Ordinance 06-051 - Laserfiche WebLink

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COUNTY OF HAWAII STATE OF HAWAII BILL NO. 232 ORDINANCE NO. 0s 5 AN ORDINANCE TO INITIATE A CHARTER AMENDMENT TO SECTION 13 -4, ARTICLE XIII OF THE HAWAF I COUNTY CHARTER RELATING TO COMPOSITION AND TERMS OF BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS. BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE COUNTY OF HAWAI'L SECTION 1. Purpose. Section 13, Article XIII of the Hawaii County Charter sets forth the appointment requirements and duration of terms for members of the various boards and commissions of the County of Hawaii. Currently, when a member of a board or commission resigns before the expiration of the member's term, a replacement is found to serve out the remainder of the previous member's term. In many cases, the replacement is serving a term of two years or less. Because members cannot currently succeed themselves, in many cases, willing members of the public would rather wait for a full term, rather than fill such a short term, thus no replacement is found and the board or commission must operate with the vacancy for the remainder of the term. This has created considerable hardship for these boards and commissions to operate with less than a full membership to meet quorum or having a sufficient number of votes to take action. It creates cancelled meetings or delayed actions because of insufficient votes. At present, the Charter precludes a replacement from being reappointed to the board or commission. On an initial appointment, the Charter does allow a member to succeed themselves, this amendment would extend this provision and its rationale to all members who serve less than a two -year term to succeed themselves, recognizing that this situation exists not only for initial appointments, but for all terms of less than two years. This Charter amendment would assist the County of Hawaii in ensuring that boards and commissions are fully and properly staffed with