CHC 1979-05-15 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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Recently, the five organizations in the West Hawaii paper gave me the idea by their proposal that the charter should provide some sort of a solution where when a councilman , or elected official , gets ill and have to stay away at home for three or four months, that we provide somebody to take his place. That is a good idea. Today, I forget what some of our councilmen look like. They don ' t attend meetings. I don ' t think the chairman and the vice-chairman attended one single budget review meeting. There should be some provision that able- bodied public officials, once a week, attend every meeting unless they get sick. Like Bill Kawahara, you have to excuse him, it was no fault of his but where is our vice-chairman? Where is our chairman? We don ' t know where they are. They never came and gave any opinion on the subject. Something has to be done. Something should be provided in the charter. I don ' t know what. But, the recall , if the people know about it, throw them all out, we don ' t need them. If I do the same, I deserve to be kicked out. Number eight--provide chairman of council to attend at least--you see, Mr. Yamashiro is a good friend of mine, so, because of that I have him mentioned twice and it looks like I am getting at him, so I guess just forget about that. That recall will handle it. Nine--another important area is to provide a legal counsel for our county council . You see this is another area where Mr. Yamashiro threw out the only legal counsel that we had. He refused to conduct a meeting unless our attorney wasn ' t there. Get out of our office! How do you like that. This is the kind of county we have. A lot of things have to be added to this charter. Not one -area where I find WHO enforces this charter. I don ' t think that you can show me an area where who enforces it. I know there are violations. I can spell them out to you and I think your legal counsel can, as well . He might not answer this . Look at Section 5-2.5 , Page 10. This is something that actually happened. . . "The council MAY, by two-thirds vote of its entire membership. . " Okay, what does that mean? "authorize the employment of special counsel for any special matter presenting a real necessity for such employment. " The counsel MAY by two-thirds vote ! What does that mean? MAY by two''-thirds vote. Does that mean that say, the police commission , in this case, the police commission , go out and hire 'their own counsel? Without the county council approving? By two-thirds vote? Because just the word may in there, it means that they don ' t have to. The counsel MAY. MR. TRULSON : Perhaps it gives them the power to do it. Is it possible to say the council may--in other words , that they are empowered to do it. MR. SAMESHIMA: They are empowered but can they go ahead and hire? Does it mean that--this is one of the reasons why Mr. ' Abe got paid. Nobody approved hiring him. Neither the administration, nor the police commission. -22-