CHC 1979-05-22 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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I don ' t need to help you. Not, that they will do that but when we get down to the nitty-gritty fight for what we are fighting for, that could happen. We have not established our position, as yet, and listening to other committees proposals, there are some useful hints in changing the system into a district voting system. At this time, I have no position to present. But we are weighing the idea of the district voting system and, at present, the position of the issue that I am going to present to my association at our next meeting will be based on this system that I have here. Now, we are not prepared to say what the districts are going to be or how many districts , etc. We are not prepared to say how many councilmen we think should be on the committee. ' But, basing on the nine county councilman structure that we have now, I feel that if we use the five district system, we have one representative, one councilman from each district and four at-large. For the basic reason that we will , almost, at one time have five going in the direction that we feel would be valid. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you very much, Mr. Leslie. We would like to call on Mr. Leon Sterling. MR. STERLING: Mr. Chairman , members ' of the commission. I am Leon Sterling. A resident of Kona. Former. member and chairman of the Hawaii County Planning Commission. Also, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1978. I 'm present tonight, because I don ' t think the language in the charter addresses itself, neither is it responsive to the needs of today. This is a philosophical approach, what I am . about to say„, We either can stay with very general provisions, as there seem to be in the present charter. Or we can be more specific. However, I am of the considered opinion that by staying with very general language, "we can maximize political indifferenceindifference or polit3:'cal pressures. I would like to address myself, particularly, to becomng more specific and stressing cooperation between the different governmental agencies.. For example, the charter states that the chief of police of the County of Hawaii is responsible to maintain the public peace. We also have the public 'prosecutor ' s office within the present charter. I cannot reconcile myself as to how we' canmaintain the public peace in our county if we do not call forcooperation , not only between the prosecutor and the police department, but also "the coopera- tion of the judiciary. This was brought out .very clearly last week in the resignation of the chief agent for the F.B.I. who is seeking early retirement in 'Hawaii because of the lack of proper sentencing of criminals. -42-