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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -6 December 14, 2018 <br />Next thing is Communication No. 24, the PONC staff person. I absolutely <br />support that. Debbie and I have written an amendment. I don't know if that is <br />what this one is about, but Debbie Hecht has the amendment and she is <br />supposably is going to provide it to you. The PONC should pay for a staff person <br />and the only job they should have in the finance department is working to get the <br />PONC lands maintenance managed by community groups, going after money... <br />Mayor Kim made it sound like the County is paying a 100% of these lands and <br />that is not true. We get state funds, we get private funds, we get grants, plus the <br />County funds. The reason we go after these particular lands in a certain order is <br />because we go after the lands that have money matching funds. That's the whole <br />purpose of the PONC is to get matching funds. We can't always do it, but we <br />should always try to do it. <br />Now the last things is Communication No. 25, this is regarding the salary <br />commission. I have never been so appalled as the last County salary commission <br />that gave raises to the executive people and the County Council, approximately <br />30% increases, saying well Maui and Honolulu and all these other places have <br />higher salaries. Too bad. We don't live in those places. We live here. It is not <br />about giving people a lot of money to do their job and then give them a 30% raise. <br />I mean look at the things that we still have to get done and they are not getting <br />done, and people are sitting on their bottoms and they are not doing their job. <br />Giving them a 30% raise is outrageous. What you should be doing is eliminating <br />the salary commission in its entirety. The job should go back to the County <br />Council and they should be doing the job of setting salaries for themselves and the <br />executives, and if they do it wrong, every two years they are going to get voted <br />out of office. They better not screw up. The salary commission is responsible to <br />no one and we saw what they did. When you give somebody, a group, or a person <br />absolute power, it corrupts absolutely and now we have got a massive increase in <br />salaries at the executive level and there is no excuse for it at all. Please consider <br />what I have said as a former Council member and a person who worked hard to <br />get the PONC fund and its maintenance fund established in the Charter to protect <br />it from Mayors and Council members, and apparently Charter Commission who <br />keeps trying to destroy it. Thank you. <br />CHR. ADAMS: Thank you. I would like to bring in a couple of testifiers from <br />Hilo. I have Cory Harden and Doug Sensenig. If you could come to the table <br />please. Just a reminder if you would please provide your name and the agenda <br />items that you are speaking to. <br />DOUG SENSENIG: Proposal No. CA -7 and Proposal No. CA -9, commenting. <br />MR. SENSENIG: My name is Doug Sensenig. I live in Waimea. I am the former <br />executive director of the Hawai`i Island Land Trust and I am here representing <br />my own perspective. I oppose CA -7 and I am in favor of CA -9. I just want to <br />emphasize sort of some general things that I think are extremely important when <br />characterizing the amount of money that is in the fund. Land here as everyone <br />Page 10 <br />