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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-01-08 HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION M I NUT E S 1st Session January 8, 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The first session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 3 :02 p.m. in the Hawaii County Councilroom, Hawaii County Building, Hilo, Hawaii, by Mr. Kimiaka Sakata, Chairman Pro Tem. The roll recorded the following: Present: Mr. Harlan Cadinha Mr. Richard Ishida Mrs. Amy Iwamoto Mrs. Gloria Kobayashi Mr. Akira Omonaka Mr. Kimiaki Sakata Mr. Spencer Kalani Schutte Mr. Herman Sensano Mr. Joseph Trulson Mr. Basilio Yagong Mr. Matsuo Yanaga Councilman James Dahlberg Councilman Tornio Fujii Councilwoman Merle Lai Corporation Counsel Stephen Bess County Clerk R. B. Legaspi Recording Secretary E. L. Ludloff INTRODUCTORY The Chair called on Councilman Fujii who said a REMARKS: -few words on behalf of the County Council. He thanked the commissioners for volunteering their time and effort to serve on the Commission and added that theirs will be a tremendous undertaking with many hours of long, hard work. On behalf of the Council, he extended their appreciation for the Commissioners ' willingness to be of service to the County of Hawaii. COMMUNI- The following communications were considered: CATIONS : Comm. 1 : From County Clerk R. B. Legaspi transmitting the Oath of Office certificates for the Charter Commission members. The Chair directed that the certificates be filed with the County Clerk. There was no objection. Comm. 2 : From the Rev. H. K. Boshard dated December 15, 1978, offering suggestions on Council reapportionment. Mr. Omonaka moved to acknowledge receipt of the letter and to inform Rev. Boshard that when the Commission deliberates on election of Council members by districts, his letter will be considered. Seconded by Mr. Yagong and unanimously carried. SUNSHINE LAW The Chair then called on Corporation Counsel ORIENTATION: Stephen Bess to explain the provisions of the Sunshine Law. Mr. Bess advised the commissioners that they should follow the provisions of Section 13-20(b) , Hawaii County Charter, pertaining to meetings. The Charter sought to provide as much openness in government as possible, therefore, all decisions should be made in full view of the public to assure that all deci- sions were made in the best interest of the public. There was a great deal of litigation on the Sunshine Law provisions of the charter, the most recent centered on how the charter was to be read with Chapter 92, Hawaii Revised Statutes. Judge Kubota' s ruling on the State of Hawaii vs. the Hawaii County Police Commission, was that the charter applied and that none of the provisions of Chapter 92 applied. Mr. Bess suggested that it might be helpful for the commission to refer to Chapter 92 as a guide as it sets up a number of procedures to be followed which the charter does not do. ORGANIZATION The selection of a permanent Chairman was considered OF at this time. Mr. Omonaka nominated Mr. Sakata MMISSION: and Mr. Cadinha nominated Mr. Schutte to serve as chairman of the commission. Election Mr. Yanaga moved that the nominations of Chairman: for Chairman be closed. Seconded by Mr. Sensano and unanimously carried. By a show of hands, the votes cast for Chairman were: Mr. Schutte - 5 votes Mr. Sakata - 6 votes Mr. Sakata was elected Chairman of the Charter Commission. Election The selection of a Vice Chairman was considered at of Vice this time. Mr. Trulson nominated Mr. Schutte to Chairman: serve as vice chairman of the commission. Mr. Omonaka moved that nominations for Vice Chairman be closed. Seconded by Mr. Sensano and unanimously carried. Mr. Schutte was unanimously elected Vice Chairman of the Charter Commission. - 2 - 1 RULES OF The commission reviewed the 1965 Charter Commis- PROCEDUgE: sion' s rules of procedure as a guide to formulating their own rules. The following revisions were offered: Rule I. Officers : Delete the words "appointed by the Board of Supervisors" . Rule II. Duties and Powers of the Chairman: Amend Section "D" by inserting between the "members and" , the word "committees" . Rule III. Duties and Powers of Vice Chairman: No change. Rule IV. Meetings : Amend Section "A" by deleting the words "Board room of the" and inserting in lieu thereof the words "Councilroom, Hawaii" . Amend Section "B" by deleting the words "at any time" and adding after the work "commission" the words "in accordance with applicable laws" . Amend Section "C" by deleting the words "once a week at 4:00" and inserting in lieu thereof the words "on Tuesdays at 3" . Rule V: Attendance: No change. Rule VI: Quorum and Transaction of Business : No change. Rule VII. Voting: No change. Rule VII: Order of Business : Amend Section "E" by deleting the words "Action on requests" and inserting in lieu thereof "Business of the Day'.' . Amend Rule VIII by adding, "H. Adjournment" and deleting it from Rule IX. Public The commission discussed the matter of allowing Statements : public statements at its meetings. MR. YANAGA: This meeting is open to the public now. If anybody wants to make a public statement, are we going to allow them to make any public statement? MR. LEGASPI: If you so desire. The commission has to decide on their own what to do, whether to open up to the public. While it is very good democratically, it fouls up the process in theory. What you cold do is that maybe when you are coming to a certain subject, open it to the public. It' s good PR-wise, but operation-wise, it becomes a hangup. MR. OMONAKA: I think as far as input is concerned, we should be going out to public hearing and this is when we should get the input, not when we conduct our daily order of business, otherwise everybody is going to come up. - 3 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Yeah, and we' re going to get a lot of hang-ups. MR. OMONAKA: Public hearings should be scheduled islandwide. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Probably at the next meeting we have to set a timetable anyway. When we' re going to get public hearings, where and what time, and get input from the public. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman, shouldn' t we have in the procedure some way to prevent 40 people who want to talk, how do we refrain them from speaking? Unless we have somewhere a procedure whereby if somebody wants to address the commission, they know what the agenda is, then they request to address us. Or do we just take people from the audience? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: This is open to the public and they' re going to come. If they' re going to want to speak on certain areas of the charter, I don' t know whether we can tell them okay or shut them up or not. I really don' t know right now. MR. TRULSON: Perhaps we can set a procedure whereby they would have to request in writing prior to the meeting. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Probably, yes, if that' s the case. MR. TRULSON: But we don' t have a rule to that effect. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: We have to. MR. LEGASPI: This is what we do on the council, but we are very unusual. We are the only council that permits statements from the public. A compromise would be if you allow statements from the public, to control it like we do on the council, say 5 minutes per speaker. MR. SCHUTTE: But limiting a speaker could be a problem. MR. LEGASPI: It could be. MR. OMONAKA: Can' t we set it up so that we can take testimony from anyone who wants to say something at public hearings and we can schedule those things more often. MR. LEGASPI: If that is your pleasure. MR. SCHUTTE: Let me make a suggestion. Correspondence as the one we had today from Reverend Boshard. A situation such as this individual wishing to express his opinion to the commission, could be done in the same way, I believe, that when we come to that particular phase of the charter, that we will review that - 4 - which deals with their request. They could be informed of it and if they would like to speak, we can allow them to do this. I think if we are going to allow it openly, it will be open for discussion to the general public. MR. .CADINHA Mr. Chairman, I think that perhaps the order of business should be on a written agenda, 72 hours prior to the meeting date, and those people that want to testify have to be on an allotted time. They must be on the agenda otherwise, I agree, we might open a can of worms possibly and be here for 5 hours to listen to people rant and rave. The hearing dates, obviously, have to be open dates. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Do the commission members all agree on this? That we should request on the agenda that if they want to publicly testify that they should inform us 72 hours in advance? MR. TRULSON: If we have a meeting next week Tuesday, for example, 72 hours before Tuesday, each one of the commissioners should have the meeting agenda as it is to be covered on that next meeting date. If there are any outside people that want to bring up their own point of view at that ,';: meeting date, they could be on the agenda, but that seems to me would cut down the spontaneous sort of chatter that one could get. MR. =CAD?bNjiAL Maybe that' s too strict. I don' t know. CHAIRMAN S;AKATA: Kalani just suggested that if there is any request to be made to the commission here, it should be like Rev. Boshard. Put it in writing first? MR. TRULSON: That' s not what I'm saying. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Not necessary. MR. TRULSON: A person should commit himself. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Ahead of time if he wanted to. MR. YANAGA: Iserved on a commission previous to this and we do have on the agenda public statements. Before the meeting, whoever wants to speak, we have them sign in. MR. CADINHA Is there a time limit? MR. YANAGA: No... MR. SENSANO: Mr. Chairman, I think we should think of a time limit because I have heard some people come to testify here and they take alot 'of time. And if people know there' s a time limit, their feeling won' t be as strong : if they know ahead of time that there is going to be a time limit. And whoever speaks, better make sure that they think of what they' re going to say because some people can get up spontaneously and waste a lot of time. And if possible, we should encourage them to give us a draft of what they' re going to present. - 5 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Then shall we put that if they want to testify on certain things on the charter that they should inform us ahead of time and we' ll put them on the agenda for the. meeting. Is this agreeable to all of you? MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman, I think what I was trying to express is similar to what Commissioner Trulson said. What I am suggesting is that if somebody wants to say something, they' re going to write a letter to us informing us that they would like to be put on the agenda when we come to that portion of the charter that they are interested in. I don' t see any reason for them getting up and speaking about a section of the charter that we are not even dealing with at the time. I think it' s very insignificant to even listen to them. It' s not going to make any impression. By the time we get to that portion, we' ll forget about it. But if they are here to speak at that particular time that we are working on that portion of the charter, I think it will be more in line with allowing them that time. And if they write, like Rev. Boshard did, we can tell them exactly when we will be on that portion and we can accept their testimony at that time. Then we also have the opportunity to look at a number of individuals who would like to speak at any particular period and set it up that way. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: On that basis, we will have people write a written statement or letter, and at that particular time when we' re working on that problem on the charter, we will have them come and testify in person if they want. Mr. Trulson moved that this proce- dure relating to statements be put in the rules. Seconded by Mr. Cadinha and unanimously carried. MRS . KOBAYASHI: Are we going to limit them as to how many minutes they can speak, also? Or are we going to let them --- . MR. YANAGA: Maybe we should look at the situation. If we have too many guys, we set a time. If only a couple of guys, we can let them go. MR. SCHUTTE: One thing they usually end up doing anyway is, really, the way that I have observed, the letter they have already sent to us, all we've got to do is ask them questions in regard to their position on that letter. MR. TRULSON: I think perhaps the number of people we want to speak will dictate how much time we will give them. If we have one or two, give them more time than if we have twenty. The chairman could be in charge of that. He can see how many people are going to be there and before anybody speaks , he could set a time limit. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: This will be a new section in our rules, Rule IX. - 6 - Rule X. Parliamentary Practice: No change. Rule XI. Expenses : No change. Rule XII. Decisions : No change. Rule XIII. Salary of Commission Members : Deleted in its entirety. Rule XIV. Other Payments : Renumbered Rule XIII and insert between the words "secretary, mileage" , the word "semi-monthly" . Rule XV. Renumbered Rule XIV. Mr. Cadinhaa moved to adopt the rules as discussed. Seconded by Mr. Schutte and unanimously carried. SELECTION OF The commissioners authorized the chairman and SECRETARY: vice chairman to select a secretary for the commission. SELECTION OF The following discussion was had on the selection LEGAL of a legal counsel for the commission. COUNSEL: MR. ISHIDA: On the matter of selection of legal counsel, Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to just say something on it. It is my suggestion to the commission that I would be more, not concerned presently as to legal counsel per se as legal counsel, you know. I am sympathetic that in a lot of areas we would be required to have a lot of research done. Whether it will be done by legal counsel or otherwise, I know not. That' s a matter that can be determined when the time arises. But what I anticipate is that I don' t think it' s going to be incumbent upon us as members of this commission, or whether we are all qualified to do it, but when research is required, we would have to ask somebody to do the research. Now, is we' re going to have legal counsel to do that, then what I think we should consider is whether we will hire legal counsel on an hourly basis, private counsel from the outside on an hourly basis, or whether we would hire one on a salaried basis which would probably, if we' re talking about budgetary item, would probably be of a lesser cost to us. Mysuggestion is that the counsel that we look for is one that will work very closely with the chairman and that he would act not as a secretary but act like a reporter for this commission who would be able to work very closely with the chairman and get all the agendas together, see that we meet all the requirements, such as the sunshine law and like that, because I think if it is otherwise, to require the chairman or vice chairman that responsibility is quite burdensome. And I think if we can have somebody that we can have on our staff, regularly salaried staff member, then maybe it would help us expedite matters, too. - 7 - This is how I feel that would help the commission immensely. I have talked to corporation counsel. I don' t think to use one of their deputies would be a good idea because I think we would like to be somehow separated. However, whether we would need one fulltime deputy or a counsel is something that maybe we' ll have to determine. But if we could provide sufficient funds, maybe we could work some financial arrangement with the corporation counsel which would probably be more feasible financially. Of course, the one alternative is that we do go out and get legal counsel. I notice that the proposal that was given to us was on the basis of $50 an hour requiring only 52 meetings times 8 hours and 12 public hearings. The total cost is approximately $25,000. If we would require research of this individual, it would be more than the hours represented here. Then, of course, that would automatically go higher on the cost. My suggestion is if we could get somebody to work very closely with the commission, I'm just looking in terms of having things expedited. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You are the only legal mind among the members. You know this part better than any of us. We really don' t know. RECESS: At 4:30 p.m. , the Chair called for a short recess. RECONVENE: The meeting reconvened at 4:50 p.m. with all members present. CALENDAR The Chair appointed Mr. Omonaka and Mrs. Kobayashi SCHEDULE to work with County Clerk Legaspi in preparing a COMMITTEE: calendar schedule of meetings and hearings for the commission. By unanimous consent, the committee would prepare a calendar to project a special election in November, 1979, to vote on the proposed charter amendments. BUDGET The Chair appointed Vice Chairman Schutte and COMMITTEE: Mr. Cadinha to prepare a budget for the commission. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5 :39 p.m. until Tuesday, January 16, 1979 , at 3 p.m. , Hawaii County Councilroom. E. L. H. Ludloff RECORDING SECRETARY - 8 -