional area plans as they" relate . to water, specifically, or as they relate to Parks and Recreation should be handled by the different agencies. But • - 13 - the broader economic policy areas like in tourism or agri- culture, the planning function should be handled by the Planning Department. The actual implementation of those functions should be handled by another agency. There is kind of like a strange mix. Take, for example, the state passed a law requiring the counties to develop Via:=+program requiring parks for all of the sub- divisions within the island. It ' s the park's dedication requirement. The state law says that county planning, you guys have got to be responsible because you guys handle the subdivision. But on the other hand, who is the one who is a little bit more knowledgable in figuring out where the parks should be; what the park ' s ratio should be within an area. And that logical):y falls within the Parks and Rec- reation Department. Not because it involves land, then it is the Planning to be handling. I feel that what we should be doing as the Planning Department is making sure that all of these diff- erent kinds of concerns; the water; the sewer; the roadway system or the park facilities are all over there but letting the other guys doing it and we pulling it all together. So, in a sense, we become the major coordinators but we don ' t actually become and assume the functions of implementation that is currently assigned to the different agencies ; the Parks ; the Public Works ; the Research and Development ; and also the Water. MR. SENSANO: Don ' t you think , Mr. Fuke, that if these different departments were under one head there would be less tendency to build empires of their own regard- less of the general welfare of the county. MR. FUKE: I don ' t know, I guess you get two ways of looking at it. I can ' . just, for example, point out the State Department of Land and Natural Resources where you essentially have about four or five major divisions. You have state parks ; land management ; forestry. In our past experience, it has been just as difficult in getting decisions or getting things done through one department in which you house several major divisions as opposed to also working with another agency. I don ' t think , necessarily, the answer is to putting it all in one house because even within one house you would have to establish major divisions and in sometimes getting response from the major divisions , if the department becomes a very super department, very large, it becomesquite difficult. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Fuke, currently how does a general plan revision come about, mechanically? - 14 - MR. FUKE: That is the thing. The charter is silent. If you look at the charter, all the charter provides, right now, is'-that the County Council. . .there is a section dealing with general plan. .that is all. It doesn ' t talk about what the council ' s role is in relation to the revisions. The general plan section is section 3-16, the County Council shall adopt by ordinance a general plan. . There is no discussion in relation to revisions or amendments thereto. Then, again, you look at the Planning Depart- ment ' s function on the top of page :i2, section (b) the Planning Director shall prepare a general. plan to guide the development of the county by district or districts. There is no discussion about what you do with revisions. And, then, you go down to the Planning Commission. Planning Commission item (b) review the §,p, and other plans and modifications thereof and developed by the director and transmit such plans, etc. , etc. It ' s only in the function as they relate to the Planning Commission that there is any discussion about modifications or revisions. This is why my comment is that we should have a section dealing with how do you treat revisions. We are, right now,, studying that particular matter and hope that within the next month or so we will have a specific recommendation® What I am legally obligated to do is first of all develop an ordinance within the framework of the existing charter in terms of how the general plan amendments would be handled and in the process of developing an ordinance we are studying the whole general plan amendment process If there is a need to amend the County Charter,. I will come before the County Charter Commission and so makemy recommendation to , the County Charter Commission, But we-F2cannot, at this point . in time,. propose an ordinance which would be in violation of the existing County Charter. So,, to answer your question., directly, Mr. Cadinha, how general plan revisions do come about, the only language there is according to my understanding and also t`o Ott e understanding of the 'corporation counsel ' s office is found in the existing general plan which says , proposals to initiate general plan amendments must originate from the Planning Director, That is the only reference to revisions. MR. CADINHA: .They originate and then you don 't know what to do with them from that point. MR. FUKE: They originate and you can deny. But\\then, as I was saying earlier, there is no statement in the charter or in the language of the ordinance talking about what happens after that. Thereis a big void. - 15 - MR. CADINHA: The other question I have, is since your last appearance here,. Mr. Fuke, have you changed your mind about the role of the Water function in the county as being part of the (Mayor' s administration or would you. . . that is the question. .have you changed your mind? You said you thought it should tb'el under the_Mayor� , t.Yiat_itl:me. ____ Do you still feel that way? MR.: FUKE: I still feel that way on the Water Commission, that the Water Commission, the manager and the deputy manager being under the governance of the mayor." Again , this basically relates to the whole question of coordination. . How do you bestcoordinate yourimplementing programs. MR. TRULSON: Regarding your recommendation. on subsection ( a) is that just a clarification of what you are presently doing as a technical advlsor? MR. FUKE: That ' s right. I do that, right now. ' It is more of an editorial clarification on that. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Fuke, on this Board of Appeals. On the basis of your experience, does the Board of Appeals actually serve a function? U As it is characterized, now? MR. FUKE: In certain areas I ' guess it would. be difficult for the Board of Appeals to handle. . .maybe I can ;Fust relate it to specific examples like in a situation with the Bobby Yamada appeal on a subdivision where I nullified a subdivision. There was an appeal . The legal counsel to the Board of Appeals, at that point in tim , in a sense, concluded that what I was doing was just implementing what the law was. There was no discretion and so by operation of law the sub- division was deemed null and void. In that kind of situation, I think , since you do not have attorns on the board and the board cannot rule on points of law it doesn 't make, really, too much sense. But unless you go .through that process ,- it becomes difficult to see whether the Board of Appea]sis going to be acting pn points of law or the purely arbitrary and capricious area® The reason why I am think#ig about all of these things is because, I am telling myself, one of these days I am not going to here,- where I am. . I am probably ; going to be outside trying to work with the government, sub- mitting applications and all that. Recognizing all the laws that are within the books, right now, and just wondering weWll am +1; content with that. 'If I do disagree, what is my recourse? I would want to make sure that there is some sort of safety -valve. I ' ll give you a case in point. Take, for example, under the planning review section, the Planning Director would be authorized to say no setback within an industrial zone, or, can impose setbacks, depending on what- ever reasons he or she decides it should be. Let ' s assume in one situation , you said no setback. Another property owner comesin .and the guy says, hey, there should be a 20 ft. side- yard setback. Because the law gives me the discretionary - 16 - • authority to make it. And if I am that person , you know, I kind of like to want to be put in the position to say, I want to know why. And- if. I think, you are .arbitrary, then I want to have a board that is going to say that you are arbitrary and I want to be able to prove it. Generally., the Planning Commission would not provide_ that function. They look at purely only. the merits and Ithink_ that to provide some of the human naure checks, to retain the concept of the. Board of Appeals , I think would be helpful. I think it would be healthy. MR. ISHIDA: What would the Board of Appeals do then in that conte6;t? MR. FUKE: This is where it is kind of unclear. All the Board of Appeals says is that an appeal shall be sustained. If a guy applies for a variance, or if I tell a guy 20 ft. as opposed to zero ft. and the board looks at the matterand says , hey, Sidney, you are wrong. What does that, you are wrong, mean? Does it mean that, fine, the guy can build where he wants to build, in spite of my action. Or, like in the situation where if the Planning Commission denies a variance and if the 'Board of Appeals agrees with the appellant; does that mean that the variance is automatically granted? Then that is a great error because according to the charter, only the Planning Commission can grant exception from the law. Notthe Board of Appeals.. We ran into this kind of circular argument with our corporation counsel then and I think if you make it clear that under this situation that if a guy appeals to the Board of Appeals then the Board of Appeals , in a sense, can function like the Planning Commission and maybe grant the variance. Ox`, if they find that the Planning Commission had made a decisionbased upon lack of findings ' or whatever, can remand the application. But these alter- natives are not spelled out in the charter and let alone in our rules and regulations. As I indicated earlier, Mr. Ishi'da, that in the beginning I thought that maybe we could dismiss with the functions of the Board of Appeals. But the more I thought about it and true it meets only two or three times a year, but the two or three times a year might be just the kind of healthy safety valve that we need to, assure and restore a greater credibility in government. MR. ISHIDA: The way' the procedure is set up right now there are certain instances where the Planning Director makes his decision whereupon you can go direct to the Board of Appeals and there are certain decIsAIons that the commission makes which you could then go to the Board of Appeals. Is that correct? MR. FUKE: That is right:' - 17 - MR. ISHIDA: Now, are there any instances where you go from the Planning Director to the commission then . to the Board of Appeals? MR. FUKE : No. Under the. present organization the director makescertain action ; the commission makes certain action and who checks these two guys? It ' s the Planning Board of Appeals. MR. ISHIDA: Another question , as far as delegation of variance functions to the Planning Director. Are"1you stating that you do not want the Planning Commission to delegate all variance functions, or just a limited? And, if so, what guidelines are you using? MR. FUKE: I think that all we are looking for in this point in time, Mr. Ishida, is just to have broad language wherein if the commission wishes to delegate its functions there would be the ability to do so but then we would have to spell it out separately in ordinance form what kinds of areas would be delegated. But, preliminarily, the kinds of areas that we are thinking about are maybe setback variances. .Height. variances have a little different kind of implications. The concept of administrative granted variances has been applied in Dade County, Florida and it has worked , . aitho. wel 1. Over there, fortunately, the charter allows the Planning Commission to delegate the functions to the Planning Director. Ours does not. But you see if the Planning Director is going to have and assume some ofthe functions of the Planning Commission then increasingly it becomesrmore the reason why you should retain the concept of the Board of Appeals. As I say, I have to really think about it. MR. ISHIDA: Then you believe that the Planning Commission should just be given the general authority to dele- gate some of the functions to the Planning Director just restricted to variances. MR. FUKE: Yes, perhaps, the language maybe just like the Planning Commission may delegate. Not, necess- arily shall delegate. But whether in fact the delegation occurs , whether it is all or just a few, it would be up to the Planning Commission and however the ordinance is finally structured. A good case in point is like under the Shoreline Management Law, the State Coastal Zone Management Act, that the Planning Commission the way it is written , the authority is the Planning Commission and under that basis it reads that the authority may..delegate the permanent functions" to the County Planning Director and what we have done, under that setup, is to say those minor permits are to be adminis- tratively processed by the director. Those major permits are processed by the Planning Commission. 'There would be just a sharing of those responsibilities. Essentially, the Planning • 18 - Commission would be handling those which have broader public interest requiring public hearing. But, in many instances ,. you have variances that affect no one but the property owner and maybe the adjacent property owner. MR. ISHIDA: Onemore question.' On this statement that you said the .legislative branch should have, its own staff support.. I know there is always a problem of duplication. To what extent are you suggesting that the council have its ownsupport staff? MR. FUKE: At this point if is difficult to predict exactly how many bodies they should have like that. But I amjust looking at, for example, the State Legislature. They do have an attorney. But they don ' t necessarily have a chief engineer, a planning director or what have you but they just pick out the most necessary staff support to provide all of the collective functions of the legislative branch. MR. ISHIDA: Today we are concerned with the Department of Planning and what about in the area of planning? Do you suggest that the council should have its own support staff there? MR. FUKE : Not necessarily, I think it would more readily. . .if you have, for example, a council services office like in the City and County of Honolulu, I think inasmuch. as these positions are all kind of like exempt positions , I think it would really be up to the existing council , at that point in time, what kinds of positions that they would need. In the City and County of Honolulu, for, example, I know that they do have a planner by the name of Ali Sheybarii.ry , `But whether when you have a new council they need tohave a person with that kind of background is questionable. But I think some amount of latitude should be given to the council instead of spe-1`ling:. out:`specifically what kinds of positions should be within the council . MR. TRULSON: Mr. Fuke, I 'd just like to go back to the very beginning of your presentation and by eliminating the necessity of the council approving the director' s appointment by the mayor, do you feel that this would remove much of the politics from your position and it would, perhaps , benefit the county by perhaps a better job being done? MR. FUKE: I think it would eliminate, not necessarily, the politics of it all, but I think what it would minimize is like the appearance of politics.. This is why in response to Mr. Cadinha°s question, I think, that there are several alternatives . in terms of--like if you go back in history again like the Water Commission, the Police, the Civil Service and also like the Planning. They were all , at one point in time Ie:garded as being really sacred kinds of commissions because they were afraid of the influence of politics. And to a large extent it still prevails within the ( lanning arena. They hav kind of like toyed around with different kinds of alternatives in terms of therefore how you handle it and one form was, of course, to make sure you - 19 - got the checks. You know, mayor appoints- and council confirms. The other way is to have an executive commission nobody bothers. The commissioners themselves appoint the planning director., What I am suggesting over here is that inasmuch as the basic ertnphasis has been on how you achieve better coordination of implementing functionsli t- ' policies are established by the council , the legislative branch, and the administrative branch is then designed to implement these policies. So how do you coordinate these implementations. I think the best way to coordinate it is if it is all under one house. It is easier. But, as I again say, it depends on what the general thrust of the Charter Commission is. I don ' t think you 'lshbuld necess- arily dismiss the idea of looking at other alternative options of the planning organization. MR. CADINHA: What would the function be for having the County Council with its own planning staff? Under your concept, if there is no confirmation needed and the planning function is purely administrative, then why should the council have a planning staff What would that staff ' s function be? MR. FUKE: Can you restate. . .I 'm trying to understand your question. . . MR. CADINHA: As I understand it, Sidney, what you are advocating is that there is no County Council approval necessary for appointment but it is purely the mayor taps the planner and he becomes a planner. Okay, if we accept that and as a body enact that in a charter, you have another recommenda- tion and that recommendation is that the County Council should have its own planning staff. MR. FUKE: No, I didn ' t say it should have its own planning staff. What I am saying is it should have its own staff support. MR. CADINHA: What is the function of its staff support? MR. FUKE: Essentially,. it is like perhaps the languageof the existing charter allows it to. .but if the legi- slative branch is to not only review whatever comes over from the administration but also wants to be in the position of ind- ependently arriving at policies then it should have at least some amount of staff support to help them prepare these policies Otherwise, they, themselves, have to do it all . It is kind of like, for example, I know that the •legislative auditor ' s office does a lot of the staff support services and perhaps if whether it is that office or another .; „ office maybe attached .to the County Council , can provide the= ni- tate fun.cton JIt is kind of hard to determine whether there should necessarily be one planner, one chief engineer, one parks or whatever have you. But as I explained earlier, I think it is more a question of what the emphasis of the present council ' s makeup would be. And there should be some amount of latitude. - 20 - • MR. CADINHA: Would it be possible then to, have the planner report directly to the County Council and whatever comes out of that mill it is up to the (, i�ayor to administer® Is that theoretically possible? MR. FTJKE: Sure, that ' s right® And I think that is how it should be. You know, we provide some of the, critical staff support required by the legislative branch, otherwise what youare going to end up with is two of the same kind of branches with the same kinds of personnel and I think that under those bases would be a real duplication of functions. And) sour role, even if It is on a mayor appointed, no confirmation is still to respond to the needs of the County Council at the legislative branch. MR. CADINHA: What about removing the function completely from the administrative branch and putting it under the legislative appointment like the clerk? MR. FUKE: You mean the Planning Director? I have to think about that. MR. CADINHA: Because if it is purely staff and the policy making body ��'jas you see it, is 62lEgOlative0 body. Then it should be removed from the administrative body. To me that seems logical. MR. FUKE: You have situations where, as I indicated earlier, Harlan, like the Finance Director also advises in legislative policy making in the fiscal area. The same thing with the Parks Director. in the parks area; and the . . Chief Engineer. So, - I don ' t think you can necessarilyc= single out the Planning Department function and say it should be housed within the County Council. MR. CADINHA: I 'm being a_.dev l's_ad_ko-ca>te_but what I hate to see is a cluttering up of staffs for staffs for staffs. I 'm trying to justify in my own mind clearly why the council needs any kind of planning staff at all. If they get direction, financially,, and on fiscal matters , from the Finance 61v,ectiftfWAIf they get direction, legally, from the Corporation Counsel. If they get direction from these various divisions of government that are currently administrative, to • follow your argument then they. need a legal staff; they need a planning' staff; they need a finance staff; and everything else® We are running into duplication and I don ' tunderstand completely what you are saying. I don ' t see the need. Or these is no need. , I 'm just trying to, as I said, be a devil ' s advocate to understand. MR. FUKE: For the sake of emphasis , all I 'm . saying is that the legislative branchshouldbe allowed to have some amount of staff: to provide normal administrative function required%,`for running the legislative branch. A lot of the basic advisory functions should come from the adminis- trative branch whether they come from the Planning Director, the Finance Director or the Chief Engineer or whatever. Therefore, I don ' t. necessarily see the need to duplicate - 21 - whatever is in the administrative branch in terms of personnel. This is why, depending upon the direction that the council wants to assumeat that point in time, they should have the latitude to figure out maybe the next three or four years they want to move more agressively, . for example, on n«theagricultura-1 development program. Under that basis--and then they want to originate atlot oftheir programs and not necessarily wait for the administration--they may elect to hire people in agricul- ture development specialty areas,. But this is , of course, based upon what the council would feel like they themselves want to develop and assist in not only policy formulation but so advisethe executive branch as well . These kind of priorities will generally shift from ktermri;;to<<,term or maybe even within the term.. Whereas. like ..in the administration area you would just generally have a constant flow of these kinds of require- ments. The fiscal and the planning and the public works. 'It is a steady thing. MR. ISHIDA: One more question. Talking about relations between departments. The Planning Department and Board of Water Supply. . Seeing that the Board ofWater Supply has been classified as a semi-autonomous body and consequently there may not have been a direct relationship coming through the M;ayor ' s office the way you are. Now, because of this situation, is there any problems that you a:te;-faced with as to this form of concept? MR. FUKE: The existing setup whether there are any problems? I , personally, haven ' t experienced any problem. All I can say is that there is a potential for the Water^eommission going different ways and I can point out, although it hasn ' t happened, like in the situation for the Water 'Board forL,Aher7J5outh Kohala area. The administration and the County Council were both in unison in terms of the program for that area and the Water Commission was actually required to get the funds fromthe state government for their portion, requesting the governor to release their portion. So, you know, it is conceivable under that setup where you have the legislative and the executive branch concurring on what the policy and implementing it should be.. You could conceiv- ably have a Water; Commission saying well that is not what they want to do and kind of like block the efforts on the legis- lative and executive branch. That is conceivable. I 'm not saying that has happened but thereis the potential for that kind of conflict to arise. MR. ISHIDA: You mean conceptually. Should that situation be remedied? MR. FUKE: I .think so. MR. ISHIDA: What would your recommendation be? Or what would you suggest is possible? MR. FUKE: I really wouldn ' t know because •" you know, I concentrated too much--not too much--but maybe, not enough on our area. I kind of like have an off the cuff - 22 - kind of reaction. All I know is , as I Indicated the last time, I think the coordination would be much more enhanced if it were all under one house. I don ' t know what the so-called perfect solution to the whole thing would be. MR. SENSANO: You are the Director of Planning. As the Director of, Planning you don ' t have anything to do with Water, right? If it has anything to do with Public Works , you don ' t have anything to do with planning, is that correct? And thesea)obh,er areas that seem to be related to planning. In other words , each of these departments , per se, do their own planning? You don ' t do any of their planning, at all . MR. FUKE: Okay, like in the Water Department they do have an overall water master plan which talks about where the priorities should be and all that. Our relationship would be only insofar as assisting. the Water Commission in terms of developing his water plan to make sure that where they put the water is, an area where it is programmed for development .on the general plan and tied in with the transportation system. So it is kind of like our role to make sure the water plan fits in with the public works, sewage and drainage, master plans for example. But the actual development of the water plan or the sewer plan is left 'Cto ;the;different agencies. MR. SENSANO: Would there be any possibility that, for example, the Department of Water Supply wants to develop a water supply in some area and there is another 'area that needs development. Your department would recommend that water would also be developed for these other areas and the Water Supply says no, we will concentrate on this one? MR. FUME: That ' s right. As it is right now that situation can very likely happen. The Water Commission would establish its own CIP priorities and might want to go full fledge in the Hamakua area where the emphasis m _ght_be there in South Kona for . example:€he_n` you run into a conflict where we are trying to move our traffic system; or our park system; or whatever have you all in the Kona area and the Water Department or the Water Commission decides to put all of their capital in another area. Yes , there is that potential for that kind of problem. The Planning Director, according to the existing charter, is responsible for coordinating all of the capital improvements that the administration has. We work together with all of the different agencies and come forth with a package of capital projects. 'for the M;ayor' si{ and' the County Council ' s consideration and when we do that we do that based upon objectives in mind on which areas should go first and why. But we don ' t have the jurisdiction to integrate the Water Commission ' s capital projects. We are 'aware of what their projects are but that is the extent of it. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Fuke, you mentioned just a little while ago that in response to Commissioner Sensano' s question of a problem developing in planning and designation of priorities by the Water Board or the Water Commission - 23 - relative to the development of water resources. That they may conflict with the Planning Department. You sit on the Water Commission as an ex officio member, don ' t you? With the Chief Engineer? So, you would beon top of that, and could advise them as your capacity indicates so they should not have a problem in that respect. Is that correct? MR. FUKE: ^I sit on the Water Commission as an ex officio yes, and, therefore, I would be in a position to advise. I think the question was , likefftis it possible to have the Water Commission and other programs on capital improvements ;go another way. And what I am saying is yes , that is a legal possibility right now. MR. SCHUTTE : It could be a legal possib- ility, but, being that you sit on that commission you could advise them that this could be a problem and as a result they could channel their efforts into one movement. Isn ' t that possible? If not, I can see no reason for you sitting on'`:that Board if you are just going to sit there. MR. FUKE: There is a difference, on the other hand, Commissioner Schutte, between advising and having a greater say in terms of how the priorities are coordinated with the rest of the county' s objectives. Because when you provide advice, the person receiving the advice is free to accept or reject it. MR. SCHUTTE: Well, it just seems rather ridiculous that they put the Chief Engineer and the Director of Planning on a particular commission• to advise them so that they dont have individuals , or departments, overstepping or moving in different directions. And I would assume that that would be the easiest method of consolidating efforts. But what you are saying is that it doesn ' t necessarily work out that way. MR. FUKE: As I indicated earlier, advice . is just advice and there is, again, the possibility for ,p 1 recommendations to go unheeded and the commission going one way and perhaps the council , the rest of the county going another way. To answer the broader question about whether, in fact ? •if the Water Commission were made part and parcel of the administration branch, whether there would be greater coordination, my answer to that, essentially, is that legally the coordination would be enhanced if it is all under one house. MR. SCHUTTE : I beg your pardon? MR. FUKE: If the Water Commission were all under one house. Housed under the executive branch that coordination, legally, would be made much more possible. MR. SCHUTTE: Well , if you get back to that situation, I think you 'll recall that the ;Mayor Vindicated that all of it should be under his office and do away with all the commissions and that would be just ,answering _to - 24 one individual . But then we have other problems that exist. What I am trying to say is that there is no real set way that you are going to cut things in' a' direct -line to eliminate these other .problems., If you are going, to write a law ,or an ordinance for every single aspectof county government, i think we are all going to operate with our hands tied so badly that we can' t move inL '; ,therCdi.rect%dri. without having, legal advice to interpret what we have to work with. I think there are certain things that you i lust can ' t tie down by words and then if you dotie them, down you can ' t move.. I look at the charter as it gives you con- siderable authority to move in many directions and to prepare and to plan, and yet I still think that maybe we should take a good look at your suggestions of changing some of these. But if you look at it, it gives you a lot of options. As far as making staff available to the County Council , the clerk ' s office has that authority to appoint the necessary staff. He services the County Council so he, already, has the authority to give them whatever staff is needed and I think in the last section here of Section (,g) on Page 12, it says it gives you the authority to "exercise all the powers and perform all the duties of the planning director and the administrator of the commission as authorized by law or ordin- ance and exercise such other powers and perform such other duties as shall be required or delegated by the Mayor or council . " A lot of things that you have indicated, here, I believe are provided for. And, yet, I may be looking at it from a different aspect. MR. FUKE: This is what I talked about. The council ' s having the ability to have a limited staff supplied. I didn ' t make any suggestion that the charter be amended and this would also be in answer to Commissioner • Sensano' s question about RM' D,®; I had rased the concern, earlier, but again in evaluating the charter closely, I felt that there was sufficient language to not even warrant any change. I only more or less talked about some of the things as they relate to the Planning Department and what kind of areas should be changed because of the problems that we have had in the past in terms of the current interpretation of the charter. The Board of Appeals and what does "sustain of appeal" mean. In terms of the whole general plan revision effort right now. MR. SCHUTTE: Then the only change that you are really suggesting is that we do not need council confirmation as far as the Planning Director is concerned . MR. FUKE: There are certain changes I think that as they relate to administrative variances delegated by the Planning Commission. Clarity in terms of the Board of Appeal ' s functions. Deleting certain functions of the Planning Commission which are already outdated. On the section dealing with the General Plan depending upon what - 25 - the study indicates, I may .come forth before the commission and make specific recommendations in terms of incorporating language within the County Charter. MR. SCHUTTE: One last question, Mr. Fuke. In regards to the general plan where we make , a general plan for a specific purposeif you follow the charter. You said some kind of "guidelines" and yet we are the first to make changes or revisions to the general plan. What I mean-- complete changes. What does this have to do with having a general plan and how does this work? MR. FUKE: The present though t,ori ,the _-general plan is that it has to be responsive to the needs of the people and the people' s needs invariably change over time. So by having periodic review, .whether they come at the five or ten year i-n ervals,_:S think it gives the county the greater ability to have apTanhing document which is in tune with the needs of the people® This is why within the existing general plan there is a requirement that the general plan be reviewed at intervals of five or ten years. It is only, again, designed to make sure that the plans that you prepare are flexible enough now and can respond to the changing needs. One good example is that when the plan was prepared in 1970, ' 71 , nobody talked about energy. And then came 1974 and ' 75 and we had the big energy crunch. So what we did was that?.somewhere along the line we have to make sure that there is expression2 gas far as how do you handle the alternate energy programs. Should we go full blast? Should we have solar easements, or what have you. So what we did was, you know, this came in within the last four or five years , so we had to develop a new section as they relate to policies as they relate to energy. Then, again, this is only because the needs and the situations have changed, of the community. Without kind of like a forced review of the existing plan , I think you might eventually wind up with a document that is easily outdated and not responsive to the needs of the society. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Fuke, who is the principal enforcer of the general plan? The Planning Director? MR. FUKE: Right now, I am the so-called de facto enforcer of the general plan. There is no language within the charter. I am responsible to enforce the Land Use Law; the subdivision; the zoning code and etc. And inasmuch as the primary responsibility for preparationtaof the general plan rests within the Planning Department, what I was suggesting is that there be a provision to say that the Planning Director shall also be responsible in enforcing theprovisions of the general plan. This is, in a sense, kind of similar to a . lot of. . like the state plan legislation whereit delegates tke responsibility of enforcement making sure that everything is in order, to the State Department of Planning and Economic Development. . . - 26 - Right now, you only kind of assume that the Planning Director has that responsibility and I think it should be clearly spelled out. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You talk a lot about coordination, here, between departments and so on. So, you feel that-if this: is . one of the provisions that you look for and you are .seeklggsf,or-if this is put into the charter you feel that the operation of your department would be much easier MR. FUKE: Well I think youjootld have a legal mandate for coordination, that the Planning Department would, in a sense, be the primary coordinator. MRS. IWAMOTO: What is your feeling about not having the power to vote on the Water Commission? MR. FUKE: I think that, as I :indicated the last time, the ultimate solution is to have it housed under the administration. And I can sympathize with what Mr. Schutte is saying that there is a certain amount of balancing that needs to be done to assure that it is not subjected-you know, there are some amount of checks here within-even within- also the executive branch And so if it cannot be totally under the administration, I would suggest that the next best option would be to confer the Planning Director and the Chief Engineer, both, with voting powers within the Water Commission. MR. TRULSON : Mr. Fuke, one more question. Underpart g art ( ) where it s exercise all the powers and P Y perform all the duties, etc. Right? That exercise all the powers and perform all the duties ,shall be required as under the mayor, authorized by law or ordinance. Couldn ' t an ordinance be passed that would give you the power to enforce the general plan.? MR. FUKE: Yes, there could be. MR. TRULSON: Would that be better, in your opinion , than a change in zharter? MR. FUKE : My response to that, Mr. Trulson , would just be that if it is the charterit is cleaner and therefore would not be subject to kind of like the changing whims of whomever wishes to change the law. I think that if it is important enough, such as like, the general plan where they did procedures of how. amendments in terms of revisions are handled, I think that these provisions should be embodied within the County Charter. To make it necessarily only on the assumption that it can be delegated and you can handle . it in the law, it means that if you have the law it can be easily changed, too. But I think that if it is really critical it would behoove the people of the County of Hawaii to have such a provision embodied within the charter so that you really can ' t change it. MR. TRULSON: At least for ten years. - 27 - MR. FUME: I guess so. MRS. KOBAYASHI : - What is your relationship with the Planning Commission? I keep reading what are your duties and the duties of, the Planning Commission and I think they are about the same. It seems there are so many similarities. You are the administrator, is that what I read? I wonder does the Planning Commission do the same thing that the Planning Department does? It seems as though they give the final okay to everything you do, orr is that incorrect? MR. FUKE: The Planning Commission generally has two functions. One is to have authority to make final decisions in certain areas like Special Use Permits in agri- cultural districts granting variances. Their other primary function is to serve as a sounding board for proposals that the Planning Director initiates. The Planning Director, on the other hand, has the responsibility to prepare things which he feels would be inthe best interests of the public. Sending it to the County Council through the Mayor and the Planning . Commission. So when it goes through the Planning Commission it is kind of like testing it. Additionally, the Planning Director would have some of the powers that the Planning .Commission also has in terms of making final decisions. The final decision powers thatthe director has right now would be like approving, subdivisions, granting building permits , those kinds of things. So you have both regulatory functions and advisory functions and the Planning Commission and Planning Director have both. MRS. KOBAYASHI : There. is some duplication then. . MR. FUKE: There is a��,sharing of responsib- ilities but yes, ' I' suppose to some extent there is a dupli- cation there. MRS. KOBAYASHI : When _you mentioned that you wanted to assume some of the variance 'functions, was that to sort of ease the workload from the commission? MR. FUME: ' So that commission can devote more of its time in reviewing broad policy matters. You take, for example, the commission has been meeting about three times a month and almostA' 11their agenda is filled with variances and special permits like that and when we submit a major document they find themselves with very little time to review. I can sympathize with the workload that the commission has to go through and so what I 'm thinking about is that if we relieve some of the ministerial kinds of functions that presently the commission has then perhaps the commission would be able to devote moreof its attention and time to broader policy matters. MRS. KOBAYASHI : Do you know what the feeling of the present commission is as far as what its duties are? 28 - Do you ;,t.h:ink it would have the same feelings you have? Do you think they feel overworked and would like their functions changed? Because we haven ' t heard from them. MR® FUKE: Generally, in talking informally with the commission{ is`, they do feel very definitely over- worked. I have talked/to the commission, at the last work- shop we had in Kona about what some of my thoughts were with regards to the County Charter and generally they seemed to be sympathetic with the idea that the director should be allowed to have a certain amount of authority in granting variances. MRS. KOBAYASHI Ts that 'lin just that.,, •=` area that they would agree with you and would like some change? MR. FUKE: No, we talked about the council confirmation aspect. Essentially, all of the things that I discussed with the commission, today. MRS. KOBAYASHI : And as far as the commission themself, would they like to delete some of their responsi- bilities? MR. FUKE: I really 'wouldn ' t know if they would want to delete it. All I know is that they wouldn 't mind delegating some of its functions to the Planning Director as long as there is language within thecharter to allow them to delegate. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Fuke, what is the Kailua Special Distract Commission and why does it exist? And how? MR. FUKE: The Kailua Special District was created by ordinance back about in 1975 or 1976 and , essentially, that commission serves as purely advisory on all design matters that occur within the village of Kailua. The members are appointed like any other members 'to. boards and commissions They are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. They provide recommendations on public projects :within the Kailua village or buildings within that area. And , essentially, assist the department in implementing the Kailua village design plan. I think the genesis behind all ofthis was it was felt back about in the early ;170 ' s that there is a need for a separate kind of commission to make sure that Kailua is developed in a rather orderly fashion and the first order of business was to have a plan which would guide the thing and secondly it was maybe you ought to have a commission which would assist in the guidan-cer; Therefore, the commision was created. MR. SCHUTTE: How big a part does this commission actually play in your decision as a Planning Director? ME® FUKE: The Kailua Commission? - 29 - MR. SCHUTTE :. Yes. MR. FUKE: It is a meaningful role, I think. There have been instances, . Mr. Schutte, where I have dis- agreed with their position. A lot of the disagreement came about because I thought that they were being kind of wishy- washy in terms of how they apply the law. For example, they would, say, in one area--apply the guidelines, rather--in one area a guy would have to have a mansard roof and on another building right next to it they would say, well , that guy would have to have a shake roof arid, they would say, no, mansard is okay, and they would say no, fte, ' it has got to be shake roof. Then , under that situation, I had to point , out in the interests of consistency what the design require- ment would be. But aside from those kinds of instances , and I think those instances are really more of the exception than the rule, .I think they have provided rather critical comments toour office. In the review of signs withinthe , village; in the review of how the buildings would be. MRra SCHUTTE: But' that doesn ' t necessarily have to do with the general planning of the areaMbut more with the physical planning of a particular subdivision or of a _group. . . . MR. FUKE: More the physical planning for buildings, roadway systems within an area, what kind of landscaping should be, what kind of signs within the village. Just more from a design criteria. MR. SCHUTTE: How much of those d4cisions influence you or influence the general 'planning, or the Planning Department? In other words, here we have a Planning Commission in a specific area to advise the county planner as to, how that particular area should be developed. Yet, you have to follow with a general plan that is adopted by law for the general area. So, what happens in, between? MR. FUKE: Essentially, their responsibilities come in areas like a guy comes in with the request to put up a structure within the Kailua village. Now, under the ordinance evenwithout public input, I can make all the decisionsan) terms of what the setback should be, what the heightD should be, what the color of the building should be and what kind of landscaping, etc. Because Kailua was deemed to be rather unique and special , by having a commission over there to advise and say, hey, Planning Director, in this situation I think this building should be scaled down to make it more in concert with the surrounding area, the landscaping should be of x, y, and z kind of plant material. These are the kinds of input that we would receive where, generally, if it weren ' t for the comm- ission we would just process it as a normal building permit. MR. SCHUTTE : Sure, but those esthetic things don ' t come into the rules of the Planning Department. Are they all subject to that? MR, FUKE: That ' s right. - 30 - MR. SCHUTTE : So they are just duplicating what you would ordinarily have to do. MR. FUKE: All the commission does , in a sense, is narrow down the scope_ of discretion that the Manning Director has. Especially in judgment areas where the building should be painted off-whiteor brown. Wetter the building should have a mansard roof or a shake roof or totan or what have you. These are the kinds of authority that is presently given the Planning Director in terms of the design of the building and to have some public input by having a commission provides a useful function right now. MR. CADINHA: It sounds to me like we have a classic line and staff type problem. That the planning function, the futuristic aspect of what your job should entail , is not being done because there is no time to have it done. Is that accurate? . MR. . FUKE? Maybe I can respond by backing up here. Our Planning Department is just like Kauai. In the sense, that we have both regulatory and planning functions. Regulatory in the sense that we ii;ssue the building permits and we issue subdivisions and whatever have you. The planning function determines that we get involved in the general plan, the community development plans , those areas. Maui County has a department of general planning that doesn ' t issue permits or issue review plans and things like that. Purely planning. Their building and subdivision functions have been assigned to the department of public works. It is kind of created like a separate branch. The CI.y and County of Honolulu in the beginning had one department. Then they split up and they created a department of general planning and a department of land utilization. I studied this thing quite thoroughly as we went through every organization and, quite honestly, I couldn ' t agree, at this point in time, given the size and scale of our operations that we should separate the regulatory from the planning functions and reason being that , and I guess I only reflect on the City and County ,of Honolulu, is that they have a, difficult time in trying to understand what thecurrent problems. are because the' '.planners are only looking at tomorrow and not recognizing what the problems of today are. By having the :guys call me on the phone and ask me, what are you guys doing? Yet, at the same time,' being mindful of the long range planning considerations , I cannot help but feel that we would have a brand of planning which would be more responsive to the current and the future needs of society. Having a separation creates too much of an administrative kind of problem and planners tend to be too ivory towerish. This is the problem that we face, right now. In talking with the planners at DPD, for example, on the state level , they;§cen<;'it understand why we don ' t want DPD telling the counties what kind of regulatoryaspects they have because 31 they don ' t know the nuts and bolts of processing a building permit or processing a subdivision. and until you hear .a guy ., grumble it becomes hard to plan for tomorrow. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Fuke, the present charter now provides that the Mayor appoint and the County Council comfirm. Do you think that something should- be written into the charter with regards to professionalism insofar as the Planning Director ' s position? MR. FUKE: Whether there should "be minimum qualifications for the position? MR. OMONAKA: In fact, for the rest of the members of the staff, also. MR. FUKE: First of all , to answer your second question, Mr. Omonaka. I think that maybe the charter should be amended to reflect at least a deputy' s position because tho--s'e are all exempt positions. Secondly, I don ' t think. that we necessarily need to specify the minimum quali- fications for the Planning Director and again it is only ' based upon hindsight because I cannot but help but feel that one of the better planners that Hawaii County and the State , has had "isLRaymond:i Suefuji and he didn ' t have a formal planning, education. To only restrict it to guys who went through the formal education process, I think , might be doing some amount of disservice to the county. I think the Mayor should be sufficiently akamai to choose someone who meets., in his own mind, the minimum professional test for being a competent Planning Director. MR. OMONAKA: He could also appoint acrony in that position, if the charter is silent. MR. FUKE : There is that possibility. MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Chairman, I just want to take 'this opportunity to thank Mr. Fuke for coming back a little more prepared and for answering the questions that were shot to him today. It was clearly in the best of his ability and I would just like to thank him for doing it. MR. FUKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, as I indicated earlier, if, for example, there comes a need, after we have studied it, to propose changes to 'the charter as they relate to the general plan, I will make a formal presentation to the Charter Commission and hopefully that should be done within the next. couple of months. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: -Thank you very much, Mr. Fuke. RECESS : At 5 : 20 p.m. the Chair called for a short recess. RECONVENE: At 5 : 38 p.m. the meeting reconvened with all members present. - 32 - APPROVAL The Chair called for the approval of minutes OF MINUTES: dated February 13 , 1979. The motion was made by Mr. Trulson to accept the minutes dated February 13, 1979. Seconded by Mr. , Sensano and un- animously carried. COMMUNI- The following commumitations were considered: CATIONS: Comm. 26: Letter from Stephen Yamashiro, Chairman, dated February 20, 1979 submitting an overview of the duties and responsibilities of the County Council of Hawaii and its recommendations for charter revision. Comm. 27: Letter from William W. Moss , Chairman, dated February 26, 1979 submitting the recommendations of the West Hawaii Committee for charter revision. Comm. 28: Memorandum from Mayor Herbert Matayoshi, dated February 22, 1979 regarding per diem and mileage claims for the Charter Commis- sion. Comm. 29 : Letter from R.B. Legaspi , County Clerk , dated February 27, 1979 submitting the October 10, 1963 and October 17, 1963 minutes of the first Charter Commission and the discussion4ield on the alternate . forms of government. Mr. Schutte moved that Communi- cations 26-29 be received and filed. Seconded by Mr. Trulson and unani- mously carried. DISCUSSION MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman; " Discussion on ON AGENDA: the ;tentative agenda for the following meetings due to the change in the public hearing sc_hedule. It is my opinion that because the `public_Yiearngs had - o be _moved back to allow the necessary y� legaltime for publicity, we do not have anything scheduled for the 13th, 20th, 27th, 3rd or the 10th of April. It is my ' suggestion to this commission that we continue and the various portions of this County Charter be discussed with whatever information that we now have at hand instead of holding off for those dates until after the public hearings. I think we can continue and work with whatever input we have now and do some- thing with the--and work on it anyway. I think we should get some input from the other commissioners. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: • Is there any discussion on this? . - 33 - MR. ISHIDA: Together with what Kalani just said, youknow, this communication from the West" Hawaii Committee,--Mr. Moss called me last week. Because I had anticipated that we would really have a lot of input from this committee during our public hearing and since we do have all this extra time available, I was wondering whether this commission would be amenable to invite representatives of this committee to Hilo to present their views at one of our meetings. The reason I suggest it I think it would help curtail any lengthy public hearing that we might have in Kona. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Ishida, what date are you suggesting? MR. ISHIDA: Any date which is open. I suggested something like that and I know they are going to jump at an invitation like that and they said any date. I think their presentation would probably . follow more or less .:th;e`Cont'ents or substance of their communication. MR. SCHUTTE : Richard, are you suggesting that we invite just this one particular group or that we somehow open it up for any interested individual. MR. ISHIDA: I think it could be for ;anybody else. MR. SCHUTTE: Second question. What is the legal format for opening this up? MR. ISHIDA: Tome, it is a practice of just inviting anybody like Mr. Koehnen to present views. We just take the same procedure. MR. CADINHA: A guest speaker. MR. ISHIDA: Yes. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: That means for example that if any union wants to come in and present their views that would be acceptable, too MR. SCHUTTE : How would we get this out to make everybody aware of this?_ Do we advertise it? MR. ISHIDA: It has nothing to do with the public hearings. I 'm just thinking that if we leave the presentations presented by this group for1the public hearings it will probably prolong the public hearings unnecessarily. The only reason 'I suggested it is because we do have this extra time. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Chairman , why don ' t we for the future dates th3at we go along with what Mr. Ishida is recommending but at the same time use our meeting to - 34 - kind of index the so-called recommendations so that it comes easily to us when we start the deliberations so that maybe we can use our meetings to see if we can ' t go over the recommendations and put them in the proper places so that we have all these things ready at our fingertips. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: So when we categorize these things and put them in their proper areas then during deliberations are we recommending that we have people that have sent commune ?Cations to us come in and discuss with us. . MR. OMONAKA: Whatever testimony we have now. Try to get them categorized so that in the future it isgoing to be easier for us. If we are going to have to start looking through the minutes and say on such and such . a date a certain recommendation was made, it would be a little bit too much. MR. CADINHA: Perhaps there are special sources or people with information that the commissioners may want to approach. I , for one, would like to get some- one like Howard Nakamura, who. is a general consultant who did the general plan on Maui. Or Elmer Carvalho, himself. I don ' t know that he could spare the time to come. But they do, I understand, a couple of things differently. Mr. Fuke mentioned that they split their planning function . up between an implemental stage and the planning stage. Staff and aligned responsibilities. And it is my under- standing that the water situation isunder the mayor., It would be nice for us' to have someone with experience ;'that wouldrepresent, changes from our form of government to talk with. I don ' t know where else we could fit it in but I would like to move that we extend an invitation and pay foran airline ticket, if you will , and perhaps a night in , Hilo to the mayor, or someone that has been part of Maui ' s supb b growth and can give us the benefit of their structure. It is just a thought. - Idon ' t know whether this needs to be in the form of a motion or not. I so move. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I second it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that we offer an invitation to the Mayor of the County of Maui and also to the Planning Director Mr. Nakamura. MR. CADINHA: He ' s not a Planning Director. He ' s a consultant. If the mayor is unable to attend,-, pe=rhaps`:, we could get someone else who could come and testify,'. Esped-y Tally dwelling on those differences with departures that they. have from our form. I 'd like to know how it works and where their snags are. -. MR. ISHIDA: Would Mr. Nakamura be. qualified to answer those questions? - 3.5 MR. CADINHA: The planning questions for sure and I would suspect their water functions.. Thetestimony that we have had so far is that the semi-autonomous state of the water function on this island is a planning problem and I would suspect that a. planner would have run across that. I don ' t know. Ide'ally, I think the mayor. I think the Mayor of Maui would be the best person. Now, whether he is going to fly over here to give time, I don 't know but I:'id sure like to give it a shot. Honolulu is a,' densely populated colony, I think it probably' is different. But, in terms of econfomlc base, size and everything else, Maui perhaps is the closest to us that I can think of'. . I ' d like to give our Chairman the latitude to invite someone from Maui.. Either a legislative individual or an administrative individual to testify before us and answer our questions as to how Maui ' s charterstructure operates. Its strengths and its weaknesses so that we can have the benefit of their experiences. - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that the Chair send a letter of invitation to a member of the Maui government ttyDcome and testify to present to us on a more informative basis about their own charter. MR. CADINHA: Specifically, their water function' and their planning function. From what I Yh`ave been able to pick up, they both are different than wecurrently have. - MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Cadinh"a, I think , is amending his original motion. Is that correct? You already have a motion on the floor. MR. CADINHA: Yes, I 'm amending it insofar as it is non-specific as to personality. - Just to someone . and the discretion be left to our Chairman. I would like to move that we invite some- one and that someone should be at the discretion of our Chairman. Someone from Maui so that they could come ':,and testify before us with respect to their water function in government and how their charter works and with respect to their planning functions. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I second. MR. ISHIDA: Your intent of the motion is not strictly on water, right? But emphasis on planning and water? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and - seconded that the Chair send a letter of invitation to the Maui council or any government official who has anything to do with water or planning or anything related to a specific mention of the charter. All those in favor? Any opposed? Carried. - 36 - MR ISHIDA Mr. Chairman®. CfReferring to the West Hawaii Committee again. Can we just have a date, maybe like the 27th of March? Maybe we should send out an invitation. How,. about the 13th? Inviting them to appear before us to give - their recommendations for charter revision. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: That would be March 13`tik . Secretary to send a letter to the West Hawaii Committee inviting them to be here on the 13th, that is next week , to testify before the commission and we will ask . Mr. Ishida to phone them on this. Also direct the secretary to assemble and disseminate all information to date. Categorizing it for us so that it will be easier for us when we do our revision of the charter. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6: 17 p.m. until Tuesday, March 13, 1979 at 3 : 30 p.m. , Hawaii County Councilroom. dg)544-ar- Joan Carnett RECORDING SECRETARY 37 -