CHC 1979-05-22 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

MR. TAYLOR: - My name is Rick Taylor. I work M1 for the YMCA in Kona although I am here just to speak my personal feelings. Working with young kids has given me some real food for thought over the years. They ask a lot of real pointed questions. They are not afraid to put, you 'on the spot. Some of the thingsthey have been asking in a program we have called "Youth Legislature" which is a program that helps kids to understand how. county governments and state governments work. . .some of the questions they ask me are, why don ' t people vote?. .why don ' t they get involved in their government?. . .why doni';t they come to meetings like this?. . . isn ' t a democracy supposed to be government by the people for themselves, for the people?. .how do we get all these profes- sional politicians that we read about in Washington that seem to find ways to, like somebody said to milk the - county whatever from whatever their means?. .how are governments made so inefficient?. .especially if this whole country was built on a free enterprise system that created a society based on individual productivity and incentives as rewards?. .it seems like if the water department or the planning department were being operated on a profit basis, they wouldn ' t be nearly so reluctant to install water systems and process building permits in burgeoning areas like West Hawaii? So they ask me these questions and I get real troubled and sometimes don ' t find the answers. But it does make me think about them. What I have kind of found for myself is that some of the things that might return people to the government and the government to the people would be more direct involvement of people, like in direct election of representatives. No more electing at-large representatives that aren ' t really answerable to anybody in particular. Along that same line, I 'd like to see there be something in the charter about recall . If we find that there is a representative that isn,' t_truly representing the expressed wishes of the people, cwerwould'r like to have a way to remove him from office. We would like to have a way to initiate law ideas of our own. If it wasn 't for Initiat:ive and Referendum, Proposition 13 would never have been passed in Cal-ifornia. We' d like to encourage citizen legislators like I think that the framers of the Constitution wanted. They didn ' t want professional politicians. They wanted people from all walks 'of, life., all kinds of experience, to come together like you)p ople are doing/on this charter review board and help with government �79-ive, their input. . .give the experience of businessmen in increasing efficiency in county government. So we would like to see more citizen legislators -by .limiting terms to8 years whether they are served concurrentlyor not. whether they serve in two years at a time, overlapping four year terms, or whatever isn ' t a major concern except that people feel like they have an opportunity to speak their minds about the direction the -36-