CHC 1979-07-31 - Laserfiche WebLink

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difficult, if not impossible. so we called the Lt. Governor' s Office and arranged to meet with them on Friday, last week Friday, for whatever assistance could be provided us in drafting the ballot language, based on the latest submissions regarding Section 3-2. Ms. Higa and I flew to Honolulu, Friday, and met with Mr. Tamashiro and a person named Bob Mailer, also of his office, the election office, and another person from the city clerk ' s office in Honolulu. Five of us and we discussed the options that were available to us as I presented it to the commission on Tuesday night, last Tuesday or Wednesday. After very thorough consideration of all possible ways in which to devise a fair ballot provision, none of us could come up with anything that we could consider to be fair or appropriate. On Monday, since I was tied up with other matters, I sent Ms. Higa back to Honolulu to meet with the individual--the ,corporation councsel ' s office in Honolulu, to meet with the deputy who was assigned to assist the Honolulu Charter Commission in drafting the Honolulu'' Charter amendment. n ballots. Ms. Higa spent all day in Honolulu discussing the problems and met together with Mr. Tamashiro and several others who had met with us previously. The only suggestion that they could come up with after thorough consideration of all options, was to come up with three options and all people vote on one of the three options. Not even considering the present provision. However, this is not to say that I agree that this is an appropriate ballot language, or anything like that. Let me try to explain the problems that I see in it based on the suggestion. that was made. (Frances Higa made the following chalkboard presentation) 3 OPTIONS NOT INCLUDING STATUS VOTE FOR ONE : Are you in favor of Option #1? ( 7 man) Yes No ►► ,► ►► " ►► Option #2? (9-0) '► ►1 91 " " " Option #3? ( 5-4) " �► MR. ODA: You will note, Mr. Chairman, that the status quo is not listed as one of the.7options. The reason it is not listed as one of the options is , first of all, and the biggest concern is that if it is listed as an option , what if it doesn ' t get a majority? _ Then even the status quo is subject to serious question if neither of the four options, if the status quo is listed. So we have a built in problem there. Now, so far as the three options up there are concerned, there would be a confusion as to who would be voting for the status quo because it ' s not listed. If you are saying that those who vote for "no" any one of those "no" options are, in fact, saying that they want status quo, that may not necessarily be true. -3-