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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-01-23 HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 3rd Session January 23 , 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The third session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 3: 35 p.m. in the Hawaii County Councilroom, Hawaii County Building, Hilo, Hawaii, by Mr. Kimiaka Sakata, Chairman.'_= . 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 County Clerk R. B. Legaspi Recording Secretary J. Carnett Since the minutes of the second session of January 16 , 1979 were not ready, the Chair ruled to dispense with their approval . DEPARTMENTAL It was moved, seconded and approved that the TESTIMONY: Rules be suspended and Departmental testimony be accepted. George P aiva, Safety Coordinator, listed the duties and respon- sibilities of his Division as follows: To coordinate safety activities , develop County of Hawaii safety policies governing industrial safety. Analyze and;--:maintain accident reports and records, prepare the safety budget, conduct activities for stimulating and maintaining interest of employees in safety. Piava also listed duties as to develop employee safety programs , serve as advisor to the safety committee, prepare adgenda for business conducted by that committee. The Safety Coordinator supervises 'and conducts and appraises accident investigations. Plans and directs a regular program of safety inspection. Prepare and issue reports showing the County' s Departmental performances and accident trend. Also prepares industrial accident reports as required by the State of Hawaii Department of Safety and Industrial Relations. Make personal inspections for the purpose of discovering unsafe conditions or unsafe work practices and report to the respective department heads , verbally or in writing, potential unsafe practices or unsafe working conditions observed. Submit recommendations for administrative and/or engineering corrective action and assist in same. Correlate safety activities with the work of the Medical Department to insure proper selection and placement of employees. Approve purchase of safety equipment. Monitor County of Hawaii compliance of all federal and state statutes and local ordinances relative to industrial safety. We investigate and process all workers ' compensations. We also act as coordinator of addtional duties as assigned by the Mayor. In my particular case, he asked me to serve as Coordinator for Energy Conservation. I do not contemplate any changes in the charter insofar as the position of Safety Coordinator. I am directly under the supervision of the Mayor and I feel that with the Mayor as my immediate boss there<' is leverage and strength in the Safety Department. I have experienced the other counties that do not have such a makeup and they run into many problems. MR. T:RU:LSON: Mr. Paiva, do you work by yourself or do you have staff and if you do, how large is it? MR. PA1VA: I have a secretary, a clerk that does most of our paper work and I have a temporary employee who is on the CETA program who is an investigator for us in the Workman 's Compensation and works directly with the corporation counsel on cases that are denied. I took on this responsibility, the total responsibility of workers ' compensations about a year ago. This used to to be a function of the corporation counsel but they found themselves strapped and tied so badly that they turned the function over to me. Now the thing is to make this a permanent position and we handle the whole thing. In the meantime, we just have a temporary employment situation with the CETA program and it will be terminated shortly, probably by the end of the year. In addition to that, of course, we do have our safety committee which is a great help to us. We couldn 't function, really, alone. We have a committee in each department who are more or less responsible to locate the problems and bring them up with me for correction or investi- gation. We meet once a month with all the departmental committees. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Is this CETA program the program that is federally funded? MR. PAIVA: Federally funded, yes. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Is this the one that was questionable as to whether funds are going to be given this year or not? MR. PA1VA: Yes. And my investigator each time will be operating temporary. I don ' t know if we ' ll ever get a replace- ment but if we are going to take the total responsibility we are going to have to have a position appropriated and establisdd for that purpose. -2- MR. TRULSON: Mr. Paiva, what you are stating then is that as the County Charter is to date, you are under the control and supervision of the Mayor and you are proposing no changes. In other words, the way it is now works fine in your commission. MR. PAIVA: Yes, because if you are going to make it a separate department or a division of another department then we are going to run through the whole thing back up. through the Mayor again which is a great loss of time and I know this has been proven poor in the other counties and they envy us this that has been incorporated in our charter. I think they want to make those changes, too. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Any other questions? None? Then we will take into consideration your stand that your commission be kept at status quo and things are fine as far as your position is concerned as the Safety Coordinator. Fine. Thank you, very much. MRI P;A••IVA: Thank you. Since the Mayor had not yet arrived, Mr. Legaspi suggested to the Chair that they go with the communications before them. COMMUNI- The following communications were considered: CATIONS : Comm. 6: From Jon R. Ono, Prosecuting Attorney, dated January 10, 1979 , requesting the Commission ' s prodedures and guidelines for the proposing of charter revisions. 0-,YV L 1.4^- ��,o Mr. Schutte moved that the &N.SEYED . /iv+ seYEIZ METHOD for the deletion of words in the charter be bracketed and new words to be underscored, be accepted. Seconded by Mr. Cadinha and unani- mously carried. Comm. 7: From R. B. Legaspi, County Clerk , dated January 11 , 1979, transmitting the Hawaii County Council 's previously recommended revision to the Hawaii County Charter, Section 14-4 ( a) "Conduct of Employees" . Mr. Schutte moved that the _tcouncil c�h^ "" S ' ° ' receive and file Communication *7. Seconded by Mr. Trulson and unani- mously carried. -3- Comm. 8: From Charles P. Davies , Chairman of the West Hawaii Committee, transmitting their organi- zation ' s listing of subject areas the Charter Commission should consider in its deliberation. Ci Q 1c c'er_Tt o P S e Mr. Trulson moved that the council —co ivx Ns_ receive and file Communication 8. Seconded by Mr. Yanaga. Unanimously carried. Comm. 9: From Merle K. Lai, Councilmember, submitting information regarding Counties operating under the County Manager form of government. Mr. Schutte moved that theCC:ounc ] _e-P rss'e:+ receive and file Communication 9. Seconded by Mrs. Kobayashi and unanimously carried. Comm. 10: From Edward L. Silva, Director of Personnel Services , dated January 16, 1979, submitting overviews of his department operations and recommendations for charter revisions. Mr. Trulson moved that the Lo-uncili C. o r.,M�ss,oa� receive and file Communication 10. Seconded by Mrs. Iwamoto and unani- mously carried. Comm. 11: From Akira Fujimoto, Manager, Department of Water Supply, dated January 17, 1979 , submitting overview of his department operations and recommendations for charter revisions. Mr. Schutte moved that the ounci " CP ''"`M's s '6u receive and file Communication 11. Seconded by Mrs. Kobayashi and unani- mously carried. DEPARTMENTAL Mr. Legaspi asked to apologize for the County TESTIMONY: Council and said that Mr. Yamashiro would like to defer the Council ' s testimony until he can get together with his colleagues and present a unified presentation. COMMISSION 'S MR. TRULSON: In reference to the calendar that SCHEDULE AND was presented last week, on that calendar an CALENDAR: instance is the subject of ALTERNATE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT and we have a date at which time we are going to discuss this. Couldn ' t this date be given to Councilwoman, Lai? If we are going to acknowledge her letter, couldn ' t this date be given to her? -4- CHAIRMAN SAKATA: We will do this. MR. TRULSON: And for any other if the same type of thing were to come up. Con irecTioNg CHAIRMAN _SAKATA: Is Councilwoman Lai giving this information to V30 thecocnciD-for availability purpose or is she presenting this to the acouncilathat some sort of change will be made? MR. SCHUTTE: I understood that the information Councilwoman Lai presented to us was the information that we had requested. I don ' t think it necessarily meant that she was going to be formally here and testify being that she merely offered that as information. Is that correct? MR. LEGASPI: I would interpret that she is interested in a particular form of government and by your Rules of Procedure any person who has written you stating their interest in a particular area you would notify that person when that particular subject will be brought up again. So, there is no need for you to direct the Chair. This is in your rules that the person has stated interest, he or she will be invited to attend the meeting when that subject matter is resurfaced again. MR. TRULSON: I just meant in this particular instance we already know. So, if we are going to advise her, we could tell her now. MR. LEGASPI: Yes, after you have approved of the calendar. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: We can approve of the calendar and if we see a date where we can get her to perform her testimony for us , we will acknowledge her. MRS . KOBAYASHI: Mr. Chairman, do we have a motion to accept this? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: No. MRS. KOBAYASHI: I move that we accept the calendar adgenda and target date that as more or less guidelines for us to work with for the next few months. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved by Mrs. Kobayashi and seconded by Mr. Schutte that we accept this calendar as printed as our guideline. Any discussion on this? MR. ISHIDA: We said that we are going to be taking definite testimony concerning the forms of County government and especially the City Manager. On February 20, the item there is to "evaluate the various forms of county government" . What I am thinking of is that if we are going to receive that input, maybe we should set aside one whole meeting for it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Any other discussion on this? Then you are indicating that you would like to have one meeting date set aside to discuss and receive information as to the various forms. -5- MR. ISHIDA: My concern right now is that since we know it is going to come up and I expect that there will be a group from Kona very interested in this type of proposal_, is how we can get all the input in before this commission as a body can evaluate what we should do. Until we get this input, I don ' t know how we can best go about getting all this information. According to this , we've got 'public hearings scheduled as starting in the middle of March. Do we already have a tenta- tive draft for this hearing or is it just one for purposes of fact finding? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I think public hearings that are scheduled for the outside areas will be strictly for information purposes, to gather information from the outlying areas and then as we look into the deliberation of the charter we will take into consideration the information we have received. But, I can see your point, Mr. Ishida, that if we are going to evaluate the various forms of county government without having information as to the existing type of government it is going to rather difficult. MR. ISHIDA: I 'm anticipating that when we do it, as long as we are meeting here in Hilo, we would probably get some input from the residents of Hilo. But, should we not also get input from the other sections of this island within the close proximity of each other? MRS . KOBAYASHI : Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, since the Mayor is here, could we defer this until later and go on with it then? MAYOR MATAYOSHI: I appreciate that, but may I jumpinto the discussion you are talking about? The City Manager type of information. As I recall , in the past Commissions they had testimony from the so-called "experts" . "Experts" because they happen to be off-island , they come here and tell you. It might be wise to hear them and also as far as evaluating the hearings on these things , sometime, if you could set a date for hearings on the various forms of county structure and then ask the various organizations to testify, you might get that. One on this side, two on that side or whatever schedule you want to do. I think it might be wise to designate one day to the form of government, because otherwise if you. open it all for hearings it is just going to go on and on to many, many topics. I think you should designate one day for one hearing. I don ' t mean one day throughout the whole year but one specific day just for the form of government. You will have several that will come up, I 'ms,ure. One you've got is the strong Mayor type, next you 've got the Council-Mayor type of situation and you've got the City Manager type of situation and each have been evaluated in the past. It might be wise to just ( 1) hear the experts, ( 2) then take it out to public hearings. I don ' t mean to tell you you are going to spend that much more time with it but I think it ' s kind of nice to have it. I would suggest that. -6- MAYOR MATAYOSHI: I 'd like to, first of all , welcome the opportunity to appear before you and certainly I was looking forward to perhaps meeting with you on the first Tuesday, but, unfortunately, we had to testify before the House Finance Committee and I couldn ' t be here. But I really enjoyed the opportunity. Looking at some of the things that you have already started I think that you've got a very good start, because your timetable as far as how you want to achieve it and looking forward to the end of the year is a very, very good yardstick in which to evaluate all of these and try to come to a conclusion as far as admendments to the County Charter is concerned. So, I think it is a very good start and I 'd like to commend all of you for that. As far as the charter recommendations that I would like to make, I 'd like to keep this on a rather informal basis. I think you 've had a chance to review it. I 've had a few comments from some of the departments and I 'd like to keep this informal so that we can go give-and-take instead of ( 1) reading this presentation and, ( 2) you're reaction to it. I 'd like to go back and forth with this with you. So, with that basis , we ' ll start the format. Any time you feel like you'd like to ask me a question or you 'd like to probe some- thing else, let ' s see if you can cut in and if I may, Mr. Chairman, kind of Chair it myself and field any questions that you might have. We ' ll keep that format going. Basically, I think as far as the Charter which was passed in 1968 and its amendments subsequent to that, is a very good one. It does create a separation of powers which was nonexistent in the old Board of Supervisors ' day, of which I had the pleasure of 'serving as a member of the old Board of Supervisors. I think it did give a definite direction to the county that by separation of powers , administrative responsi- bilities were squarely on the Mayor' s shoulders and we 've managed to move it since 1968. I think the county has been moving very rapidly and I think one of the reasons for this is because of the separation of powers. I 'd like to see it remain that way. One concern that I have is the council makeup. I know that if you' ll go back into the minutes you will find that I have been a very strong advocate on the first Charter of 1963. I 've been a strong advocate at large representation on the County Council . The reason for that as I stated was that the economic unit is the whole item and you could not very well segment it into those districts and still have thetotal picture of the county in mind. I also pointed out at that time that the finance of the county did not lend itself to little ports along the way and to umpteen number of little districts. And on it went at that time and also in the three times ,--1963, 1965 and 1967, and of course subsequent in 1968 in the passage of the charter I took that position. But subsequent to seeing it in operation, I think there is a need, though we have the -7- resident requirements running at large, I think there is a need to bring it back again a littlelbit closer to the people and so that the reaction can take place. So, I would like to propose that the council makeup be made up similar to that of the House of Representatives. In other words, there would be five districts as there are now. And perhaps you could write in that say, there is a Constitutional Convention change or a State Legislative change, that atthat time we should also review our County Council makeup also. I think that by districting according the the way the State House is apportioned is a good one. That would give five members. Now we know that presently the council is made up of nine members. I think that the remaining amount either two or four, right, five plus two coming seven or four, coming back up to nine should be at large representation. In other words , I 'm not that strong as whether it should be seven or nine. I don ' t know that the magic number is in terms of represen- tation numbers for the island. I do think it is necessary ( 1) to get districts and ( 2) to get apportioned at large members. So, I think there should be at least two or four, whichever way you decide, at large members and the remaining five being districts. This, as I stated to you, is a change from my original position where I said that four should be at large. This is going to be a topic alone. Maybe we can just leave it open and if anyone wants to ask me a few questions they may. MR. ISHIDA: What are you thinking by way of terms? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : The term, I think, should 'f'remain four. I feel very strongly about this . I think that the term should remain four. This, I think, is consistent and I would not change my position from 1963. The reason is that when the people come on board, as in the old Board of Supervisors on which I had the opportunity to serve it was 'two years and there is a tendency to become very shortsighted and 'things must be done quickly because there are elections coming up, there is pressure over politics and there is no real longer term planning process. I think there is need. I definitely feel there is need for four years. Both on the council and the administrative side. MR. ISHIDA: Do you have any feelings concerning staggered terms as far as say half of the council members would be elected every two years? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Yes , I do. I do not feel it should be staggered. I think it should be all at one tithe. The body, if it were large, say twenty-five, thirty, fifty. A large number of people, I can appreciate the fact that there should be some staggerization about with that great numbers of people, but when you get a small group running about seven or nine, I think you 're going to find yourself if you split up four running and five set. Suppose you have nine people, four coming up this year and five -8- to remain, you 're going to have this little problem within the council , itself. I think it is very necessary that we don ' t have the little hooky, hooky in a small body such as a seven or nine member body. I think it is very necessary to work all of the units in a common purpose. So I think it all should come up at one time with no staggerization because the numbers are small . MR. ISI-IItDA: What would you say to the argument that there would be some kind of accountability to the residents if there was an election every two years? I think there has been some concern raised that under the present form where all nine council members are elected at the same time, that after the one election one has to wait four years before the council members are accountable to the residents. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , as you know, in the present charter we have this initiative kind of referendum situation that as the present charter reads. If there is anything that you want to bring up there is this mechanism that is already in the present system. As far as the idea that the council members are not being responsive to the constituents , I don ' t know. You are going to hear all kinds of things ; -if he doesn ' t agree with the group that is now vocal then the councilman is wrong. This is a basic thing. If people have not elected that person , you don ' t know. Maybe some of the silent majority elected still remain. But only by looking at the newspaper and saying that everybody screaming and yelling the loudest is the majority, I think you are making a big mistake. If there is any instance of any particular issue that is very important and people feel it is important then the present charter does give the mechanism, for which I have no objections , by the way. In, ;;f act, I would agree with it. I have no objections at all of the present charter setup, with initiative. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Mayor, in the present charter there are six councilmenekected from-:districts. Six districts and three at large. And you are proposing five. Have you thought out or put down how those five districts would be separated? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Let me explain. The present six, as you ' ll recall , is by residence. One has to be a resident and runs at large. Okay? So, in other words , a person running out of the greater Puna District, Tom Fujii , he must be a resident of the district but when he runs he runs completely at large. Everyone votes for him, both the Second and Third nistrict. What I am proposing here is that they don ' t have that situation. We would run exactly as the House would. The First Rep :eeentative D.istti'ctwould have,-one-representative. The Second Representative District would have two within the district, itself. And the Third Representative District would have one and the Fourth Representative District would have one. So you have a total of -9- five, right? Running specifically from that district and the people from that district vote for him. Then the remaining two or four whichever way this body decides will have at large members. You see, so that there would be no residence requirements to run completely at large. MR. TRULSON: I misunderstood you. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Mayor, do you think your proposal will meet the constitutional test once you go into a district kind of a setup for five councils and two or four at large. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think the one man and one vote, Akira, is what you are referring to, right? I think it will satisfy for the simple reason I think that the House will be kind of "out of joint" as it were. Something wrong with the State House if it were not the case. So you've got five and the remaining at large members , now everybody has one vote, one man, one vote. So I think it would satisfy. MR. OMONAKA: In terms of running for office, you know the expenditure; it takes if you have to run island-wide as compared to the candidates running from districts , as an example. Would this be kind of unfair in terms of expense? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , I think at that point, the candidate will have to bite the bullet. Which way is he' going to go? And I recognize that the one running at large may be costing more but also it might be that the newspaper ads and things like that for the district guys here would be about the same, I would think. To me, it doesn ' t make any difference. A guy wants to run knowing the costs, he would run accordingly. I 'm also not saying and I think that the common part of the other charter commissions were that those that do run at large would,probably be the Chairman of the Council . I think not. The Chairman of the Council should not be merely the one that runs at large but from all seven or nine members should elect their own. Their own Chairman of the Council . MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Mayor, would you say that under the existing setup that the councilmen running for a particular district relies unnecessarily on the district that he is supposed to evaluate. That the other big vote getting district such as the Kona district and the Hilo district on the development issue for his election. And as a result, he would not have to rely on the people he is supposed to represent for his election. Would this be possible? MAYOR MATAYOSHI: Right now, it is, I would think. I think some of them have lost in the district and have won at large. And are representing the district. And this is why I 'm saying that I am kind of reversing my original three times around. -10- I find myself thinking that is wrong. A person representing that district should be elected by the people in that district. '-If we are going to have district representation that we should have the House members come. In that case, when a person is representing the First, Second, Third or Fourth District, or whatever district, he is the one that is elected out •ofetthat district and the people in that district have voted for him. He is the one that represents it. I think that is correct. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Mayor, you mentioned awhile back , initiative and referendum powers. I take it, that you agree with that being part of the charter? Our current charter specifically removes the power of initiative and referendum insofar as fiscal matters , levy ;of taxes , etc. Do you agree with that or should we, in your mind , throw that , out? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No, I agree with that. I agree with the idea that they should not be on a referendum basis. In the case of the moneyed items because I do think that the responsibility of running the government and everything else is set up with the elected officials. In other words , with the County Council having the ultimate say. And they are the representatives of the people and they are then voting accordingly. You may look at it, the island the size it is and the basic services that are necessary, you must raise the moneys accordingly to be able to meet the levels that you want to. You might have just a district say cutting down their expenses , just to go by initiative and to cut down the cost of income for the county government, you've g;ot a hell of a problem. I think that the system as it is now is correct. The elected officials, myself included must:,,answer to any tax bill that would come up. MR. CADINHA: I have one more question, Mr. Mayor. Does the aspect of Civil Service within the groups that you administer to make any difference insofar as your administrative authority or powers. Could you administer more easily, or does it make a difference whether we have Civil Service or not? MAYOR MATAYOSHI: You are talking about the Civil Service laws? MR. CADINHA: From the standpoint that the employees are Civil Service employees. Is there any administrative encumbrance or benefit that thereis. . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , I would think, let me preface that if yousare talking about the Civil Service laws across the charter they do not have any powers as far as personnel problems go. Point 1, you could not write into the charter anything about personnel law because the enabling act takes that power, preempts that area into the state level, to be perfectly candid about that, and I think this is a problemthat„ .you have. Point ( 1) is just to clear that. But Point ( 2) as far as the operational system, yes , it is very difficult. You must remember that we -11- as administrators, myself in particular, run in three areas. We 've got the Civil Service laws that you must contend with. We 've got also the --two areas--labor contracts that we are accountable for. So really when you look for and deal with the employees , you have two contracts going. Two conditions that you have to watch constantly. Civil Service laws and the Labor laws. I say go one or the other. If we go in the contract arrangements with the union , fine, we ' ll deal with the union. If we go with the Civil Service, fine, let ' s stay with the Civil Service. B'ut if you've got two on us it is extremely difficult to administer, and this is a fact. MR. CADINHA: You say this decision is not within the realm of the Chajr. MAYOR MATAYOSHI: No, it is not, unfortunately. But let me just state. We are shifting away from the council represen- tations so we ' ll drop that and go to the next unless someone wants to ask me further about the council makeup. We ' ll drop that and go to the next. Okay? As far as,-these commissions and the form of government they come in, we have four as testified before you. We have the Police, the Liquor, the Civil Service and the Water Board that are the four divisions that are under commission form. My basic thinking is that I have no qualms about the way the police is handled and may I state also for the record that although many of them object to it, I think all three of them, if it stays the same, where it says the general supervision and control of the Mayor. I believe it must have that and all of the four, that is, of the commissions if they remain as commission membered structure. The reason is this , you see, Police, Liquor, Civil Service do not raise taxes they are only spending agencies. They are going to spend. Now, there must be someone who is accountable to raise the funds to run it. If that be the case, I think the one who is raising the money ought to have some say. At least to coordinate the activities, point one. Point two, I think that the various agencies, when you have like for instance Police, Police-Fire, where you have an emergency situation where police, fire and public works will have to get-together. We can ' t have an agency running by itself and deciding that the Chief, in the case of the police would do whatever he pleased. He cannot. You have to coordinate with the other departments. It must work together so there must be a general supervision and control from the County, from the Mayor' s office. I think this is an extreme must to be able to coordinate all the activities that take place. I do not think, however, that the Mayor' s part should go into the actual operational implementation and also the so-called Sriorities in- the case of the police, the Mayor should not step into those areas. The Police Commission should handle that. In other words, keeping the political side of who gets elevated, who gets promoted, who goes what and where. I think that should be left with the Police Commission. But as far as coordination between departments, I think it is very essential . Extremely essential. Point three now we are talking about separation of -12 powers. We always speak of the American system as having three levels , the Administrative, the Legislative and the Judicial branches always counteract each other and balance each other. I feel when you make a commission form you've got a fourth branch of government. In the case of the Water Board when they came up and told you that they did not want to see any control from the Mayor ' s office on approval from the County Council as far as rates go, I think that the County Council should make the final determination. Because after all the people that are running it and the final tax- payer that is paying it, there must be somebody that is accountable at some point in time to the taxpayer. And that is the elected official . Otherwise you have a commission form who by their action has the forcer ,toeff.ect_!e law, second the rules but nobody can contest it. There is no way that the citizens would be able to contest the rule. It has gbt to be someone to make the approval who is also accountable and that is the elected official. Okay, such as the County Council , county-wide, the County is the one to make the final adoption and I think that is correct. So, I think , one, as far as all three or four commissions go, one, it basically stays the. same, fine, the generalsupervision of control still must remain the same or you might put in coordi .ation or redefine it if you want to. Coordination, fine, a language change. But they must have some kind of coordination or control from the Mayor' s office. Point:= one, for strictly business reasons. Point two, if you are going to think of maybe abolishing a few commissions, put them all as divisio2s. My basic thinkingis that I would go along with abolishing Commissions of Liquor, Civil Service and Water. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Mayor, the problem, or the concern, as I gather from hearing the other previous departments testify before us as far as the general supervision provision was that they felt it was ambiguous and nobody really knew what it meant. Is there any of that situation as far as the administration is concerned? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I don ' t know, I don ' t have any problems. There is the feeling that this general supervision and control some of them, as I understand it, and I did talk to the Police Chief about it. Point one, I guess the Police Chief made one comment about this, is that we would be meddling into the administrative areas of the department. And so I called'_him. I have never meddled in the departments operational system and he agreed. But it says the "general supervision and control" may be interpreted that you are going to meddle into that and I can appreciate that in the case of the Police Department, maybe the Mayor should back off for the political . But there must be coordination somewhere. In other words , like this last budget. If he sends me a request for a hundred additional employees , there is no_ way I can fund that thing unless I can raise taxes so we are going to have to cut it -13-. somebody has to control this. So I think if there is going to be any control there should be one for fiscal control , second for efficiency, are the two areas , and coordination as the third are the three areas where the Mayor' s office must have in the case of one, the Police Department. In the case of the Water Board. I know that they have had these separate provisions of funding. That is no problem. But you must have the approval of the County Council on their rules and regs. Rules and regulations must have, I believe, approval from the Mayor and the County Council . We are the ones who are accountable for the rules. Sure, there are public hearings. They go to the public hearings and they set it. There must be someone who is elected who is accountable for that and I think he should be. As far as the Water Board, the reason I chuckled and looked at Akira is that I know that again in the past in his coordination. I guess in ' 63 , Akira, under your serving, I took a very strong stand that it should be autonomous. I recognize this . I guess it was '67, somewhere along there, I did take ar,;p"osition to be very strong that they be kept separate as in the case of the Water Board. But as I see the development taking place and we want to be able to say move the county and push it forward._ There must be somewhere the county using its credit for its financial powers to make things happen. To do that, you know this one last water general obligation bond of • two million dollars where the county is floating to develop something. It ' s a water system that we are developing. When the County Council passed it, if you' ll go back on your records you are going to find that this is probably the first time that they have used general obligation bonds to develop the County Water System. And this is then going to stimulate the efforts in South Kohala, North Kona and parts of North Kohala. It is going to stimulate it, but if it is=,that kind of thing that is necessary if this island is to grow. . .If that is the case, then some of the water problems should be under the Mayor' s office. This is my position. Okay? MRS . KOBAYASHI : It was brought out at our last meeting, though, that you appoint the commissioners, the Police, the Water and the Civil Service, and that was the reason that was given to us where you would have MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I 'm glad to asked that because a couple things come into mind. Yes, I appoint these people. Next question is that this is not citizen participation. If I step in there and tell them, "you will act accordingly" , either that or get out of the commission, you don ' t need the commission. You are really overstepping. Now, if they want autonomy and doing their own bit, which I think they should be doing, then you've got another problem. You 've got an agency that is running without elected officials having the say. A real hybrid. A real problem. -14- I saw a letter to the editor the other day where someone tells meciI should call them down, but as soon as I stick my hand into the commission and say, "you shall do this" I don ' t need that commission, the commission should not ' exist. In that case, if the commission were removed and the power given to the Mayor, then if something goes wrong blame the Mayor. Which I get anyway, but that is beside the point. So, that thing is really not the right attitude. If you are going to leave a commission in there you should really let them do their thing. But if they are going to pass something, rules and regulations that have the force and effect of law, I think in those cases the final approval to say yes or no should come from the elected official .- MR. TRULSON: Mr. Mayor, the fiscalresponsibility of the Water Board should be also with the Mayor? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think so. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Mayor, on the, going back to the Mayor' s supervision , it is my understanding that under the present provision as listed is somewhat ambiguous that as written you may have the authority to get into the internal affairs of the police although you may feel . . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI: The language is the same for all four. it. go along with think there is a need to clarifyI will I you on that. I think so too. I think they all come under 8.5 Section and I think it goes ,--each one has the last section -,anyway. In all of them, the last paragraph is off. And that is ambiguous. I think it probably should be clarified. But I do think that if we are going to have this commission form, ( 1) we should clarify the language, but I think it is still necessarfor the coordination for the fiscal control and some kind of supervision from the Mayor' s office must be there. Somebody has to be accountable for the actions taken by these various divisions. MR. ISHIDA: What is considered supervision? MAYOR MATAYOSHI: Well , you know, when you are thinking about, it you are running a corporation such as the County is, you are not going to have one of your divisions running off by itself, there must be some kind of supervision. MR. ISHIDA: I don ' t think there is any quarrel there. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : You have got to pull it back, right? MR. ISHIDA: How do we clarify it so that there is no ambiguity? -15- MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Basically, if you think about it, and I think all of you are people in business , you'd consider, say in a corporate structure, you 've got avwholly owned;,-; subsidiary, right, :.aa wholly owned subsidiary, now what? Does he run them autonomous? Point one. Point two is that if it is partially controlled because of certain funds going into it, it is not a wholly owned one;_;.-but it is a subsidiary with a major interest that the corporate people are handling, now how should it be reported? Because that would hit two things, one the financial resources balance sheet, the second expenditure items will also be under consideration in terms of priority of distribution. So if you look at it in that light, is it a wholly owned subsidiary or is it a partially controlled subsidiary, then you are going to see the structure take place. But how, in the case of the Mayor, which is then the president or chief execu- tive officer of the corporation should have what kind of control. Right? This is important. In your board, your commissions would be if it is a wholly owned subsidiary you've got a board of directors inbetween who run the show. Then what is the responsibility. I think you ' ll have to look at it in that light. I toss this out, another idea that has come across as far as the other departments are concerned. You know, when you look at the charter and if you are talking about City Manager type strong Manager, strong Mayor or weak Mayor, or whatever, you will notice that the charter is very clear as, to the various departments which you are going to have and the functions within each by whatever ordinance. What might be a thought here is that if you take the position it should be a corporate structure and the Mayor then is the administrative head of it, the thought might be as the executive officer will be given the power to structure all delivery of services. With the County Council ' s approval. So, in other words, the charter would not have any departments per se. Then the chief executive officer, when he comes in, would have to set it up at the start of his term. Now, how he is going to deliver his services; -- he will be totally accountable. There is another problem that I am thinking about the Civil Service,--how do they adjust. There is always the possibility of the transitions of the positions put in here so that they will be kept intact without the problems . Certain departments and so on on the Civil Service status. You can always put the provisions in the transitional section to protect them should this happen. But then that way you've got a real , a tremendous situation of a really adminis- trative capabilities. You 've got a corporate structure that works in whatever divisions he sets it up. He runs it and you 've got no more hassels. The Parks do what? The Public Works do what? The Sewer System does what? The Water Board does what? Personnel Services , what? Research and Development, what? Planning Department, what? Corporate Counsel? How do all of these things fit. If the things are going to keep moving, adjusting all the time, maybe the Chief Executive should be -16- accountable. Maybe they should change it , abolish a few departments to run it more effeciently. By the way, because I don ' t step away from the responsibility, you can say, fine Mr. Mayor, would you take on the responsibility. I say, yes I will. Consolidate a few if you want that. But right now you 've got "you shall have" in the various departments. In the charter it says "you shall have" a director of. We should have one guy accountable. You even have a City Manager and youave shackled him all over with it. Why have a City Manager? For the same situation. One the people can ' t take out at the end .of the term. He might be there for life, for that matter. You can ' t take him ibut,o,.. You've put all kinds of restrictions on him, pass all kinds of laws. He ' s useless. So this is another, just a thought I point out. I know it is a radical diviation from the past but you might give it a corporate structure. A corporate president, the Mayor, he runs the show. The bottom line is what is the delivery of service, at what cost. Then I think you' ll have a great time batting that around. Look at the stock market reports, you ' ll have a lot of fun with it. Let me come into the next one. It is one that I always see the Post Audit Reports coming in. They do it every year and it is a good idea to have it once a year but I find it extremely cumbersome and also a very expensive one and I think that every two years would be sufficient. In every two years. Maybe a deadline. Your=-would-scut down your costs drastically. Point one. Point two is that we already built in that when someone leaves office our internal auditor division goes in to check it out and you can always get a feedback. It is a protection for the person leaving. So when a person leaves an office, the department, we should audit the:-:books at that time. Give them a clean bill of health as he steps out and does his little thing, whatever. It is very important. And the person who is just coming in, now, we can put the hatchet down and saying everything being clean you can take over from there. This is very necessary to have when someone leaves. If that is being done then there is no need for any annual audit. Something like a hundred thousand dollars a year you would be spending. They could save it and make it every two years. I do not think they should stretch it to beyond two years, by the way. You've got to have an external audit at least once every two years. I just think every year is not necessary. It should be every other year. Rudy, that is about how much we spend every year on our external audit? Forty thousand dollars? I thought it was several hundred. We 'd save money, anyway. Anyway, those are some of the comments I thought I would make at this time and I certainly intend to over a period of time to come before you and let you know what I think about it. I 'm just hitting on some broad topics. One of:_council makeup. Composition of ( 2) in,terms oft commission f:orlm'lOf government and ( 3) in terms of abolishing all and making the Mayor responsible for everything. -17 MR. CADINHA: Mr. Mayor, could you clarify a Iittle ,bit your corporate form. In other words, abolishing the departmental aspect of the charter and leaving it up to the Mayor to organize, I believe is what I heard. And procedurely. . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI: When they set up the structure though it must be approved of somewhere along the line. He cannot set it up himself. He would recommend a change or whatever it is and will go to the County Council for adoption. Council will adopt. Once it is on board, now, it stays on until such time a subsequent change is made. Obviously, at every election there may be a change in the Chief Executive, so you cannot have a sudden chaos where everything goes nowhere. But in the meantime when a new person comes on board and he wants to restructure that thing he does not have to follow any kind of written guide- lines but if he thinks he should want to change the structure so he recommends a change. He sends it to the County Council for adoption. The County Council adopts it and it becomes a structure of operation. MR. CADINHA: The people in charge of the different functions of government are appointed by the Mayor. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : That ' s right. MR. CADINHA: With the approval of the council? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think it should be strictly the Mayor' s prerogative to appoint. Let me qualify that and also say that I think also the council should have its staff. I have no objections to that too. MR. ISHIDA: In light of your last statement I want to ask you if the separation of powers as far as the corporation counsel ' s office is concerned, I know there may be some disputes between the Counsel'"s and the Mayor ' s office, however, in the charter, it provides for one counsel . Now because of that situation do you have any views concerning possibly a counsel separate from the Council ' s? MAYOR MATAYOSHI: Let me state that I have gotten to the conclusion that the County Council should have its own. MR. ISHIDA: Would you go along with the fact that the County is one corporate body that as far as any legal representation that it should still be retained by the official branch of office. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think so. It terms of the legal office of the County of Hawaii, it should be a corporation counsel. The Attorney ' s office as well as the Mayor' s office to handle it. As far as the legislative branch, be it corporate counsel or otherwise, I think they should be given the power to hire their own staff. Let meput it that way instead of being specific where they should be an attorney or otherwise. They should have their own staff. The structure again should be left to the council members so that they feel comfortable in the kind of services that they are going to be getting. -18- If you shackle them again, they can ' t move, and the new group comes in and their method of operation is different than that of the previous one, they have to fit into the mold and they find themselves frustrated by not being able to operate within. So they themselves should be given the prerogative to change. As I take the position as in the case of the Mayor's office, too, when he walks into a situation, he should be in a position to change what he wants to change. Right now, you cannot change. You must live within the structure as it is set up for you and you must operate within these structures , you see, add it is very difficult. MR. ISHIDA: In your recommendations for a corporate structure kind of situation, how would you handle the Corporation ' s Counsel ' s office, the Department of Finance and Planning Depart- ment whereby the directors are subject to the council ' s confirmation. Would you take that out and just put him directly under the Mayor? , MAYOR MATAYOSHI : You are talking about two areas. One is the planning director and the other the corporate counsel . Those are the two, not the finance. Okay? Just the corporate counsel and the planning director. I should know that very well with all the problems that I 've got. I think that both of the positions , as I say, if you take the position of the council being given the opportunity to hire their own staff then those others should be left to the Mayor. It follows in a point, you know, Richard, you have got to start out with the premise that if you are saying the council will have its own staff then it follows going the other way. If you take the position "no, it won ' t" then there has got to be confirmation, obviously. There has got to be confirmation , otherwise where is the council sitting? It ' s a basic point. Any other areas somebody would want to cover? MR. ISHIDA: As it is right now, assuming that the charter is not amended to the corporate structure. I think that the term of office as far as the corporation counsel . Do you have any views on this. MAYOR MATAYOSHI: They probably should be as full term as for the Mayor. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Mayor, I 'm trying to comprehend what in your years of experience is netted down here on the bottom line. I''m getting back to your form that you are suggesting of abolishing the departments. Now, the revenue producing depart- ments, i.e. Water Board, are you proposing then that, financially how would you separate it or would you separate this. Would it be run out of the general operating budget? -19- MAYOR MATAYOSHI: No, this should be handled by a special account. In other words, they have a special source of income and in the case of the water, specifically, . the water. They should have a special account showing their income coming in and expenditures going out. I have no problems or qualms about that. As far as special accounts, we have highway accounts doing the same thing. The gasoline tax comes in, andit comes in a special account. Your parking meter comes in a special account the same way. The county has really five accounts. You've got the general fund account, ;or. the general operation account, the sewage account and the parking meter account and the highway account. Those are the fOur accounts we have right now and the Water Board separate. And the fifth account is the CIP. So right now when we publish the, you' ll notice when we submit to the council and publish the report you will see five columns; four columns going down. And then next year, so there will be five accounts. The general Lund, sewer, highway, parking meter, those are the four accounts. Now, the Water Board does not. It goes separate. So what it could well be, you are going to have five accounts like that with CIP separate. MR. CADINHA: There would be no way for water assessment to find its _ aysr nto, a public park. MAYOR MATAYOSHI: No, it cannot. For instance, the same way you cannot get the highway fund into gasoline tax from that moving on to another. It cannot right now and you can look at the highway for an example. The highway fund', the income from the gasoline tax and so on is insufficient to cover the total cost so you will see a transfer from the general fund into the highway fund. If you see a transfer out of highway fund into the general fund, it would be only the amount that the funds were transferred from the general fund to highway is when it comes back. Never the other moneys. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Mayor, at the present time, if one of the commissioners of the highway fund, or whatever, wants to purchase something, whose approval are they going to need? Say they want to purchase a piece of equipment or a piece of land, where does the approval come from? For the go-ahead and purchase this? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : You have to differentiate this now. But, as far as land and permanent assets it is a different story. As far as equipment it is another. In the case of the equipment, it goes to the Purchasing Department and they will go to the regular bidding procedure and depending on what the final amount is they will decide whether to buy or not. It goes back to the agencies , but they are the buyers. In the case of property, it comes to condemnation, if the county is to buy. In that case, it comes to County Council for approval and the County Council must approve. -20- MR. TRULSON: That is one of the arguments that I have heard. That why the Water Department wants to be semi-autonomous. That if they want to purchase something they can go out and purchase it, they don ' t have to wait for somebody on the council , I believe, the approve the purchase. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , in the case of the water, I would assume that operationally, they would have their own purchasing department as far as the equipment, .,material and supplies are concerned. I think in terms of: acquisition of assets be it in real estate, say, a piece of land. It has to go the board, the Water Board, for approval . MR. TRULSON: I 'm not really concerned about land approval but just regular purchases. Equipment, etc. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : The procedure is the same as it is for the county. With the Purchasing Department, the same thing. MR. TRULSON: If the Water Department wants to purchase a big vehicle, do they, they don ' t come to the county? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No, they don ' t come to the county, they have their own purchasing department. Right now, they have their own. But if they went under the county we could work right through our own purchasing department. The exchange of assets is a different story. By change of assets , I mean real estate. When you buy something like that you have to go through the council. Well , in this case, the Water Board has to act on it. Well , anyway, it made it a little interesting for you folks to think about that one. I 'm sure it is going to hit the newspaper and the media and suddenly all the little departments are going to start jumping up and down and making all sorts of noises. But, 3it is a thought and the reason I say that is that the Mayor' s office always, we pick the end of the line, but it ' s okay, fine, that is part of the job and all. But if we are going to be accountable for it then I ' ll also want to structure it according to the way I think it would deliver the services. If it doesn ' t work, then it' s my neck. MR'a' SCHUTTE: Are you suggesting that the Water Board come under your control and lose its semi-autonomous status. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Thatsright. In the past, as you recall , they had in the old Board of Supervisors system back in 1940, whatever it was , ' 49 , ' 48, s'omeplacef_around there, they took it out of the county. It was under the old Board of Supervisors and what was,^happeningiis; .hat_there rwere_.all ,kindsof opolitics being played in it and they decided that they should take it out, so back in 1951 , ' 52 they set up an autonomous body, the Water Board and from there we go back into the 1963, '65 , °67 when the commission was studying it, we thought that if the -2i Department of Water was kept separate then the water bond when it floated would have a better rating because there would not be any kind of political overtones about it. As you recall , back in the early '60 ' s anyway, a lot of water bonds were being floated on the mainland. Mr. Cadinha can remember some of those water bonds. At that time, the rates were better if they were kept autonomous. But as I see it now, the way the county is operating they hardly ever have any money, anyway for bonds. They haven ' t done a darn thing about changing the fiscal structure. They 'got -most of their accounts out of the legislature. The State Legislature floated most of the CIP ' s here and except for the minor operational system some of the major ones coming down has been through county bonding system which is the last two million bucks. MR. TRULSON: It got a little confusing. I know you stated earlier here that bonds were purchased for Water Department waterways. The county purchased bonds for the Board of Water Supply? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No, the county floated bonds. Well , it has not yet. It has authorization to do so. To float bonds to develop two million dollars worth of water resource development. MR. TRULSON: They get the money. Are they not accountable to the Mayor ' s office or the council ' s office. I don ' t quite understand how it works. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : We got it kind of mixed up on this. It is not. We are talking about operational systems as one. Where the water rates are set up. This is operational money. Where I think they report out the financial balance to show income expense and left over the last one was a few hundred thousand. Where your income is your operational income of rates of water comes out. Tn at's it. And in it also you will see some debt service charges. Now this is to pay back old bonds that were floated by the state in behalf of the Water Department here. That is as it was. Okay? As it is now, what I am saying is subsequent to the last eighteen or twenty years , I guess , I haven ' t seen any of the Water Department floating its own bonds to make any capital improvements. Because without water we can ' t expand. What we are now doing is the county is coming forth and the County Council approved a two million dollars for a general obligation bond. Using the whole county' s assets to float this bond to develop with the help, now, and this is very important, the contribution of the State. It' s not only the account of two million, the whole package is about three point something million. The difference being the state gave the difference. I think the Governor should have equal credit on this , too, by the way, because he is kickingit in. You see the Department of Land and Natural Resources , Water Division is putting this in. We combined the two and are developing the -22- water source and the trunk line coming down. That will develop the area. I recognize the bond payments in this sort of setup so that individual companies have to pay so there would be no obligation on the county. I agree, ' yes, this is the way it is set up, but I think this is very necessary to do that kind of financing in the future, or maybe other kinds of financing where the county would have to become up with its own assets and move ahead. On the capital side, now, not on the operational side. And the answering part of it is on the operational side. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Mayor, under your suggestion, if we put that the, if we wrote in that the Water Department were under the authority and supervisory of the Mayor, would there be any chance of jeopardizing state funding? That wouldn ' t make any difference insofar as the State Legislature is concerned? MAYOR MATAYOSHI: No, I don ' t think so. MR® SCHUTTE: M . Mayor, looking over the the charter, you appoint, >9 members to serve on the board who appoint the manager, who in turn appoint the deputy. However, the final authority as I understand it here, you sit on top of it all anyway. How is this different from what you are proposing? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , a couple of ways. Point one, as far as that last clause of general supervision and control , I stated, I 'd like to see it, point one. If any kind of a commission is going to be set up. But if it is going to stay the same, what I am saying is that on the other side of the coin is, two more points , ( 1) is abolish,.the--make the Water Board, if you want to an advisory but make the direct department one of the Department of Public Works or Parks or whatever to be directly under the Mayor' s office. Appoint directly as one of the divisions. You take away the commission and you go directly. That ' s point two. Point three, don ' t put any departments but wipe, it clean and then say "the Mayors office shall deliver with the approval of the County Council" . In that case, I 'm not talking about only water but all departments. MR. SCHUTTE: With the departments being under the Mayor directly there is not going to be very much for you to go aroundato take care of all these things. Where you have the commissions handling the various things now and if everything will be put directly under your control . MAYOR MATAYOSHI: I don ' t quite follow your line of thought, here. Are you talking about "if departmentally"? In each department the division chief would still operate as a division , a department. As you would "have the chief engineer taking care of the Public Works Department. He ' ll still take care of that. -23- MR. SCHUTTE: But that is what I don ' t understand, as it is now they are directly answerable to you anyway. I 'm just taking from what I can read here. But what I don ' t understand, Mayor, outside of doing away with the commission. I just don ' t understand how we would do it any other way other than just doing away with the commission of the Water Department. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Operationally, as I see it, the answerable part of it. The section 8-3 where it says that the manager ' s department of Water Supply shall be appointed by. Whereas if you will look at the other particular commissions, depart- ments like Research and Development, 5-5..2 it is definitely appointed by the Mayor and answerable to him. By the way, I 'm sure as you go around you will hear all kinds of comments. But I just thought I would pump that one out to you and I think it is three that you have to look at. One I would prefer is leaving the third all up to the chief executive office. It is a very difficult one to accept, I realize that. You have to do a heck of a lot of selling because it is a concept that is not very acceptable to very many people but if you look at it ,,ehen,=he<<,becomes really accountable. Well , I recognize it becomes a really powerful position but it also is very accountable. He either produces or he doesn ' t. I think it is a lot better.than the other two systems. And of the other two systems I guess the present structure is, acceptable to many more people. But if that happens then I say leave the control in it. But if it is possible to pull it togetheras far as the four administrative officesaare concerned in consolidating three, and I say leave the police out. I have no objection to leaving that out. But the other three, I say to remove the commissions. And if you want me to pick it, I pick point two. Point two is a lot easier to handle. MR. SCHUTTE: On the Liquor Commission , you mentioned the fact that it is more in contact with you than he is with the commission. And as a resultof this , he said the commission meets once a month. Is this one of your reasons for suggesting the change to directly under the Mayor? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think that way, if it comes directly like that. We are always in contact constantly. It is a lot easier. And the liquor is one of these where I am in constant touch with him. Like Public Works , Parks , they are always in direct contact continuously. I think this is a better system and I would like to see all the other three done the same way. MRS . KOBAYASHI : If we were to go to a suggested amendment for us would be to eliminate all of the Chapter 31tbat talks about the Department.:Dof Finance, Chapter 40 that talks about Planning? No? You want to eliminate just, you know we have the various chapters in the charter. You said you wanted to have the power to structure your own department.. -24- MAYOR MATAYOSHI : The ideal situation would be that. Point one, two and three. Picking point three, in other words. Is that right? So that, in other words , you would put just a corporate kind of bylaws kind of thing. MRS. KOBAYASHI : The very general statement that the Mayor shall have the power to structure his department as he sees fit. Would we eliminate, would we cut the charter by half, then. Would we eliminate all of this stuff. MAYOR MATAYOSHI: Well , you could put down in the various sections instead, it would, it would bring it down to a very simple. . . MRS . KOBAYASHI : But then we would put all the responsibilities of the individual departments under what the Mayor shall be responsible for. . .the Mayor shall be responsible for planning, etc. You would simplify the charter then. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : The Mayor shall structure it accordingly and shall have the ,approval of the County Council. MRS . KOBAYASHI : Yes, with that. So then, in effect, you are asking that we. . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Make it very simple. Of course, you are going to have a very long code of ethics. Very simple. Very easy to read. That ' s food for thought, anyway. MR. OMONAKA: What you are, in effect, suggesting is that we make the Mayor a pretty powerful and political ;:.figure in the county level if you have this so called authority as you are proposing now in terms of the right to set up your own organizational departments. . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , it would really be the same as it is now. I don ' t see the difference because you have authority to select the department heads anyway. MR. OMONAKA: In terms of creating, combining and deleting. . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Combining and so on but, right now, I have also the authority to, in the case of the administrative side, of firing and hiring. It is the same. There is no difference there. The only difference would be in the case of the appointive authority with confirmation in the County Council . In that case, I am saying the County Council should appoint its own staff. Whatever is necessary. So, when you think about it sure it seems like, gee whiz, you know, but right now that is what the Mayor' s powers are. You are talking about -25- the numbers of people I can pick. It may be less the other way. But right now it is set as to the number of people "it shall be". You know, you are telling me you shall have x number of people. What if I thought we should have less numbers? I can ' t very well do that. It could very well be less. MR. OMONAKA: I understand that, but we are discussing concepts here and what you are suggesting is to streamline government so that it can become more efficient and make the Mayor more responsible. But at our level of government. The lower sub-division of government, don ' t you believe that a•-.commission type of department or this kind of thing have direct input by the community which would be more in tune to the needs of the people of our community. Direct input from the general public. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : We have a forum now in the County Council where there is an opportunity to address the County Council and I think that is the proper place. The members of the council are elected and they should listen to all facets of the operation of the county. Now, I recognize there may be various commissions down the ranks. You could have advisory commissions , planning commission. Right now, you look at it they are not exactly a branch but they certainly listen to it. If you want that kind of a system with the planning commission type and around in the other commissions. Fine, that would be the input if you wanted a vehicle to come in like the planning commission. You could have that in terms of water, watever, civil service, public works, parks. It could be all set up just likethe planning commission. Then you would have input just like the planning commission. But, tthe planner, himself. What happens to the planner, himself. He comes directly to the Mayor' s office. MR. SCHUTTE: I tend to see the same situations would "., ::rmerge wrong later with limited participation of constituents within;_ the county itself. I am of the opinion the commission would be able to combine heads together and come up with some sort of solution to the problem better than one individual looking at it in his own particular way. By removing these commis- sions, you would remove some barriers. MAYOR MATAYOSHI: Let me point out to you, page 12, 5-4.3, the planning commission. You must admit that the planning commission is one of the most important ones in our whole county operation and you do have a tremendous amount of ,;'input to come in. You could have similar structures if you want to have the input come in like the planning commission , section 5-4. 3. -26- MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Could I just say that we would place this on the table and later on we ' ll have an opportunity to look at some of the other kinds of, as you say, the City Manager type of situation and we could discuss that with the people. We would have an opportunity to further discuss this idea. T5en we could come back again. And as the various depart- ments come before you you will know their functions and responsibilities and so on. Then we will sit down and go over this idea. If you have more stronger feelings one way or the other then we can have a real dialogue going between members of the commission and myself. I would certainly defer at the present time and say, fine, there is no decision process at this time, just a thinking process. And I 'd like to see sometime in the future when we sit down again and discuss this. I shall welcome the opportunity. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Thank you. MR. LEGASPI : Back on the calendar, Mr. Chairman, there Lias a motion on the floor prior to the deferment to Mayor Matayoshi Chairman Sakata called a short recess at 5 : 00 p.m. The meeting resumed and the discussion began at 5: 15 p.m. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Chairman, the schedule looks, insofar as I have looked it over it looks super. If we can get on this schedule we ' ll be in great shape,- I have one suggestion and that is just switching a couple of dates. The thought being that perhaps before. . .referring the February 20 where we begin evaluating various forms of government, proposals for reapportionment. February 27 continue the discussions. March 6 , March 13 and then we start public hearings. Suggestion being that we start public hearings before that. In other words , move the public hearings dates up to as soon as we are through with all the departments testimonies. We go out cold and listen to the public and then we pick up the schedule there. That is just a thought. Rather than begin the review and discussion and then go to the hearings. I don ' t know, I throw that open to the, as a suggestion and if anyone has any ideas on it. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman, that sounds fine, but there is only one problem. What I 'm worried about going through these public hearings are, the questions in regards to these various forms of government and we not knowing much about it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Any discussion on this? -27- MR. OMONAKA: When Gloria, myself, and Rudy discussed this this was primarily to get expert people to come in and talk to us about the different kinds of systems up for local government and maybe the word "evaluate" , I don ' t know if that is the appropriate word. Maybe perhaps fly in a political science man from the university. Rudy suggested Fred Koehnen. He was a strong advocate of the City Manager form when he was on the past charter commissions. This primarily was set up to get more information. Getting more people to come down. So you see the dates of the 20th and 27th and get more of the same line of discussion up until mid March. So this is what was intended. So we may after two meetings have enough data then and we can revise our public hearing dates and :.move them up but this is the intent. MR. CADINHA: Okay, then I withdraw my suggestion. That makes sense to me. MR. ISHIDA: So, if possible, we can move up the public hearings to March 6 then. I go along with that. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: If the evaluations and proposals when the discussion and review of the County C arter is completed to satisfaction by the 27th of February then we can move the public hearings up to the date of March 6 rather than have prolonged discussion on it. MR. OMONAKA:. Yes. Then if those two dates are too long then and you know we haven ' t still heard from the County Council and you know how long the Mayor, too, and I can j st anticipate what the County Council is going to say. So maybe we can set up either the 6th or the 13th for the County Council . Only for them. Mr. Chairman , the intent of the motion is merely as a guide. With the exception , Mr. Chairman , as Mr. Legaspi suggested, there are certain legal requirements and timetables , those dates are firm. So, if you accept this motion this will mean that we will be shooting for a November 3 election and from there we would have to move back. So those dates are kind of firm. But anything other than those dates are okay. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: The motion was moved by Mrs. Kobayashi and seconded by Mrs. Iwamoto. It has been moved and seconded that we accept this calendar and agenda and target dates as a guideline for the Charter Commission ' s calendar for keeping in mind the target dates , but revision possible. Carried unani- mously. NEW BUSINESS : It was moved and seconded that the Chairman and Vice Chairman be responsible for lining up experts to appear before the commission to talk about the various forms of government. Their appearance would include expenses . Motion was unanimously carried. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6: 30 p.m. until Tuesday, January 30 , 1979 , at 3: 30 p.m. , Hawaii County Councilroom. 4/A Joan Carnett RECORDING SECRETARY -28-