CHC 1979-07-31 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The initial suggestion that I made last week which was the handout where you vote for the initial question as to whether you want to amend the Section 3-2 and you vote for one of two options, that , in itself, is also subject to some serious problems, as I re-examine those provisions. The reason is, of course, as you pointed out, Richard, that you cannot--this possibility of getting a majority of the votes cast from voting on the options is very difficult. So you are slanting it in favor of the status quo by virtue of that. So even the suggestions made last week , for all practical purposes, are no good. MR. ISHIDA: So all the alternatives that we discussed last week are out the window, then? MR. ODA: Yes. Basically, we have found a case involving this county. Some of you may be old enough to remember this one. Shunichi Kimura, Ralph Kiyosaki, and Herbert Matayoshi versus County of Hawaii and Margaret Kaaua. This was regarding a lawsuit involving the ballot language for the 1966 Charter provisions, approval of the County Charter. They had alternatives presented in the ballot. The basic issue in that case, the basic question in that case was whether. the votes on the alternative provision could count toward the majority of the votes cast. If you consider alternatives as options , here, for discussion purposes. The Supreme Court, in that particular situation held that you cannot add the votes on the alternatives together with -anything else to count toward the majority. It has to be counted separately. So, even reading into that case, I think the assumption we made_last week ,which Mr. Sensano and I both made was actually erroneous. We cannot look at the votes on the options separately and say, aha, you know, they amount to more than 50% and tally up all the yeses on the options. You can 't do that. Each option has to have a majority of the votes. If you have 100 votes in all, in order for option #1 to prevail you 've got to have at least 51 votes on option #1 , itself. According to the way I interpret that particular case. So it presents a formidable drafting problem. One person at the conference--meeting that we had said perhaps because of the number of alternatives or options that we have, perhaps it ' s not even possible to come up with any language. Maybe he' s right. To conform to law. CHAIRMAN SCHUTTE : Is there any other discussion? MR. TRULSON : Mr. Oda, do you feel if thiswas proposed and put on the ballot and say anyone of the options 'you', want or the status of the same. . .this may be just a gut " reaction , it ' s hard for me to say, but, do you think the result could be successfully challenged? MR. ODA: If what were put on the ballot? -9-