HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0494.014 2014-2016F/Council
Leslie, Earlanne
From: Cheryl King [CKing@hawaii.rr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 3:47 PM
To: Council Testimony
Cc: Kanuha, Dru; Eoff, Karen; Wille, Margaret; David, Maile; Chung, Aaron; Paleka, Daniel;
Poindexter, Valerie; Greggor.Illagan@Hawaiicounty.gov; Onishi, Dennis
Subject: Testimony ref Bill 101
I appreciate the Finance Committee's willingness to send this bill on to Council to
reconsider what might be done.
I feel it essential to enlarge the number of members on the Ethics Board beyond the 5
currently provided for, based on my own experience bringing a concern before the Board after
the last election cycle.
It struck me at that time that the members were not representative of the island
population ..... the 5 were all male and appeared to be all from Hilo. (Only 4 were present
for the final decision) One person appeared to dominate the group Had there been more
diversity in gender and district origin and more members, I felt the discussion might have
been quite different.
For me, enlarging the Board has never been about having a quorum as it never occurred to me
until the past 6 months that this could be a problem. It has always been about the need for
board members to have diverse backgrounds and geographic origin.
Of concern to me, especially with such a small board, is the requirement that no more than 3
members be from the same political party. This board should not be partisan. It makes it
extremely difficult to select a diverse board when half the people who applied have been
eliminated based on their party preference.
Please take steps to increase the number of board members and to ensure that their homes are
equally distributed between West and East Hawaii.
Cheryl King
Cheryl King
Phone: 808-326-7016
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