2018-10-24 Meeting Minutes (EMC)

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thank you, the meeting is October 12 in Hilo, he was never invited. The EMC’s recommendation got truncated or bifurcated, and the Charter Commission focused entirely on the Department of Water Supply and did not look at the big picture at all. He was angry and frustrated with the process. He realizes now that if the EMC’s recommendation were to have more power, it needed political legs. He did not feel it was in his purview to become a political advocate in front of the Charter Commission on behalf of the EMC. He has done nothing subsequent to submitting the report, other than speaking to a reporter who put a camera in his face on Saturday, and he made some comments to the effect that unfortunately, the Charter Commission did not look at the whole picture. Chair Bennett proposed, in order to try and make this right, to take what the EMC approved and put it into a white paper. The white paper would be sent to the Charter Commission with a copy to the executive branch and the County Council, to see if it stimulates a conversation. Also in his naivety, he thought the Charter Commission would be putting things on the ballot in November, but he learned that what was going to be on the ballot was already decided by the time he communicated the EMC’s report. So that made him wonder what the purpose was. Are their recommendations for 10 years down the road? He felt a bit bulldozed. Vice Chair Olson said this body was created because it got onto the ballot. Unlike some other commissions that come and go, any suggestion to remove or reduce the function of this body would be met with substantial resistance. Chair Bennett said he did not think that was on the table, as usually when you come into being by a vote of the entire electorate of the county, you have some staying power. Vice Chair Olson said the point of the EMC, in their thinking when it was created, was to give people a voice, some place to come and interact directly. By virtue of this body, people are being heard. Commissioner Gaffney said he understands that the EMC’s responsibility is to the executive and legislative branches of the county. Regardless of whether or not they were successful in getting the Charter Commission to hear them, they still have means. If they missed the Charter Commission window, then they move on and go back to the means that were created when the EMC was created. Chair Bennett said that Hurricane Lane cost them a month, but the Charter Commission wanted to move forward quickly. For their October 12 meeting, he was simply advised they were having a meeting. He didn’t know the EMC’s report was on the agenda, and he was never invited to do a presentation on the rationale behind the extensive set of recommendations the EMC had put forward. It seems to him that somewhere in the process, a decision was made that the EMC’s proposal was going to go nowhere. As he mentioned at the previous meeting, he never had any expectation it would get on the ballot, but he wanted to start the conversation. Therefore, he was now proposing to draft a white paper, get it to the members of the EMC subcommittee for input, bring it back to the EMC for review and approval, and then forward it to the executive and legislative branches. There are other ways to get things on the ballot, so all is not lost.