2010-11-10 Board of Ethics Minutes

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HAWAII COUNTY BOARD OF ETHICS MINUTES — REGULAR SESSION' Wednesday, November 10, 2010 10:02 a.m. to 10:53 a.m. 101 Aupuni Street, Suite 230 (Department of Liquor Control Conference Room) Hilo, Hawaii 96720 Members and staff present: John E. K. Dill, Chair Ann Lum, Vice Chair Arne T. Henricks, Member Bernard Balsis, Jr., Member David Heaukulani, Member Renee N. C. Schoen, Deputy Corporation Counsel Mary E. Crosson, Secretary for the Board 1. CALL TO ORDER The Chair called the meeting to order. 2. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS The Chair called up attorney Brian DeLima, who had signed up to testify regarding agenda item 5a. CHAIR: Go Ahead, Mr. DeLima. DeLIMA: I'm here also for that Sa, which is the Board of Ethics proposal. I've previously provided written testimony to this Board on that Bill 230, and I've also testified in front of the council. My position is the same. There is ethics provisions that already prohibit self - dealing, and it also prohibits any conflicts of interest. And I think the real question is what is Bill 30 [sic] in terms of the provisions that I've spoken about, in terms of prohibiting county employees from that have a controlling interest from contracting with the county. What is it intending to do? And the Board of Ethics proposed some amendments. We really didn't have any quarrel with the amendments that the Board of Ethics proposed. What we did was have a quarrel with Bill 230 as it was originally proposed. I think the unintended consequences is that it prohibits employees who may be independent contractors or who receive stipends and contributions to county employees from being able to do things such as swimming lessons or ukulele lessons or hula lessons. The special duty police officers are all independent contractors. The county actually makes money from contracting out special duty police officers. The checks from the companies do not go to the county but actually go to the individual independent contractor police officers. That maybe prohibited under the ' Minutes in italics are verbatim. Blanks indicate inaudible or indecipherable speech.