CHC 1979-05-01 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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convey to you some of the inside feelings of being a councilman. I don ' t know whether this will be of any help to you. I know you people are all tired listening to the same old story, same old subject and I am pretty sure it is very boring. I have been a public official and I certainly understand the feeling. However, as a councilman for four years , in fact , eight years , I feel that I have a sense of understanding and feeling of what the composition of the council should be. You may not have to abide by it but at least listen and I would appreciate very much any questions you might have after my presentation. I served on the council with six Democrats and three Republicans, the first term. The second term we had nine Democrats. To be honest with you, I think we had a better council when we had the Republicans and the Democrats because we had the difference between different opinions and we got along pretty well . However, when our councilmen were nine Democrats , I was at that time being the chairman, and it was a difficult task to keep the councilmen together and work together with the administration for the betterment of our people and the County of Hawaii and coordinate with the state government and also the federal government. Council work is not just purely being elected and attend the council meetings. There are far more responsibilites because of the coordination of the county, state and the federal government. This is where, as the • previous speakers have mentioned, we receive a large amount of grants from the state and federal government and we have to work very closely because our revenue alone from the real property will not sustain our services to all the general public. During my term, I have come to a conclusion that nine councilmen is to cumbersome. I. think we should have just five and follow the representative district. One of the big reasons is this , that we have a councilman from Ka'u.::who -- represents 3,000 people and we have only one councilman repre- senting North and South Hilo with 38,000 people. Is that fair? It is impossible. You might say, oh, everybody elected at-large. Yes , they all elected at-large. But we are all human beings . You and I , we are human beings. And I have noticed that each councilman who comes from the district always favor their district before they consider any other district. When we have a share of the CIP , I took notice that all the money goes into their district. And, members of the Charter Review, I swear to this , this is human nature. So what is the good of running at-large? I don ' t think it is any help. It is just creating a lot of cost and expense to the councilmen. Spending $25 , 000 , $30 , 000 to get elected. Half their salary for the four-year term is already gone and then there are other miscellaneous in other ways. Are they just working for the pure sake of being honored as an elected official , as a councilman? Of course, it is a great honor to be elected by the people. I also feel that the •councilmen should be compensated as they are today. They should be elected for four years because I think it is very difficult for a councilman to -20-