CHC 1979-05-15 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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Have declared no affiliation with principal or platform and are non-partisans who would find it almost impossible under our election laws to qualify for any elective office. The party asks , how can we afford such discrimination between those who participate in the policy making and decision making process of our government on elective and appointive bases? The present lack of clarity as to this in the County Charter and the present lack of ordinance, thereto, has resulted in discrimination against members of either political party as appointees to boards and commissions. These boards and commissions are an integral part of our county government and an integral part of our political structure and ought they not to be subject to the same political qualifications as candidates for elective office? If our mayor and county council ran for office and were elected on a non-partisan basis, then the present system of appointments to boards and commissions would be valid. We protest that grave injustice and discrim- ination prevails in this matter, and we urge the commissioners to change the language or to recommend that the voters approve the language change of 13-4-( f) to read, "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 preceding their appointment. " In the testimony which we submitted to you in writing, earlier, we attached as reference and resource material to our testimony, the correspondence of March 2, 1979 from Deputy Corporation Counsel Alan Okamoto to Deputy County Clerk Yasuki Arakaki . We would appreciate the commission ' s serious discussion and attention to this because we feel that whichever political party has the majority of elected officials in power, then the appointive boards and commissions should reflect the philosophy of the people in power. We feel that we are otherwise going in the direction of government by personality rather than by principal. We feel that is the wrong direction to go. MR. CADINHA: Ms. Tabrah, I have a question with regard to that. Do you really feel that party philosophy carries down to the county level? A county our size? MS. TABRAH : That ' s why I 'm county chairman. That is what we are trying to make happen. We are trying to get people to take a different look at government and not accept the fact that corruption is a part of the political process and to go back to the old idea of politics. Politics is people. The contemporary, current aim of today' s -30-