MIN CHARTER 2018-08-10 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. Are there any questions or comments for Counsel Schoen? I do have a question. So in your— in the Corporation Counsel's role, it has responsibility to support the entire County government, both the legislative and executive branches. There are times, it has been known to happen, not just in this County, where the executive and the legislative branches might find themselves on the opposite side of things. How do, how does, Corporation Counsel manage that within the scope of its powers, duties, and functions presently? MS. SCHOEN: Well presently Section 6 5.5 is the Section that's related to special counsel, so if there is indeed a conflict of interest, whether it be between the executive and the legislative branch or just any other type of conflict that we find ourselves in, then we would ask the County Council for permission to retain special counsel. That's basically how we handle it. I know that other counties like Honolulu and Maui, they do have separate counsel for their Council. And that issue has come up but it hasn't come up this tern. CHR. ADAMS: I guess I would be interested, I understand yes, we can use the special counsel and I guess I'd be interested in seeing a little bit more commentary on the advantages and disadvantages of another system. Would that be possible for the Counsel to prepare something like that for the Commission? MS. SCHOEN: Sure. We can do that. CHR. ADAMS: I am not looking at a time, you know just something that gives us some, maybe me only some clarification on, you know this is how we do it, there are potential issues with that and there are of course advantages with doing that, and then compare and contrast that with, you know, another example that you provide where that is not the case. MS. SCHOEN: Let me say this, we do—our office does take the position that the County as a whole is the client and so whatever legal advice we provide the Administration is going to be the same legal advice that we provide the legislative branch, so you know that I think has prevented a lot of conflict of interest if you will. It's going to be the same no matter who asks...it should be the same. CHAIR ADAMS: Okay, are there any other questions or comments? Okay. Mr. Roehrig. MR. ROEHRIG: How do you decide when you're in conflict, what's the process to make the determination? When do you think there may be a conflict, is there a procedure, is there a person, is there. Page 8