CHC 1979-04-17 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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their work. Many people didn ' t. But the point is that you elected them to go down there and do a job and they did it. I think that people find things a little easier to accept then. In that same area, I feel that if you worked this out so that the commission is elected at one particular general election and the results of their work is submitted at the following general election which is two years later, it would give you a lot more time for input. It would give a person time to really become familiar with the subject _matter. Public hearings could be interspersed over that amount of time. You would have time for public hearings on the results of your work as well as input into it. You wouldn ' t have to go at it at such a hurried pace. It would then be set up so that it came at a specific general election and it would remove some of the questions that you are having now--should we spend $60, 000 or $100,000? Are we going to benefit this group or hurt that group by having a special election? And that is exactly what people are saying. Right or wrong. So if you have this specified in the document and people agree that that is what should be done then that would take care of it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Pulham, you talk about vacancy of a councilman and we have heard much about this and we.'';have even had our legal counsel check into this word "vacancy" because we are not too clear on this word or what it really means. There is a section in the County Charter that definitely speaks about vacancy in office. In Article III , Section 3-5 . It does say exactly what happens when there is a vacancy in the county council . But the point in consideration here is the one in Kona. We have a councilman in Kona who is not really up to parto represent that area right now. We have been talking about this from input from the Chamber of Commerce of Kona. We have been talking about it with the Kona Women ' s Group and we really have a hang up on this. What does vacancy really mean? If a person cannot operate and fill his office because he is sick and there is no medical record to state that he is incompetent in doing his work, does that constitute vacancy or not? So we are really hung up on this but we really feel that there is a section in the County Charter that really specifies what takes place when there is a vacancy in office. So as far as what you said that there is no specific mention of that in the charter but there is and we would like to inform you that we are looking at this from the standpoint of what is in the charter as far as vacancy is concerned when the councilman is sick or ill and cannot represent his area. MR. PULHAM: Are youinterpreting that section then as saying it covers illness and incapacity? The one that is presently in the charter? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: So this is what we are saying: what does it mean by "vacancy. " We are not too clear on this yet so we are really looking at this from this point. MR. PULHAM: Yes, I think you need to clarify it, right. I think that was my point. - 20 -