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<br />minutes 03-11-00Page 1 of 17
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<br />HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION
<br />Transcript of Public Hearing March 11, 2000
<br />Waimea Civic Center
<br />Waimea, Hawaii
<br />Members: Present: J. Ray, S. Bess, M. Herkes, R. Higashi, S. Irvine, G. Martin (from 9:15 a.m.), G. Yoshiyama
<br />Absent: E. Alonzo, K. Balog, D. Kurozawa, J. Santangelo
<br />And 6 members of the public in attendance.
<br />The meeting was called to order at 9:05 a.m.
<br />RAY: I’d like to call the 1999-2000 Hawaii County Charter Commission Public Hearing to order. It’s Saturday, March 11th.
<br />We’re at the Waimea Civic Center in Waimea.
<br />Attendance. Present at this time, myself John Ray, Roland Higashi, Steve Bess, Marni Herkes, Sue Irvine, and Gary
<br />Yoshiyama, and we’re expecting a couple of more folks to come in.
<br />If nobody objects, prior to Statements from the Public, if anybody’s in a hurry and would like to go ahead and make a
<br />statement before I go through a brief summary, they’re welcome to do so. So would anybody like to do that? Otherwise I’d
<br />like to run through briefly a summary of where we are right now. So is that okay? And on the table there are the short form
<br />summaries that we mailed out, as well as more detailed summaries.
<br />Initially I want to make it very clear that this is very much a work in process. We’re very open to input on what we’ve
<br />suggested, as well as anything else that the public may want to submit. We understand that even though it’s kind of late in the
<br />process for us, that generally people don’t engage things like this until they get a little further along and they have some meat
<br />to chew on and whatever. So, that’s why we’ve been pushing to get proposed amendments out as quickly as possible. So, like
<br />I say, they’re very much in progress and there’s lots of things still to be decided, and a lot of votes still to be made, especially
<br />in terms of the language and the refining of some of these proposals. So we’ll be doing that over the next couple of months
<br />before we take our final votes on the proposed amendments, and of course, all that will just be proposed for the election,
<br />which will be voted on by the general public in November.
<br />Going through the proposed amendments as listed in the summary, first the non-partisan elections. I think that’s pretty clear
<br />as far as, not only what that’s all about but, how that would work in terms the Primary vs. the General Election if someone
<br />wins 50% plus one votes, they automatically win in the Primary. Otherwise, the top two vote getters go on to the Special
<br />Election. There’s also an explanation that deals with the second proposed amendment, the possibility of having 3 at-large
<br />seats. So, in other words, if that was voted in then it explains how that would work for the at-large seats in a non-partisan
<br />election. So, in other words, if both those first two pass, then that would be applicable, that scenario.
<br />The three at-large seats. I think that’s pretty clear. The one area that I want to go through is the scenario of allowing
<br />incumbent Council members, whoever were in office, to run for one at-large seat when this would be implemented in the year
<br />2002. And the reason that’s significant is because that would be a one-time exception in regard to the present term limits,
<br />which are four-year terms. So, no matter where someone were in terms of term limits, we’re talking about a one-time
<br />exception, that if you’re in office in 2002, you’d be able to run for - The background on that is the term limits didn’t start
<br />until 1996, so that’s when they were implemented. So, in 2002, everybody would have served six years out of the 8-year term
<br />limit. So, if you wanted to run for a 4-year term in 1996, even though that would take you two years beyond the present term
<br />limits, that would be allowed under our proposal.
<br />GRAHAM: But not allowed in the distant future if you have six years under your belt, you can’t run for a 4-year term?
<br />RAY: Right, it’s just a one-time - And a lot of thinking behind that is just that practically speaking, those are the people that
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