HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-01-30 HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION
MINUTES
4th Session
January 30, 1979
Hilo, Hawaii
The fourth session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission
was called to order at 3: 38 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
DEPARTMENTAL It was moved, seconded and approved that the
TESTIMONY: Rules be suspended and Departmental testimony
be accepted.
FIRE DEPT: Introduction was made of Fire Chief, Donald
Thompson there to testify for the Fire
Department.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Thompson.
MR. THOMPSON: My name is Donald Thompson.
I am the Fire Chief of the County of Hawaii. At this time I
would like to recommend that the portion of the Section which
is Chapter 4, Section 6-4. 1 remain status quo.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Would you please repeat that
again?
MR. THOMPSON: It is Chapter 4. Section 6-4. 1 .
This is on page 14 of the Charter.
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CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Any discussion from any of
the Commissioners?
MR. SCHUTTE : This is a very short section for
the Fire Department. Is there anything that you have in mind
that you may want to relate with your operation other than it
being kept status quo as it is right now in the Charter? We
are very unfamiliar with the operations of it and I think it
would enhance us , considerably, if we had some knowledge of it
so that we could understand it a bit more.
MR. THOMPSON: The Fire Department has the
responsibility of saving life and property. There is a provision
in the Ordinance which provides that we shall also be as an
extended service to conduct life safety which is commonly known
as the Rescue Squad. In this particular action, the Rescue
Squad is a division of people at two stations designated for
such work. One in Hilo and one in Kona. They are structurally
made up so that they are paid differently from the other portions
of the Fire Department. That is because they have a skill level
which is to handle water rescues or mountain rescues for which
we need special skilled people, such as scuba divers for water
rescue. Aside from that, it ' s what you see on the road as far
as the Fire Department is concerned. Structurally, we have
stations throughout the county as far as organization structure.
MR. SCHUTTE: Who implements this portion of it?
Do you do the implementation of that or do you suggest this to
the Mayor and he turns around and gets the necessary funding for
it. It ' s very vague as it stands right here as to the other
various functions of the department.
MR. THOMPSON: The function of the department,
itself, when it comes to budgeting, it is operated from or
developed at the Fire Department and goes through the Mayor for
approval prior to submitting to the Council.
MRS . KOBAYASHI: Mr. Thompson, is there a
committee of lay people like with the Police Commission? Is
there any kind of a board or citizen ' s input?
MR. THOMPSON: No, we are directly under the
Mayor' s instruction.
MRS . KOBAYASHI: You have not even an advisory
board or council , nothing? Would something like this be of any
help to the Fire Department?
MR. THOMPSON: No, we do not have this.
MRS . KOBAYASHI : I mean advisory, because the
Police Department has the Traffic Safety Council which doesn ' t
runthe department but I suppose it helps the Police Department
with traffic regulations or something like that.
MR. THOMPSON: We don ' t have anything like
that. No particular set of people or group of people assigned
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or selected to advise the Fire Chief but we are open to any
suggestion from the public when it comes to public services.
MRS . KOBAYASHI : Then you do have firemen
who do work with the community to go out and tell them how to
inspect electrical wiring. . . .
MR. THOMPSON: This is part of our preventive
maintenance program or preventive fire program which is built
right into our job.
MR. CADINHA: Mr. Thompson, what is the
department' s criteria for promotion to Captain, say, or promoting
along within the ranks of your department? How is this selection
done?
MR. THOMPSON: The selection is done through
the Civil Service. It is based on Civil Service rules and
regulations. We are, or, go through a test process and an eli-
gibility is developed and promotion is selected from the eligible
list. Within the department structure, itself, you have a board
to interview the candidates. That is within our internal
structure prior to coming to my attention as to who shall best
fit the job, who is best suited for the job.
MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Thompson , are you saying that
you. . .who sets up this committee to screen applicants for the
Fire Department or ford?.. .
MR. THOMPSON: I think you have the question
wrong. The question was who makes the promotion and this is
within my own structure.
MR. SCHUTTE: Yes, I was just getting to that.
This committee that gets together, do they decide who gets
accepted into the Fire Department in addition to who gets
promoted?
MR. THOMPSON: No.
MR. SCHUTTE: It is strictly for promotion?
Who sets up the committee then?
MR. THOMPSON: I select the committee. The
committee is made up of, depending on the rank to be promoted,
officers one level superior to the grade to be promoted.
MR. SCHUTTE: Is this customary? Is this
standard rule of procedure that is done throughout. . .
MR. THOMPSON: This is standard within our
Fire Department.
MR. SCHUTTE: Is it an accepted practice, let ' s
say to your knowledge, or to the best of your knowledge, in the
County of Maui or the County of Honolulu?
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MR. THOMPSON: I believe they have some
procedure like that but I am not familiar with their procedures.
MR. SCHUTTE: So then after the Department of
Civil Service gives you the names of the qualified individuals
it is ultimately up to you to make the decision as to who will
be promoted?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
MR. SCHUTTE: You have no guidelines. . .you are
not governed by any guidelines other than the individuals that
you or that body feels is qualified for the position?
MR. THOMPSON': Yes.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Thompson, how are firemen
selected? What criteria do you people follow to select a fire-
man to fill a position, let ' s say in Ka;°uu or in any other district
outside of Hilo?
MR. THOMPSON: Are we talking about recruiting?
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Yes, recruiting.
MR. THOMPSON: Recruiting is a responsibility
of the Department of Personnel Services. I have no play in it
until I request for position vacancies and at that time they
will refer to me several names , depending on the number of
positions.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Do you have a standard
criteria for recruits?
MR. THOMPSON: Civil Service has.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: In case they/fireman is con-
sidered to be incompetent in his work, who does the firing?
Do you do the firing, or the Personnel Department?
MR. THOMPSON: I 'm the hiring and firing
authority.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You hire and fire, both.
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
MR. ISHIDA: What is the number of personnel
the Fire Department has now?
MR. THOMPSON: At the present time, my strength
is 159.
MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Thompson, in regards to the
staffing of;-tYe;:depaa;trnent you are presented with a list of
names of qualified applicants if you have openings to fill. I 'm
not speaking of promotions , I 'm speaking of vacancies. What
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happens when you have a number of individuals who want to
transfer from Honolulu or from Maui to this county? What
procedures are set up to protect. . . . .
MR. THOMPSON: The policy of this Fire
Department here has been not to accept any transfers direct.
Any individuals who feel that they want to work at the
Hawaii County Fire Department will have to be recruited in
like any other individual through the Department of Personnel
Services.
MR. SCHUTTE : What you are saying then is
that you will not accept transfers from other counties.
MR. THOMPSON: That is correct.
MR. SCHUTTE: Even if they are well qualified
or willing to start from the bottom of the ladder?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes , that is correct.
MR. YANAGA: Why is it the Fire Department
does not have any Commissioners in power?
MR. THOMPSON: Traditionally they haven ' t had
any. I have no answer at this time to qualify it but as long
as I have been with the Fire Department they have not had any
Commission to govern it.
MR. YANAGA: I have another question, Mr.
Chairman. . .Do you have any idea of improving the status of the
Firet aiDepartment 'in; the" future?
MR.. THOMPSON: I thought it was quite obvious
that we have improved from the card-playing, volleyball playing
image to that of one of the greatest fire departments in the
United States but I have no . .I feel there is still room for
improvement, yes.
MR. YANAGA: So as of now you are satisfied. . .
MR. THOMPSON I am not satisfied. There is
still room for improvement. We have come a long way in the
past 30 years that I have worked for the Fire Department. As I
mentioned, I think I can only illustrate it by the fact that it
used to be a Fire Department that was known for the best volley-
ball players in the county, and the best checker players and
card players. But today we have people in the community looking
up to us and, I believe, if you were to ask that the Fire
Department be stricken from any responsibility or service on
this island then somebody would have to answer for it to the
public.
MR. TRULSON: Section 6-4. 3 Powers and Duties
and Functions states that, "the powers and duties and functions
of the Fire Department shall be prescribed by the Ordinance" .
So in effect if you wanted "powers, duties" or such changed,
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would _ there have to be an Ordinance set up by , this Charter?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes. This would give us some
flexibility into someof the new developments that come about.
An Ordinance can be changed with the proper language with any
current legislative body which would be the County 'Council
here. But as I understand it that by restricting to the Charter,
the Charter meets but once every 10 years and I believe that
would be a deterrent to the improvement of this Fire Department.
MR. TRULSON: Then we are to understand that the
three sub-sections under Chapter 4 as they sit today are satis-
factory to you and they require no change?
MR. THOMPSON: Yes, they require no change.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Thompson, do you have any
specific changes that you want to make or you want to air out at
this time?
MR. THOMPSON: No, not at this time, no.
MR. SCHUTTE -: Mr. Thompson, you certainly feel
then that as these other departments may have Commission, you
don ' t feel that a Commission would enhance your job in any way?
As it stands, now with you coming directly under the Mayor, you
feel this is the most acceptable and workable way of handling
the Fire Department?
MR. THOMPSON: I believe it is at this point.
MR. SCHUTTE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Are there any other questions?
None. Thank you, very much, Mr. Thompson.
PROSECUTING Introduction was made of Mr. Jon Ono, Prosecuting
ATTORNEY: Attorney.
MR. ONO: Good afternoon. I 'm Jon Ono,
Prosecuting Attorney for the County of Hawaii. My proposed
changes from the office in the Charter are listed on the sheet
passed out. I 'm sorry that we did not use the normal legislative
type of coding which would be the bracket4ng for the deletions
and the underlining for the additions but if you will bear with
me I can point it out on the sheet that you have.
Section D which would be Section 9-4 sub-section
(`d) at the top of the page that I have handed out. . .the change
there is in the second line and in the second to the last line of
that particular section. The change is very simple, one from
where it says "magistrates" in the Charter, change that to
"judges". A very technical type of a change but it mainly just
for housekeeping. We don ' t have magistrates any more but we do
have judges in the County of Hawaii. . .in the State of Hawaii and
that will be one of the changes.
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The second change would be in the same Section
9-4 and would be the inclusion of a sub-section ( f) which would
simply state, "investigate all matters which may properly come
before him". Again, this is just a housekeeping type of
addition. It conforms somewhat to the Honolulu Charter and I
think to the general duties of the office including investigating
crimes.
MR. CADINHA: In the absence of this clause
what do you currently do?
MR. ONO: We still investigate. It doesn ' t •
change the function of the office in any way except that it does
clarify it and I think it is just a housekeeping type of matter.
MR. CADINHA: Do you have an investigatory
force?
MR. ONO: We have special investigators that
we do use in the office. We also have the Grand Jury investi-
gations that we also conduct.
MR. CADINHA: Okay.
MR. ONO: Section 9-5 sub-section ( a) is exactly
the same as it exists in the Charter. Sub-section (b) "The
prosecuting attorney may appoint investigators who shall have all
the powers and privileges of a police officer of the county" .
This , again , is not an addition to the functions of the office.
In accordance, first of all , with the Honolulu Charter and also
with Section 62-78 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes which simply
states that the "county attorney may appoint an investigator
who shall have the powers and privileges of a police officer of
the county". We already have a special investigator that is on
the staff. Again, this would just clarify what is presently
being done.
MR. TRULSON: Mr. Ono, the present investigator,
he has the powers of a police officer?
MR. ONO: Yes , so this would not add anything
additional to the office functions. Again this is another
housekeeping type of matter. . . just to have it in the Charter.
The only other change and I think it is
probably the biggest one because Section 9-7 at the bottom of
the page and 9-8 are exactly the same as the Charter. We would
add in 9-6 "Oaths , Attendance of Witnesses and Production of
Documents". In essence, this would give the Office of the
Prosecuting Attorney, itself, the capability of administering
oaths and issuing subpoenas to compel witnesses to come to the
Office of the Prosecuting Attorney to give testimony to a
deputy or to the Prosecutor, himself. The Section (b) there
would be that this particular subpoena power would not conflict
with the present Section 13-23 which is the so-called "News
Shield Law" which was , I think, added into our Charter. So the
newsmen would not be affected by this particular power, as they
are not affected right now. The reason for the subpoena power
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and it is something that is also in the Honolulu Charter for
the Prosecuting Attorney. It is one of convenience more than
anything else as well as the additional power for investigating
cases. There are many times when we must bother the courts for
their subpoenas to compel witnesses who cannot act except under
court subpoena, such as a bank to release records to us.
Many times we have cases under investigation that require bank
records. If a person has passed a bum check, for instance.
This would allow the deputies to have the bank release the
documents to us so we can inspect them to determine whether in
fact there is a crime that has been committed. Otherwise it
would entail a court subpoena, a court hearing, or a search
warrant to get the records from institutions such as banks.
The latter ones , the search warrants , is very distasteful to
us and, I think, to the banks to have police officers coming
in with search warrants to search the records. Most of them
are very cooperative. In fact, I would say that all of them
are very cooperative and they like to cooperate but because of
the privacy acts they cannot do it. Then we would have to go
through a court order to get the records. This would enable
us to eliminate that one step.
We also have a problem at times with witnesses
who are very reluctant to come in and talk to us for one reason
or another and these people sometimes become a little sarcastic
with us and say, "we' ll see you in court" . Rather than waste
the court time and waiting to get to court to find out what
they actually have to say, by having the power to subpoena
them to our office we can find out first-hand what is going to
be said and whether they are even needed to testify for the
State in court. These are the reasons we would request this
particular power. This is the only major change that we are
requesting. Other than that the organization, qualifications ,
duties and functions in the Chapter 9 are very satisfactory to
our office.
MR. OMONAKA: Your proposal here with regard
to. . .without proper court order. . .can it stand up in court at
a later time Do you think it would be wise to write in a
thing like this into the Charter because we have a basic
constitution we have to follow with regard to individual rights.
You know, in that we have to go through proper procedure before.
anybody can come into. . . . .
MR. ONO: This would be by Charter and a
proper procedure to use. The other alternative,---if you' ll
notice that it says toward the end that IF the person refuses
to come in to talk to the Prosecutor then the court will be
the one to step in upon our request to compel this and unless
there is good faith or good cause shown for his refusal to
talk at that time he will be held in contempt. But if he has
a good reason for not answering the subpoena to the court, now,
we would not be the one to say, well look , you're in contempt
you didn ' t answer us and you are going to be put away. We still
would have to go through the court. So it is not like it is a
unilateral power that we would have that we could exercise
whenever we wanted to. The court could still tell us no, he
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has a good cause so he does not have to answer to your subpoena.
In which case, we would have to wait for the court hearing.
Again, this is just a matter of convenience for our office as
well as having the additional clout, so to speak , at times.
MR. OMONAKA: My question would be that the
Charter should be a basic document rather than putting in all
these things. . .would it be proper then?
MR. ONO: It really would be because it is
part of the power of the office and we don ' t think we could get
it in any other way. The only. other way that this could be
passed would be through a. . .possibly through the Legislature
acting and passing a law making it a power for all prosecutors ,
state-wide. Right now, I believe by Charter, only Honolulu has
this particular power.
MR. OMONAKA: Has that power been challenged
constitutionally?
MR. ONO: I believe it has only been challenged
once and that was in the. . .and I might be incorrect in this. . .
but it has been challenged once by the Attorney General ' s office
when the Attorney General ' s office and the City and County of
Honolulu had a little bit of a disagreement. I 'm not sure which
particular case it was but it was a very recent case. This
particular subpoena usage has been very limited by the Honolulu
Prosecutor' s office and when it is used it is used in the manner
that I have stated it was used. . . just to try to get documents
and records so that we could tell whether it would be necessary
to file a complaint. The problem comes up especially in the
area of bad checks. This is the first thing that comes to mind
where we. . .a person may have a bad check that might be an over-
sight on his part. He might not have met the particular
institution ' s deadline for depositing funds so it comes back
"insufficient funds" when he has funds and the only way we can
check on this is to have access to the bank records which they
require either a court order or a subpoena.
MR. TRULSON: If I understand you right, this
subpoena power or the ability to subpoena. . . if the man would
challenge it there is no penalty for him to challenge it, then
it would go through the normal subpoena channels through the
court. It would be the court that would say whether or not the
particular subpoena was in order and then order it. But if he
did not answer your subpoena and disregarded it, the only
penalty to him for that would be then that you would go to the
court to get another subpoena, a stronger one.
MR. ONO: No, it would be rather than another
subpoena which can happen that way, depending on how we would
like to proceed in any particular case, but the way the Section
is set up if the person refuses to answer or refuses to come
to honor the subpoena or to produce the documents.. .at that point
in time we would apply to the court or we would request the court
to compel the obedience. In other words , it would be in the form
6f say an order to show cause and for the person to appear before
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the court to say if he has any good cause for not answering or
producing the documents.
MR. TRULSON: If he has no good reason could
he then be in contempt of court for failing to answer your
subpoena?
MR. ONO: Yes.
MR. TRULSON: So, you have the power of the
court?
MR. ONO: No, the court would find him in
contempt. We would not be the final arbiter of that.
MR. CADINHA: Mr. Ono, I don ' t understand all
the legalities that are applicable here, but in layman ' s terms ,
and correct me if I 'm wrong, what you are asking is that if
this is put into the Charter, any corporation or individual ,
private person , on this island may be compelled upon the request
of your office to show any documents that you may ask for and if
they refuse to do so will have to show cause to the court why:
they feel they do not have to show them to you?
MR. ONO: This would be only where we are
investigating a crime. It sounds like an awesome power the way
you put it.
MR. CADINHA: Very much.
MR. ONO: Basically, you are correct in that
sense, as you put it, except that if we issue a subpoena either
maliciously or for no good reason except just to harass somebody
we are opening ourselves up. . .we are opening up the office for a
very big._prosecutorial misconduct suit. That is the censor or the
hold on the office. We cannot just willy-nilly issue subpoenas
to anybody to tell them to bring their birth certificate or
their marriage certificate or anything else. That we would have
the power to do that by the Charter, it would seem that way. If
there is, in fact, no investigation ongoing and it is being done
just for pure harassment sake, again , we would be opening our-
selves to not only personal liability but also to office liability.
MR. CADINHA: Other than the good discretion of
the Prosecuting Attorney, what assurance does a citizen of Hawaii
have that there is no harassment involved?
MR. ONO: I think the court process is the answer.
We have the discretion right now to issue subpoenas. A subpoena
duces tecum to produce any document, anyway, by statute before
the court.
MR. CADINHA: Do you have to show cause as to
why you want
MR. ONO: No.
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MR. CADINHA: You just ask for a subpoena
and you can get it?
MR. ONO: We can get a subpoena duces tecum
to present-to get any document before the court turned over
:to us by a subpoena duces tecum. The only difference here ; :_ that
rather than going through the court it would go directly to us.
Now the protecting thing here would be that the person
who receives the subpoena may file process in court to have
it quashed. In other words , they can have the court determine
early whether they must honor it or not. So they do not have caxKacTs
to put themselves in the position of waiting for a contempt of X13
court. They can take an active Eol.;°D and say, "Hey, wait a Kole
minute, I don ' t think you can get this document from me"-or-
"we 're not going to turn it over to you and we don ' t think
that subpoena is correct" . At that point, they can always go
to the court to have the court make that determination.
MR. CADINHA: At their expense?
MR. ONO: Yes , that is what it ends up being.
MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Ono, I can look at a number
of these proposals that you have here. The suggestions that
as you mentioned are for housekeeping purposes and when we get
down to the portion here where the Prosecuting Attorney or his
deputy having the power to administer oaths and issue subpoenas ,
to compel the attendance of witnesses and production of docu-
ments, I would say it is very questionable. It is my under-
standing that the procedure that is adhered to today allows the
court to scrutinize the request for subpoenas when it involves
the rights of the privacy of a member of this community or state.
What you are asking, here, and what you say exists today, I think
is two different things because today you can get a subpoena.
You may issue a subpoena. . .and if that is the case why is it
necessary to go through what you suggest here of putting this
into the Charter where you don ' t have to go through judge or. . .
MR. ONO: No, that is not correct. We still
do it through the judge. The judge ' s signature is on that
subpoena.
MR. SCHUTTE: That is today?
MR. ONO: Yes. Or the Clerk of the Court' s
signature is on the subpoena. But, the difference is that in
order to. . .in the case of a subpoena duces tecum, which is to
bring documents. In order to get the documents we have the
additional step of going through the courts. In other words,
the documents are presented to the court and then the court
gives it to us.
MR. SCHUTTE: Okay, hold it right there. Then
what you are saying is that you are eliminating having to go
through the court, you want to be able to
MR. ONO: Eliminating in the sense that we
have to physically walk over to the courtroom to pick up docu-
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ments which the court really does not look at and does not
have anything to do with, so to speak.
MR. SCHUTTE: But that little walk from your
office to courtroom may suddenly change your mind as to
whether this is really a necessary act to do. All I am saying
is this, that what you are suggesting here may very well help
you in your work towards crime, etc. , etc. , the type of crime
that you may read about today. However, we also have to think
about that there are other individuals that must be dealt with
under the same provisions of this Charter and what we are doing
is not specifically tailoring this for the everyday criminal.
This is open for everybody, whether he is an everyday criminal
or just a citizen of this state or this county. The power is
tremendous , I would say, because you even have the power to
punish.
MR. ONO: No, that is incorrect, the court
would have the power to punish. We do not have that power.
There is a very big difference.
MR. SCHUTTE: Yes , but I am just reading what
you have suggested here. What I am reading here, is that
correct, or incorrect?
MR. ONO: The proper court has the power to
punish as a contempt of the court any refusal to comply. Our
office would not have that power. So you still have the: judicial
buffer inbetween. We are not trying to usurp anybodys rights.
In fact, I think our office has always defended the rights of
people.
MR. SCHUTTE: I understand that. All I 'm trying
to say is that this is a very broad thing here and all you are
asking us to believe is that the Prosecutor' s office is straight
down the line and does not move from side to side. . .and it is
kind of hard to believe, you know, everybody being human this is
not going to happen.
MR. ONO: I 'm not asking you to believe that
because I am not naive in the sense that I believe that all
Prosecutors in the world are straight-arrow. I would like to
hope so. . . that we all are. . . that we all believe in the Constitu-
tion. . .that we all believe that we have to toe-the-line. I think
this is the way it should be but there are safeguards. Constitu-
tional safeguards that still would be available to any citizen of
the county or of the state, for that matter, that could still
override this particular Sectionand among those safeguards , of
course, as I said is the motion to quash the subpoena. He can
also file a civil suit against our office for malicious prose-
cution. We can be turned in to the disciplinary council , again,
for malicious prosecution or =prosecutorial misconduct which would
mean that our license would be lifted or suspended or even
revoked completely. There are a lot of safeguards involved here.
It is not a power that is completely without any checks or balance.
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MR. SCHUTTE: So what you are saying is that
the existing procedure. . .all it does is eliminate that trip
from the office to the court and going through. . .
MR. ONO: No, that is a:isimplification. . .that
is one of the things that would eliminate. . .it would make it
very much easier for us to investigate that particular type of
crime. But also we were talking about the case of witnesses
who are very reluctant to talk to us. We would then be able
to get them into a situation where they would be forced to at
least acknowledge our presence. . .forced to at least talk to us .
Again, this saves quite a bit of time rather than having to
get a Grand Jury hearing going which involves quite a bit of
cost as well as time.
MR. CADINHA: The bottom line then is not to
save a walk across the street. It sounds to me like what you
are looking for, and correct me if I 'm wrong, is the ability
to coerce somebody that would be a little difficult without
having to go through court.
MR. ONO: Coerce has some very bad connotations.
MR. CADINHA: Well , it is a sense of pressure
coming directly from your office without having to go through
the court procedure. In other words , what is there now in the
current legal process that does not enable you to catch a
legitimate hard criminal?
MR. ONO: Quite a bit, really.
MR. CADINHA: And this would help. . .
MR. ONO: This would help, yes. Like I said,
we have had problems with just a plain witness , I 'm not talking
about a defense witness or a person who is friends with the
defendant or anything else, just a plain witness who tells us
to go take a hike-or-I ' ll talk to you in court. Now they
wouldn ' t have to go through the whole subpoena process, get
the guy over to the court, at the trial , we put him on the stand
and he says , "I didn ' t see anything" . Or he might come out with
something. . .he might say, "Hey, you got the wrong man , I saw so-
and-so do it"as of this time. We have had cases like that and
if we had known that earlier we wouldn ' t have even bothered to
take the case to court. Again, I 'm oversimplifying the entire
process and it is not only in those cases but there are times ,
too, when we would like to have a witness pinned down to a
particular statement. He might be giving the police officer one
statement, the investigators another statement and come into our
office and give us another statement. By having the ability to
put him under oath he now would be swearing to what he is saying
to be true which would give us the additional power that if he
is not saying something that is true we could institute criminal
proceedings against him. All of this points up to our trying to
slow down some of the hindrance-. that we have been getting or the
hampering of the furthering of the investigation. We do have
witnesses who tell three or four different stories to three or
-13-
four different people depending on whatever their mood is.
This would assist us in gaining knowledge in one particular
thing prior to court.
MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Ono, you mentioned about
being able to tie down one particular witness to the truth
. . .but this doesn °t really recessarily nail him down to
having told the truth under subpoena. What I am referring
tois this. . .there are situations that exist, today, in very
recent court proceedings where a witness testified under
oath, under immunity, in a particular crime and completely
changed his testimony and was resolved of this with nothing
else. It bothers me because I can ' t picture the two things ,
--your mentioning this having a person tied down by oath and
today what it means is not necessarily the oath that he takes
but how smart he is to move around that. . .because the oath
has nothing to do with the situation so you are contradicting
the situation that exists today.
MR. ONO: No, I don ' t think I 'm contradicting
it. I think the system contradicts itself.
MR. SCHUTTE: Then what you are saying is
that this is not really as foolproof as you want it to be.
MR. ONO: No, if there was a possibility to
hook a person up to a light and every time he told the truth
he would light up and every time he didn ' t tell the truth he
wouldn ' t light up it would be perfect for us. I know what
you are talking about. I know which case you are talking about.
The solution may seem simplistic and I think it is but for many
witnesses just the simple fact of raising their hand and saying ,
"I swear I will be telling the truth" and then sort ofL like"' :an: :;.
official proceeding. . .it ' s a little different from them just
talking to an investigator and the investigator asking him what
happened. The guy is under no compulsion to tell the truth.
This will not weed out your chronic liars. This will not weed
out the person that wants to lie and is going to lie anyway.
But it will weed out some of those people. The other thing is
that by putting the person under the oath in this sense and
compelling him to testify to one particular story, now if he
goes into court we would have something a little more substantial
to present to the court or to show the jury. So if he comes into
our office and says that Joe Blow killed Richard Roe and then
goes into court and says , "Well , I lied to the Prosecutor, I
didn ' t see Joe Blow kill Richard Roe, it was somebody else" , it co 2//3
would completely destroy our case in many cases. With this
(70dt•ional] thing in here we can also bring up the fact to him,
"Hey, didn ' t you swear that this was true and didn ' t you take an
oath, a solemn oath that this was what you saw" . It also opens
up the avenue, right away, of criminal proceedings for false
swearing in official matters. So that the person could be dealt
with immediately just upon the difference in statements.
MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Ono, I can appreciate your
position and imagine it can be very frustrating if you have a
situations like this if you have to protect the. . .sometimes it
seems like the laws are made to protect the criminal and not
-14-
-necessarily the individual citizen. It is an unfortunate
situation, I can see, that exists. In cases in the past and
what weThave to look for in the future is not only the
criminal but the individual who exists today in this county
who has other rights that have to be protected. . .in addition
to the criminal . If this could only be tailored to the `guy
who is the habitual criminal then we would still defeat the
justice system by incriminating him before we have given him
his day in court. We can appreciate this. I always look
at the situations as maybe the Prosectutor' s office does not
get a good investigation from the Police Department. I think
a lot of your cases today do not necessarily have to do with
the situations that you are trying to point out here but that
possibly poor investigation on the part of the Police Depart-
ment could give you a bad case right off the bat.
MR. ONO: I can ' t say enough for the Police
Department for the support they have given us and the investi-
gations-they have been giving us good cases. There are always
borderline cases. There is the case that is close to being a
crime but may not be a crime or may be questionable. In every
investigation there may be some areas where there will be more
investigation needed. It might not be complete. But I can
appreciate your. . .all of your positions. . .because it is some-
thing that is. . .I 'm not asking this. . .asking you to accept
this Section and anything I say just put it into the Charter.
It is something that is very controversial . Something that we
believe to be a tremendous tool for our office to help to
enforce the laws of this county but your fears as to citizens
being. . .private citizens with no connection with crime being
harassed would exist even without this power. It ' s not some-
thing that is going to be any different than what can already
exist now. If we didn ' t try to keep up any kind of integrity
in the office and we just didn ' t care, I think the power exists
right now to indict a person without any grounds whatsoever.
If you try to fool a Grand Jury, if you try to purge a testimony.
God forbid that anybody tries that in any of .the offices. . .we
hope that never happens but I think it is something that as
with all other powerful provisions , even the Constitutional
provisions , you just have to rely upon the system that is set
up already and again the Constitutional safeguards do exist.
It is not something that is going to try to circumvent the
Constitution.
MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Ono, I gather that according
to this provision you have provided in this paragraph with the
sanctions imposed should the witness not follow the subpoena
order. . .you also indicated that should there be an abuse of
discretion in the Prosecutor ' s office there are means to go
beyond that. . .what would your feeling be of placing some limi-
tation or placing some sanctions upon the prosecuting officer
with some provision within this provision here. . .so that the
members of the prosecuting staff would know that there are
express sanctions against them should they abuse this process.
MR. ONO: In the first place, I think it is
not really necessary because all prosecutors pretty much live
in fear of being fined for a prosecutory mistake.
-15-
MR. ISHIDA: That may be for your present staff.
MR. ONO: No, I think all prosecu.tbrs are in
fear of making a mistake that would cause any court to find them
with misconduct. We are open to tremendous Civil Rights
liability, for one thing. I 'm not sure if it includes criminal
penalties. I think it does. I might be wrong, but it also
again opens us up to the disciplinary board which if they decide
that yes there was prosecutorial misconduct of a very close sort
they might suspend our licenses or revoke our licenses which
means our livihood. . .and not only as prosecutors but as attorneys
period. So I think the sanctions already exist within the
system..:, .Tol;include another sanction would really not do '_much
more. All it would do would be to give the defense a tool to
block further. . .to block the use of the Section because every
time that we use a Section such as this we would be automatically
charged with prosecutorial misconduct or whatever sancions that
you would put in here. I think that is what would happen and
if that is the case then the Section would -:never be used and in
which case we would be against having that put in there. Then
the Section would be useless to us.
MR. ISHIDA: As I understand this, how this
provision might operate. . .should the witness fail to honor the
subpoena then the Prosecutor ' s office would initiate action in
court so that the witness then will be found in contempt?
MR. ONO: Can be found in contempt.
MR. ISHIDA: As I gather it, the power that you
are requesting need not have court sanction. Are you requesting
here. . .the substance of this provision is that should the witness
fail to honor the subpoena then there will be a criminal
liability imposed upon him, or otherwise?
MR. ONO: It would be the normal contempt of
court proceedings which I believe would be criminal in nature. . .
criminal contempt of court.
MR. ISHIDA: What I am saying here is that since
the subpoena is not issued by the order of the court why would
he be in contempt of it if it is not by the court order?
MR. ONO: I think that the mechanics of hearing
would have to be set up. This was taken from the Honolulu
Charter. I 'm not too aware of the complete background on it or
how it has been used, if at all , or whether they have had this
contempt proceedings. My experience has been that normally the
court will just ask the person , why aren ' t you honoring it. If
the person comes up with a fairly good reason they normally just
either quash the subpoena there or the court might just say to
turn it over and don ' t worry about it. I haven ' t found there
to be very many strict criminal contempt type of proceedings.
MR. ISHIDA: One more question. How do you
determine or by what standard would one use to determine when
the Prosecuting Attorney has abused or has harassed an individual
by this process?
-16-
MR. ONO: I don ' t know if there is a standard.
I say that we live in fear of because there is no standard.
What we do today might be completely correct and tomorrow a
court might say you have abused a so-called reasonable man ' s
standards and usurp your power as a prosecutor so just as
police officers may one day do something that is correct and
the next day find out that the Supreme Court says you can ' t do
that anymore. . .we face the same problem. Being a lawyer, you
can appreciate the"reasonable man ' s standard. What is reason-
able to you may not be reasonable to me or to anybody else so
it is very difficult to answer that question.
MR. ISHIDA: Yes , I can understand that. My
point was really in this that seeing there is such a difficulty
how does one determine when a Prosecuting Attorney does not
exercise, but goes beyond just reasonable discretion because
of the difficulty due to the fact that you are giving the
Prosecuting Attorney a very large amount of power.
MR. ONO: I 'm not sure. I think that is some-
thing that should be left to the courts. The one error I can
see right away would be if a person. . .if the Prosecuting
Attorney just issued it out of the clear blue sky and said,
"Well , I don' t like Joe Blow so I 'm going to go and get him
into my office so I can harass him" . That type of thing. Or
if he uses it for his own gain to gain knowledge which is
normally confidential so that he can get an idea let ' s say of
whatever type of illegal activities that he wants to get him-
self into. Or he wants to get some special inside information
so he could play the stockmarket. These are all definitely
abuses of the power. If this Section does bother you for some
reason, I think it can. . .I don ' t think it should be something
that should be just wholly accepted or wholly rejected. It
may be a Section that could be modified to include some of
your suggestions which may include that the Prosecuting Attorney
is following the course of investigative duties or something
to that nature. Which would clearly set the bounds so that if
the person is not doing it for investigating a crime you know
already that it is an abuse. The inclusion of a phrase like
that might be a saving clause.
MR. ISHIDA: Has your office determined that
this provision , as it stands now is consistent with the
statutory provision as far as the state is concerned?
MR. ONO: I don ' t think there has been any
outright challenge to it. I think the only challenge was in
Honolulu and in that case again I 'm not too sure of the outcome
of the case but I think the Prosecutor' s office backed off
there because it was a conflict with the Attorney General ' s
office.
MR. ISHIDA: Then as far as you are concerned
can you speak for your office as far as your office is
concerned that you feel it is consistent with the statutory
provisions.
MR. ONO: We believe it is consistent with
- the statutory provisions.
-17-
MR. CADINHA: I want to make sure it is clear
in my mind. . .a person that does not comply with your request
for producing documents or whatever it is that may be currently
investigated for a given crime. . .as I understand it, the burden
of proof then if the person denies. . .he has another criminal
case against him, if you will , and that is contempt of court.
Right? So the burden of proof then is on the witness to prove
that he has reason for not complying with your request. He
must instigate legal proceedings to protect himself, is that
right?
MR. ONO: The normal procedure is for an
order to show cause which is issued by the court, the court.
asking a person why aren ' t you answering the subpoena. If the
court determines that the person is saying I just don ' t want
to answer it, period-or-that it is none of their business , it
would not be good cause and if it is not good cause the court
may find it in contempt. This particular proceeding is kind
of a hybrid of the system we have now which would be the court
issuing the order to come to court to disclose. In which case,
the court may order the person at that time to produce the
documents and if the person refuses again , then hold him in
contempt. There is no set,`proceeding , really, that comes
from this . Again, that may be something that may be put into
the Charter, or the Section.
MR. SCHUTTE: I hope you understand that our
questioning you like this does not put you on the table, although
that is where you happen to be at this moment. . .but it something
we have to address ourselves to. . .and we migh-t just as well get
the input from you because I 'm quite sure that something like
this is going to come before us anyway. If we are going to
set the standards of this county for the next 10 years then I
think we better learn as much about these things as we possibly
can , Mr. Ono. Our questioning is not personal at all it ' s merely
educational .
MR. ONO: I appreciate that and I welcome all
the questions because it also shows where we may have to do
more research and that is why I 'm .saying that this provision was
taken with a little bit of changes from the Charter for the City
and County of Honolulu and just by your questioning I can see
where there should be some changes already.
MR. SCHUTTE : Then what you are saying is that
you think that if you take this back now and take it apart a bit
and maybe come back to us on another day with something that may
look a little bit better than as it is. . .
MR. ONO: A little more appealing in some ways.
MRS. KOBAYASHI : Just for my information, Mr.
Ono, what is the size of your staff?
MR. ONO: We have some temporary people onboard
so you are going to have to let me use my fingers and toes. I
have at this time three permanent clerical staff which consists
of a private secretary, a senior legal stenographer and a senior
clerk stenographer. We have a 1st deputy and three deputy
prosecuting attorneys in the office in Hilo. These are all
-18-
permanent positions. And we have a special investigator.
We also have actually three programs set up. . .we! have the
Hawaii Career Criminal Prosecution Program which consists of
two deputy prosecutors , a legal stenographer and a special
investigator. This is a state funded program and has funds
right now until June of this year and we are hoping it will
be passed on in the budget for the next two years. We have
the Rural Deputy Program which consists of a deputy prosecutor
and a legal stenographer out in the Kona district that services
the West Hawaii area,---Ka'u, Kona, North Kohala, South Kohala,
and we have the Victim-Witness Counseling Program which is a
federal grant program which consists right now of one
counselor who assists victims in finding their way through
the criminal-justice system. We have one CETA clerk-steno.
MRS . KOBAYASHI : You have 7 attorneys?
MR. ONO: No, I believe we have 8 attorneys,
counting myself.
MRS . KOBAYASHI : I assume since crime', is on
the rise that your caseload. ...what is your caseload like then?
MR. ONO: It is very difficult to say what a
current caseload is. I know each deputy has anywhere from
ten to fifty pending felony cases and the misdemeanor cases
we really don ' t know, it is just quite overwhelming.
MRS . KOBAYASHI : Is it a tremendous increase
say, from last year, or five years ago?
Z.
ONO: Six years ago we had something like
3 felony trials the whole year. . .or I should say, 3 jury trials
the whole year and within the last couple of years, I think , we
have averaged somewhere between 20 to 36 trials. So there has
been a tremendous increase.
MR. CADINHA: With this clause, "The prosecu-
ting attorney may appoint investigators who shall have all the
powers and privileges of a police officer of the county".
You say this is basically redundant and is currently done but
this would be a housekeeping insertion.
MR. ONO: Yes , it is already by statute.
MR. CADINHA: Okay. So, mechanically what
happens? When do you have authority to go hire investigators?
MR. ONO: We already have an investigator.
MR. CADINHA: You have one, this is a plural .
MR. ONO: The reason it is in plural is we
hope someday to have more than just one investigator.
MR. CADINHA: I don ' t understand. . .what I am
trying to get to is are we suddenly going to have a special
investigation section that is going to be running out that is
different than the Police Department?
-19-
MR. ONO: We already do have that. The special
investigator in the office handles investigations. that normally
would not go through the Police Department which may mean
anything from investigating police officers themselves which is
not too often to a special type of investigation where we have
allegations of say Sunshine Law violations or things of a very,
sensitive nature where we would not want to go through normal
channels , the investigator does this. Our special investigator
also assists us in preparing our cases for court. What they do
is they take what the police gives torus and then sometimes put
a polish on it so that it is ready for court presentation. This
frees the police officers from individual cases having to be
there all the time. Our investigators will , at times , sit with
us throughout the whole trial . The police officers , I think ,
are there just to testify to their portion and then go back to
investigating other crimes . Which is not to say that they don ' t,
at times , sit through with us. They do do that but it is not
as often as we do with our investigators.
MR. CADINHA: Do you need any kind of approval
to add to the-staff as it stands now?
MR. ONO: Yes , we have to get through the. . . all
of our requests for additional personnel goes through the Mayor
and the Council . The Mayor4for approval and then the Council
for the budget type of approval.
MR. CADINHA: Whether it be investigator or
legal staff?
MR. ONO: Yes .
MR. CADINHA: Would this change chat?
MR. ONO: No.
Inyour mind do you think that
MR. CADINHA:
the Prosecuting Attorney should be an elected office and remain
as it is or do you think it should be an appointive office?
MR. ONO: I definitely think it should be an
elective office. The autonomy that the office has , I think ,
speaks for itself. We don ' t answer to anyone except the people.
I think all the deputies and myself appreciate thata zs'_.in fact,
the whole office really appreciates that. If nothing else, it
takes away any kind of an even implied taint on anything we do.
MR. TRULSON: I don ' t have any further questions
on Section ( a) today, perhaps later on but I think for clari-
fication Section (b) has a typing error, it should be Section
13-20 (e) News Gatherer' s Sources.
MR. ONO: I 'm sorry, you are correct. It
should be sub-section ( e) , Thank you, Mr. Trulson.
MR. ISHIDA: In your staffing, do you have to
go through the Mayor if you are autonomous?
-20-
MR. ONO: If my understanding is correct we
normally do go through the Mayor for approval , administrative
approval , and then the Council .
MR. ISHIDA: Is it a matter of courtesy? Or
is it a matter of rules and regulations?
MR. ONO: Being the neophyte in the office,
I 'm not sure, but I know that this is what we have been doing
in the past.
MR. ISHIDA: Your budget must go through the
Council for approval.
MR. ONO: Yes , the budget is approved by the
Council.
MR. ISHIDA: Does the Mayor' s office have
anything to do with your budget?
MR. ONO: The Mayor ' s office does review our
budget.
MR. ISHIDA: Is it mandatory that he does?
MR. ONO: I believe so. Again , I 'm not too
certain of it. This is the channel that we have been following.
MR. SCHUTTE: If this be the case, being an
elective office you still come under the discretion of the
Mayor and the Council . . .it seems to me I heard a term mentioned
here not too long ago that he who controls the pursestrings
controls everything else. . .I just thought I 'd throw that to you.
MR. ONO: That is to some extent true. If
they did not fund our office at all then I think we would cease
to exist.
MR. SCHUTTE : Then the same thing would exist
even in an appointive office.
MR. ONO: Yes , except that with an appointive
office, I think there is a little more direct control because
the person becomes just a department head and is subject to the
policies of the administration. Whereas in our case we are not
subject to the policies of the administration.
MR. SCHUTTE : Yes , but if he controls the
dollars , then what? How can you get away from that?
MR. ONO: That is a good question , I don ' t
know. I believe that there should be some budget review of
any department whether it is mine or anyone else'•s because it
would be very easy for any department head to come in and say
hey, we need a Xerox machine, we need some paper shredders ,
how about giving us new furniture and everything else and
asking for the moon. So there should be some review and maybe
this would be the check or the balance that is necessary.
-21-
MR. TRULSON: I seem to recall a point in one
prior meeting and I want to go back to Section 9.2 on Qualifi-
cations. Maybe this is not the time to bring this up but I
recall that there was something not constitutionally correct
as far as the qualifications are listed in the Charter.
MR. ONO: Is this the residency requirement?
MR. TRULSON: Right.
MR. ONO: I am not sure. There have been
recent cases that have upheld some residency requirements. . .
MR. LEGASPI : May I say, Bud, I think there
is a letter which I am submitting in my proposal to fit this.
I think the qualification here is invalid and that I am sugges-
ting a remedy for it.
MR. TRULSON: Thank you.
CHAIRMANSAKATA: Are there any other questions?
No. Then we will proceed with the meeting.
CIVIL DEFENSE Introduction was made of Mr. Song Gin Kim,
AGENCY: Plans & Operations Officer.
MR. KIM: Mr. Chairman , my name is Song Gin Kim.
I am from the Civil Defense Agency. Harry Kim, who is the
Administrator, had to go to Honolulu this afternoon so I am here
representing the agency. This agency was created and organized
under Statute 127 and we operate under that statute. At this
time, I do not wish to request or recommend any change.
MR. SCHUTTE: You are Mr. Kim, is that correct?
Tell me, how does this work in with the county. Where: does this
fit within the County Charter?
MR. KIM: I think in the County Charter on Page
39 we are listed as "other agencies" . We are not even listed as
. . .we don ' t even have a title there in that paragraph.
MR. SCHUTTE : The reason that I asked is that
I couldn ' t find anything and we were just wondering if we were
in the wrong room. You mentioned that the Office of Civil
Defense stands status quo on the Charter as it stands, or as it
governs the Civil Defense today. Now, what we are interested in
is how and what portion of the Charter would you come under.
You said Page 39. . .what portion of this. . . transitions and
provisions?
MR. KIM: Yes , I think it would come under the
provisions. I can ' t find anything else or anywhere else that we
are listed.
MR. SCHUTTE : There is actually nothing here
that I can see that even lists the Civil 'Defense. Are you saying
that it should be kept out of the County Charter, as such, or are
-- you. . .would you like to say that it should be included within it.
-22-
You are funded by the state, I presume?
MR. KIM: What was the last question?
MR. SCHUTTE: You are funded by the state?
MR. KIM: Negative on that. We are funded
almost 50% by federal funds and the other 50% by county funds.
A little better than 50% by county funds. We administer our
own functions and we are administered by the county govern-
ment.
MR. SCHUTTE: I don ' t understand that.
MR. KIM: It is very difficult.
MR. SCHUTTE : What you are saying is that the
R L assigns your Department of Civil Defense to the various
counties. Is that it? What I 'm saying is that you are not
listed within the County Charter and if the county is putting
up 50% or better of the dollars, they have got to have their
hands on it some way.
MR. KIM: This is what happens. The federal
puts out personnel and administrative money. Almost 50%.
The state administers that money and the other expenses come
from the county.
MR. SCHUTTE: Who does the hiring within the
Civil Defense Department?
MR. KIM: It is done by the county and we
are governed by Civil Service laws.
MR. SCHUTTE: You are governed by the Civil
Service laws , you come under the hiring of the County Civil
Service Commission?
MR. KIM: Not_ the Commission. It is spelled
out in Chapter 12.7 that we will be governed by Civil Service
rules.
MR. SCHUTTE: It is confusing. How do you
account for this? Who do you answer to?
MR. KIM: It is a very confusing setup. We
answer to the Mayor.
MR. SCHUTTE: And yet it is not even covered
here in the Charter. So what we should do then is to put this
into the Charter. If it is legal .
MR. KIM: But the creation of the agency was
spelled out by Chapter 127, the state law.
MR. CADINHA: Okay, let ' s talk money. What
part of the budget do you come under? The administrative
budget?
MR. KIM: I really don ' t understand your question.
-23-
MR. CADINHA: If you need $100 , 000 to
operate this year, who do you give that to? . The Mayor?
MR. KIM: ' That is correct. We prepare two
budgets, to make things more. confusing now. One for the
federal boys and one for the operating functions. We prepare
two budges which we give to the Mayor.
MR. CADINHA: These budgets are identical?
MR. KIM: Yes.
MR. CADINHA: Then the Mayor takes your
request for, in this case, the $100, 000 so we can follow on.
Where does he budget that? In other words, the Mayor has a
budget, an administrative budget. . .Rudy, do you know the
answer to this?
' MR. LEGASPI : It appears as a separate entity
in the budget requests , titled Civil Defense. And as Mr. Kim
said, it is funded with the sharing of funds.
MR. KIM: It is matching funds that the
federal puts in. That would eliminate some of the confusion.
MR. SCHUTTE: Rudy, maybe you can explain
this. I don ' t particularly understand this situation where
you have an organization within the county structure that
is funded partially by state funds and partially by county
funds. There is nothing mentioned in our County Charter that
allows this provision. However, the employees of this
particular organization come under the County Civil Service.
In other words, they are hired through the County Civil SerViGe.
They are funded 50% or better through county funds but they are
neither listed here within the Mayor ' s portion of it or any
other portion within the County Charter.
MR. ISHIDA: I think Mr. Bess; the Corporation
Counsel can answer that. I think what he ' ll tell us is that
there are two charters that we are working under, practically
speaking. Isn ' t that right, Mr. Bess?
MR. BESS : There is a provision in our State
Constitution relating to local government that provides this.
Where the State Legislature may pass uniform laws of state-
wide application and these would supersede any provisions in
the Charter so that although we have a certain amount of power
at the local governmental level-in areas such as Civil Defense
where the State Legislature determines that it is advisable
to have a uniform system of Civil Defense in the entire state
they have seen fit to pass I believe it is Chapter 127 that
provides for this kind of uniform system of Civil Defense.
And that is basically what the problem is. .we have had the
State Legislature determining that this was necessary and what
had happened, apparently. . .and I have to research this. . .but
in the last Charter Commission Review, they did not see fit to
reiterate what alreadyLiis in 127 in our County Charter.
-24-
MR. KIM: One correction. . . those are not
state funds but are federal and county funds.
MR. BESS : I don ' t really remember 127 too
well but one thing that rings a bell in my mind is this , that
under 127 it appoints all of the mayors of each of the
counties as being the head Civil Defense Director. . .and then
it impowers him to be able to appoint a deputy director.
The deputy director in this case, the Civil Defense Director,
for all practical purposes in Harry Kim. That is why it
would fall under the Mayor' s budget. Because of the adminis-
trative budget what I am saying is that it is denoted as a
separate department but even though it is not in the chapter
that says this is one of the departments that falls under the
administrative supervision of the Mayor because of the way
127 is worded it. logically follows that the state appoints
him to be the one responsible for civil defense. He has the
power to appoint somebody else and has done that when he
appointed Mr. Kim. So, yes , they have a separate budget
which is akin to the one in our office.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Bess , are you saying
that this is consistent throughout. the state? The civil
defense business?
MR. BESS : I can check , but I haven ' t checked
to find out whether or not Maui, Kauai or the Honolulu Charters
have anything on civil defense.
MR. KIM: Getting back to 127. . . 127 applies
to natural disasters and 128 also provides for the creation
of civil defense as it applies to enemy attack and wartime.
So there are two chapters on civil defense.
MR. CADINHA: Mr. Kim, are your employees
part of the retirement system of the State of Hawaii and
everything else?
MR. KIM: The same as any other county
employee.
MR. CADINHA: How many employees do you have?
MR. KIM: Right now, we have two male employees
. . .the administrator, the plans and operations officer and we
are in the process of getting a logistical officer. . .that would
be three male employees and a stenographer and a clerk. So
there are five altogether in our agency.
MR. CADINHA: Does the federal funding differ
from year to year or does it remain status quo?
MR. KIM: It has been pretty much ' the same
each year, but as we require additional funds to meet increased
expenses we have been able to get them.
-25-
MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Kim, then what it amounts
to is that because this is a position created through an RL
it does not have to be mentioned in the County Charter.
MR. KIM: Yes , that is how I conclude it. A
status quo thing.
MR. BESS : Just a point of clarification.
This was really a quick look , but the Honolulu Charter does
not have any reference at all to the Civil Defense Department.
Neither does Maui. Kauai has one and it reads , "there shall
be a Civil Defense Agency whose powers, duties , functions and
organization shall be provided----for,,by-filaw. This would again
revert back to 127.
co 3212ecT1/13
MR.CYAGONGQ In case of a disaster you have mit-Se-11"1"
to work with other agencies within the county, right? Some-
times the police, for example. . .do they come under you during
disaster or under their police chief.
MR. KIM: Our primary function is that of
coordination so we represent the Mayor in coordinating the .
various agencies such as the Police, Fire, Public Works. So
as I have listed, we have only five in the department. We
are just a staff agency. We have no -resources or manpower to
do any emergency work but we do coordinate the various outlying
agencies if we need them. We will call on the Public Works,
as weneed them, and representing the Mayor, we will utilize
their services.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Any other questions? No.
We thank you, Mr. Kim.
MR. KIM: Thank you.
CORPORATION Introduction was, made of Stephen Bess ,
COUNSEL: Corporation Counsel .
MR. BESS : Mr. Chairman , and members of the
Commission, I want to apologize for not having a written state-
ment here today. I wasn ' t notified of this meeting until this
morning. It wasn ' t put on my calendar and so I should have
been able to write a written statement while I was back here
waiting to appear. But, at any rate, what I would like to do
is express my concerns about the structure and organization of
our department in written form and the commission can be
assured that they will receive that within a week.
Basically, I don ' t have any startling changes
to recommend as far as our office is concerned. Our office is
in Chapter 2 , Section 5 on Page 9 of the current Charter. I
would recommend that Section 5-2.4 that refers to Assistant
Corporation Counsel be amended with language similar to that
found in Maui County' s Charter and apparently at the time that
this Charter was written there were just two people in the
office and I don ' t know whether or not the Charter Commission
envisioned having more than just one person to assist the
-- Corporation Counsel but rather than just specifying that the
-26-
corporation counsel may have an assistant corporation counsel ,
that the corporation counsel should have the power to appoint
an assistant corporation counsel and deputy corporation
counsels and necessary staff as shall be authorized by the
counsel . Such appointees shall be attorneys, licensed to
practice and in good standing before the Supreme Court of the
State of Hawaii and shall be in the exempt class of Civil
Service and shall serve at the pleasure of the corporation
counsel. That is paraphrasing Maui County' s Section 8-2.4
of their Charter.
MR. SCHUTTE : You are going to give us a
written copy of your recommendations?
MR. BESS : I will . But, basically, what it
does , it just amends the Charter to reflect what really is.
We have an assistant corporation counsel and we have several
deputy corporation counsels. As far as any other amendments
to the Section relating to corporation counsel I think that
the Charter can remain as it is. I know that one issue that
has come up in the paper numerous times and came up in the
paper last week with the mayor, is the question as to whether
or not the County Council ought to have an attorney of their
own. I strongly believe that the County Council ought to have
a counsel services staff. One of the members of that staff
ought to be a licensed attorney before the Supreme Court of
the State of Hawaii. However, I do not believe that the
Charter needs to be amended ho accomplish this that the
council should have the prerogative to appoint that kind of
staff to assist it. However, it has to be pointed out that
the corporation counsel should remain the chief legal advisor
to the county. I think what is often forgotten is the fact that the
corporation counsel is advising a municipal corporation. We are
but one entity. There are several agencies, several departments
but perhaps in analogizing it to a private corporation such as
Xerox, a legal issue may arise that may affect more than one
department. The Research and Development Department may affect
the President of the corporation but private corporations do not
provide for attorneys to be assigned to each department and to act
toward each other in an adversary manner. There is but one legal
counsel . . .One legal voice for Xerox Corporation. Now they may
have a battery of attorneys but the point is that it is but one
entity so that what I 'm saying here is that even though the
council may see fit to appoint a staff attorney, the corporation
counsel would be the one who would be responsible for all matters,
litigation matters to determine whether or not it is advisable
to settle a case. Of course, in certain instances he has to go
to the council for approval on his recommendation to settle a
case. But there should be but one attorney deciding what the
strategy of the case is going to be. In addition , the
corporation counsel should be the person to determine any legal
matter before the corporation that does not involve litigation.
If you need a legal opinion as to what an ordinance says, the
corporation counsel should have final word.
-27-
So what I am saying is that other than the
amendment suggested to Section 5-2.4 that the existing
language remain.
MR. TRULSON: You state you feel that the
corporation counsel should have the final say in any litigation
matter and also you feel that the County Council should have
the power to select their own attorney. Now suppose the County
Council does this. They have an attorney who voices an opinion
onssa particular matter. Then what you are saying then is that
the corporation counsel should supersede that.
MR. BESS : That is correct.
MR. TRULSON: What would be the reason for the
council then having that attorney?
MR. BESS : Well , I think there are a number of
legal questions that arise where the council may feel much more
comfortable in requesting a legal opinion from a staff attorney
rather than fromour office. I think what we have here is. . .
what is happening here in the county is typical of what is
happening in our society is this that increasingly we are
looking tolawyers, we are looking to courts to solve what may
be political problems , social problems , sometimes psychological
problems and as such the corporation counsel potentially has a
a tremendous amount of power. When you run into a difficult
or a hot political issue sometimes it is much easier to try to
turn that problem into a legal problem to get the monkey off
of the back of the council . . .I don ' t mean to single out the
council , any agency. . .where the public is screaming at you and
it is very difficult to make a decision that is going to satisfy
all of the members of the public, you oftentimes turn the
problem over t`othe corporation counsel .
I think that the existing Charter notices that
point that the corporation counsel is an extremely or can be
extremely powerful and that is why I think there is the confirm-
ation powersin here so that you don ' t have a corporation counsel
that looks as if he is the mayor' s attorney. That the
corporation counsel is indeed representing the entity, the
municipal corporation rather than the mayor or rather than the
council .
My position is a very difficult one because
having lived through the position for a year and ahalf, two
years in what has to be described as a highly politicized
situation , I would like nothing more than to have one master.
But I think in terms of what is best for the county, I think it
is best to have just one legal advisor and let him lose sleep.
MR. CADINHA: Mr. Bess, your analogy with
Xerox or a public corporation is interesting. There is one
difference though. In a public corporation, the board of
directors represent the stockholders interests and they can
can the president any time they wish. Under our system, right
now, the council has no ability unless the guy is completely
way out in right field. No ability to get rid of the mayor.
Now, in the interests of your job only. Would your job be
-28-
made easier if the administrative function of government
be placed under the County Council , i.e. , the managing
director type of thing rather than an elected mayor
situation. Would you be able to represent the entity if
you will more easily?
MR. BESS : Well , let me start off by saying
that I don ' t know a great deal about the city manager form
of government. Assuming that the city manager form of
government left me with one boss which I think the little
I do know about city manager government, that is unlikely
to happen because you are still going to be accountable to
each member of the council and you are still going to run
into a lot of political demands being made on you.
Let me understand this , the city manager
would have the power to hire and fire a corporation council
and with no fall back to the councilmembers who appointed the
city manager as far as confirmation. Is that the setup that
you envision?
MR. CADINHA: I 'm trying to draw an analogy
with a public corporation, that ' s all. If that ' s.. thecase
that:1s how it woUId-work. Under a public corporation if
the president decides it doesn ' t need it 's old counsel any
longer so he fires the guy and hires someone else.
MR. BESS : Well , certainly, if you were just
accountable to one person it would make my job much easier.
And like 'I say, as far as the city manager form of government
is, I don ' t know that, in fact, that is the case that I would
be accountable to one person. I think though that what you
have to recognize is that it has been placed and the problem
has been defined as my representing the council as well as
the mayor.
The problem goes much beyond that. Weare
faced with. . .because we have the duty of representing all the
agencies of the county. . .I represent the Water Commission,
I represent the Water Department, I represent the Mayor as
well as the council . But in the Water Department situation
there may be a conflict between representing both the depart-
ment and the Water Commission that, you know, I may find out
some things through the Water Department that I may feel
should be disclosed to the Water Commission and yet, at the
same time, I have an attorney-client relationship with that
Water Department. You constantly have this balancing going
on.
I don ' t know how the city manager form of
government t,ou;ld work but assuming that. .I don ' t know if you
would have any commissions in that situation, would you have
commissions still in the city manager form of government?
I don ' t know. But what I am suggesting is that even if the
city manager form of government also contained commissions
I would still be in a very difficult position in the sense
that I would be not only-representing the city manager but
the water commission and the department itself. I hate to
even get into the city manager area because I know so little
about it and the last time I can remember anything about
city manager form of government was when Patsy Mink came to
us and talked to me in the 10th grade about the City and County
of Honolulu.
-29-
MR, TRULSON: Mr. Bess , you stated before that
it was not necessary to put it into the Charter to enable the
council to have their own attorney. How would you do it? And
secondly, if the council is allowed to have their own attorney
for their needs in areas where it seems to me it has been more
of a conflict within the administration and the council. And
you also stated Water Board and Water Commission. If the
council would have one what is to stop each and every depart-
ment whenever they have a conflict to say well I want to hire
my attorney, I want to hire. . .isn ' t this going to kind of
steamroll where pretty soon you are going to have a corporation
counsel an'd every department with their own private counsel?
MR. BESS : Okay, to answer your first question
as to how it Would be done(_other than amending the Charter.
As the members of the commission are probably aware the City
and County of Honolulu has this setup. This the position of
counsel attorney is not reflected in the Charter so that I had
not researched this area as to how they actually did it but I
would assume that they passed an ordinance that would provide
for this . Certainly under the existing administration there
would be no difficulty in their being a veto of that ordinance.
Of course, I guess you could envision the situation where you
might have a mayor that would like to veto it and there may
not be enough votes on the council to override. But I would
think that the way to do it would be by ordinance. If you
feel that a Charter amendment would be profitable to do away
with the problem I suggest about there being a mayor having
a=veto andthere<<.noti<<being enough votes to override and that
the public inherently feels that they've got to have a staff
attorney, then by all means , put it in. I don ' t have any
objection to putting it into the Charter. If it is inserted
into the Charter I want to make it clear as to what are the
duties and functions of the staff attorney and how the
corporation counsel relates to him.
As to the second point, I donut know, but
I think it is highly unlikely that you are going to have a
steamrolling effect. Realistically, from a very practical
standpoint, the big beefs come =,between the council and the
mayor so that in my experience with the county, I have never
heard any of the other commissions or departments feel that
they ought to have their own attorney. Of course, I can think
back in the past where because the corporation counsel is
appointed by the mayor there is an assumption that I would
like to think , unwarranted, that the corporation counsel is
in the`'hip pocket of the mayor and so that when there is a
dispute involving. .let' s take for instance the Arthur Hoke
matter where we have a duty to represent the Police Department.
Mr. Keppler happened to be sitting as the hearing officer.
You know,Chief Paul is too muchof a gentleman to say so, I
think it certainly crossed his mind that, hey, who' s side
are you on? But they have never have gone so far as to suggest
that they ought to have a separate attorney assigned to their
department or their commission.
-30-
MR. CADINHA: Mr. Bess , do you feel , not to
satisfy the County Council , but do you feel in your own mind
that another legal staff is necessary or can the burden under
an appointed office be carried?
MR. BESS : Well , I ' ll tell you. We 've been
trying to get an additional attorney for a long time. We do
service the council. We do a lot of work for the council and
the addition of a staff attorney there would relieve some of
the burden from our office. So from a very selfish standpoint ,
that ' s beingsvery honest about it, that ' s certainly a motive.
But I think that beyond that, believe me, it
is very difficult for the corporation council to instill a
trust in the councilmembers. To have them believe that you are
really trying..<..to call it straight. I don ' t care who the person
is , you are gding to have those doubts and I think to satisfy
those doubts , members of the council feel a lot more comfort-
able just being able to touch base with another attorney and
find out whether or not, hey, is our corporation counsel all
wet or is he calling this on the side of whoever the other side
is. I really think that. .I 've heard this before. . in fact I
know that councilmembers do this. We render an opinion and they
go check , hey, should we sue, or should we not sue? Is the
corporation counsel right? It leaks back to us. So that I don ' t
think that what the council is suggesting is unreasonable at all .
I think it would serve a very useful function.
MR. CADINHA: Is it possible that the corpor-
ation counsel not be an appointive department and that it would
be much like the prosecuting official in the state and the
county, and run? Thatthe corporation counsel be independent
by running and be elected by the people?
MR. BESS : I don ' t see the benefit to be
derived from making it an elective position. That ' s basically
it.
MR. TRULSON: If it was an elective office
you would still come under the control Of the mayor and the
council . You would still have to answer to both. You would
still be working for both. Although you would be an elected
official they would still , in effect, be your boss.
MR. BESS : That ' s right. They are my clients.
For certain members of the community they might be happy with
insisting upon the corporation counsel be elected in the sense
that they would be able to discern better than apparently they
are now, where the man ' s 'stand is with respect is to development
and land use policy. That kind of thing. Of course, now, the
council has that power, too, they can ask those,,kiods of !dues tions
of the corporation counsel. My answer is going to sound be-
fuddled but it is basically because I haven ' t given it much
thought. I really have not been presented with any kind of
persuasive argument as to why it should be elected and certainly
what you point out, Mr. Trulson, is a good point. Regardless
of whether or not he is elected or not , I still have two bosses.
I still have two clients and I am bound by the professional code
of ethics to advocate their positions zealously. I accept that
explanation ! Thank you!
-31-
IR. ISHIDA: Mr. Bess , from the previous
discussions with other departments we have come into a quandary
with regards basically to those departments under commissions
in 'i article VII , the personnel Services , Police Department,
Liquor Control and it is also applicable to the Department of
Water Supply. There is a provision in each of the respective
chapters , the last one, which states, "the department shall
come under the general supervision and control of the °mayor" .
Has that provision ever been construed by the corporation
counsel's office?"?
MR. BESS : No, it hasn ' t.
MR. ISHIDA: . The difficulty we have been
faced with is that the mayor, the administration; nor the
respective department heads know what that entails,. They all
feel that the administration has some control over, them and
they just don ' t know what the control. .what the limits of the
controls are. And because of that. one department head expressed
the situation that he had two bosses and he was unable to
operate under that situation. Can that provision be construed
consistently so that there would not be any conflict between
the administration and the commission which appoints the
department head.
MR. BESS : Well , Mr. Ishida, I think the
best way to answer this is that I would be glad to research
the matter and render an opinion to you. These off the top of
the head kind of opinions are worth exactly where they come
from. My own feeling is that these kinds of provisions are
not inconsistent with say, for instance, the .Department of
Water Supply. My reading of those administrative supervision
provisions is that there is a need for the mayor to be able
to coordinate and integrate the functions of all of the
different agencies. That they have got to be able: to work
together. There has to be some kind of a final arbiter that 's
sitting up there saying, hey, listen you guys get together and
so as far as I 'm concerned. . .let' s take for instance the
Department of Water Supply and departing from my original
position that I '1=l take this under advisement, the water
commission sits as the policy making body and however there
is a great' deal of need for the Water Department to, in the .
manner in which it is operated, to be integrated with the
other departments of the county. And this administrative
supervision provides the mayor with some power to do just that.
The difficult thing in the Department of Water Supply is that
as everyone knows here is that the initial Section talks about
a semi-autonomous department and no one quite knows what semi-
autonomous means. The Charter Commission minutes of the last
two Charter Commissions didn ' t do a very goodjob in terms of
defining what they meant by semi-autonomous. But at any rate
the Department of Water Supply is an especially difficult
-
position because no one quite knows how to read that adminis-
trative supervision Section together with that initial Section
8-1. And that I would like to have an opportunityto research
the matter and render a legal opinion.
I can tell you this. I have worked very
closely, personally, with the Department of Water Supply and
Water Commission and that provision has proved to be trouble-
some in the past particular problems.
-32- ,
MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman, could we ask
Mr. Bess to render us an opinion as to the interpretation
of the administrative supervision provision?
MR. BESS : With all due respect to Mr. Ishida,
my understanding is that there is to be an appointed an
executive director or that there may be some opportunity for
you folks to appoint a staff attorney.
On this question , I ' ll be glad to render an
opinion. Let me just start there. Now, let me weasel out.
I think that it is advisable to get the opinion of someone
outside the county in this regards. I really think that on
this matter and it is a very ticklish matter, I think that it
would be advisable for-, the Charter Commission to seek the
opinion of an outside attorney.
MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman, I would agree
with Mr. Bess. I feel that with respect to Mr. Bess , I think
independent counsel would be better.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Is there any more discussion
on this? No questions to the Corporation Counsel?
MR. CADINHA: One point for clarification.
Mr. Bess , there is obviously no conflict of interesLtin-your
mind as to being able to represent legislative and adminis-
trative branches of county employee government. Is that
correct? It sounds to me like your recommendation for separate
counsel for the County Council is wanting to please the minds
of the County Council . In other words , the Corporation
Counsel , in your mind is in no conflict and is not put in the
position of being under conflict. That is what I got bottom
line. I just wanted to clarify it.
MR. BESS : Well , let me put it this way.
The Corporation Counsel is acutely aware of the consequences
of some of his legal opinions and the political consequences
of those legal opinions. And one would hope that the Corpora-
tion Counsel would, regardless of those political consequences ,
if it was a clearcut, hey, this is what the law is. That he is
going to go that way rather than to even consider those political
consequences. But as Mr. Schutte pointed out with Mr. Ono,
I mean, people are human. Political consequences affect diff-
erent Corporation Counsels different ways. Certainly if the
Corporation Counsel thinks that his only way of living is to go
the route of Corporation Counsel , you may have a Corporation
Counsel that may not be fulfilling his duties as all of the
agencies of the county would like.
But, coming back to your question , under the
professional code of ethics I look at my job as being to the
entity rather than to the various departments on an individual
basis. But I am not going to doubt or deny that sometimes
pursuing that objective is awfully difficult.
MR. SCHUTTE: I can appreciate your position ,
Mr. Bess , and what you are saying then is that in many instances
your rendering of an opinion could also be the individual ' s
interpretation of law. In other words , you could be for or
against depending on the interpretation. If you happen to be
-33-
•
in favor of that particular situation or that particular
point you could render a favorable interpretation. If you
happen to be against it there is a method of rendering an
opinion for a legal point that would be contrary.
MR. BESS : Mr. Schutte, I think that the
way you've got to look at this is that there are not many
legal decisions made by the Corporation Counsel ' s office
where it is a fifty-fifty deal , where it could go either
way. That point has been overemphasized, I think . In my
experience with the Corporation Counsel ' s office, we just
don ' t have that many. There are always arguments that can
be made on one side and. there are arguments that can be
made on the other side. But, in my experience, by far in
most cases you have a situation where the arguments make a
lot more sense on one side than they do the other and as far
as I 'm concerned, that is the way I am going to go is where
the preponderance of the law is , not where there happens to
be an argument. As you know, I can render a legal opinion
and the body I have rendered that legal opinion to can
choose to disobey it or act in conflict to that opinion and
if they do, I feel that I should go ahead and defend them
as best as I can giving those arguments that I may have
considered initially but I ruled against. So, anyway, I
feel that the whole point of an attorney being able to call
it any way he wants to, somewhere he is going to find some
off the wall case, in Alabama, or something to support his
position. True , that argument can be made, but that is not
the way the Corporation Counsel ' s office works. Certainly
it doesn ' t work that way now. In most cases the law is clear
which way to go. Certainly there are situations such as this ,
Mr. Ishida ' s question , "what does this mean" , and it is such
generalized language that you have to go back to the legis-
lative history and pour through all these Charter Commission
Minutes and see whether or not there is anything that would
help you to construe the language and then you go to different
words and phrases , books and that kind of thing to assist you
in trying to get a handle on what it is saying.
The amount of freedom that a lawyer has to
construe something is not as broad as everyone would like to
think it is, or everyone. .a number of people have made it out
to be that we can call it the way we see it.
CHAIRMAN SAKATA: There being no further
questions, we 'd like to thank you, Mr. Bess , for appearing
before the commission at this time.
RECESS : At 5 : 20 pm. , the Chair called for a short recess.
RECONVENE : The meeting reconvened at5 : 30 p.m. with all
members present.
-34-
ORDER OF It was moved , seconded and unanimously
BUSINESS : carried that the meeting restored to the
order of business.
APPROVAL It was moved, seconded and unanimously carried
OF MINUTES : that the minutes of each meeting be approved
one week following receipt of same.
SECOND Minutes for the 2nd Session, January 16 , 1979
SESSION: have not been received.
THIRD Minutes for the 3rd Session , January 23 , 1979
SESSION: were presented with the following corrections
noted:
1 . In Communication #6 , the corrected
spelling of "Ranseyer" to "Ramseyer" .
2 . In all other Communications #7-11 coxae/7�
tP T(. PT ST M OV AN(
the moved' on.j refers to the council . —
It should be "commission".
3. Page 5 , Chairman Sakata' s second state-
ment again the two words "council"
should be "commission"
COMMUN- The following communications were considered:
CATIONS :
Ch-vv-e-14
ATIONS : 4
"32%M
Comm. Cl1 From Hideo Kuniyoshi , Director of the Department
of Liquor Control , dated January 16 , 1979 , sub-
mitting an overview of his department and recom-
mendations for Charter revisions.
Mr. Omonaka moved to accept and discuss
this communication at an appropriate
time. Seconded by Mrs. Kobayaski and
unanimously carried.
Comm. Eijs3 : From Harry Wakahaski , Legislative Auditor of the
Office of the County Clerk, dated January 22 ,
1979 , submitting a set of minutes of the 1st ,
2nd, and 3rd Charter Commissions for the use
of the Charter Review Commission.
Mr. Schutte made motion that the file be
retained in Mr. Legaspi ' s office for the
availability of the Charter Commission.
Seconded by Mr. Omonaka and unanimously
carried.
It was moved by Mr. Omonaka that the commission write
the County Council thanking them for Mr. Legaspi ' s
expertise and assistance and requesting them that in
the future we would like to call upon him again if
we require his services. And also a letter to Mr.
Legaspi offering him our personal thanks and apprec-
iation for his help. Seconded by Mrs. Kobayashi and
unanimously carried.
—35—
ANNOUNCE- Announcement was made of the next meeting
MENTS : to be held on Tuesday, February 6 , 1979 ,
at 3: 30 p.m. , Hawaii County Councilroom,
Hilo, Hawaii.
ADJOURN- There being no further business , the
MENTI January 30 , 1979 meeting of the County of
Hawaii Charter Review Commission was
adjourned at 6: 28 p.m.
Ll°l
/Joan Carnett
Recording Secretary
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