CHC 1979-05-15 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Melrose, youmentioned that you follow this Chamber of Commerce point on council structure. You go along with them that all of these are to be district representation from representative districts and none at-large, right? No€none,kr.unning at-large? MR. MELROSE: Correct, no at-large seats on the county council. I- believe what they are proposing here is something as an interim to allow a direct representation rather than a continued structure. Primarily, I believe, because the rolh of West Hawaiiischanging significantly from thetime when this charter was developed, in ,:terms of its population as well as its role, economically, in the County of Hawaii. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, Mr. Melrose. Next we would like to call on Ms. Ruth Tabrah. MS. TABRAH: I would like to testify in two capacities. First as the Chairman of Hawaii County Democratic Party and on behalf of the party, I would like to.m k_easpecigfic recommendation. We had written to the commission earlier about our concern for your changing Section l3-4,--( f) and the material which you have at hand we had further amended in our March 25 Democratic County Committee meeting. The language we would like to see reflected in your recommendations for change would be: "A majority of the appointees to each board and commission shall be members in good standing of the political party for which the largest number of votes were cast in the primary election preceging their appointment. " We feel that the present situation makes for a very uneven kind of representation in government. We feel that boards and commissions are a very important cog between the ordinary citizen aPthe grass roots level in each community and the way in which he wants hid governmentto operated Since no definition of political party is now provided by ordinance or statute or chart er language, a situation prevails in this county that if you are going to run for elective office you must be a candidate who is a member in good standing of a political party. Or if you run as an independent you must qualify by getting a certain percentage of the voters to be able to run in the general . This means that the voter who is asked to consider you as a candidate knows that you are something more than just an attractive personality and it takes voting and elections out of a popularity contest and lets you know by which party the candidate stands for. What kinds of attitudes he has on the basic issues of government, The kinds of ideas he holds as to certain principals and the way government shall be carried out. When it comes to appointive office, most of the appointments being made at boards and commissions are independents. Men and women who belong to no political party. -29-