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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-02-20 HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 7th Session February 27, 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The seventh session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 3:40 p.m. in the Hawaii County Council- room, Hawaii County Building, Hilo, Hawaii , by Mr. Kimiaki Sakata, Chairman. The roll recorded the following: Present: 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 Absent Mr. Harlan Cadinha and Excused: Also Recording Secretary, Joan Carnett Present: DEPARTMENTAL The Chair called for the Rules to be suspended TESTIMONY: and departmental testimony be accepted. Mr. Schutte made the motion. It was seconded by Mr. Trulson and unanimously carried. COUNTY The Chair introduced Mr. Joseph Garcia, Vice- COUNCIL: Chairman, as representing the County Council in place of Mr. Stephen Yamashiro was was un- able to be present at this time. MR. GARCIA: Mr. Chairman and members of the Charter Commission. My name is Joseph R. Garcia, Jr. and I 'm here speaking in behalf of Councilman Steve Yamashiro, Chairman of the Council , the County of Hawaii. Mr. Yamashiro is in Honolulu on legislative business and he has asked me to read his prepared statement. I . At the outset, I would like to say that the statements I make are not necessarily mine but they are his. But I will try to answer the questions to the best of my ability if there be any questions. "Mre Chairman and members of the Charter Commission® My name is Stephen K. Yamashiro, Chairman of the Council of the County of Hawaii. "At this time I would like to thank you for the opportunity to participate with you in the review of our County Charter. The County of Hawaii is a very vital part of our society and the County Council as the legislative branch of our local government has the responsibility of setting the goals , priorities and direction for all the people of the county. "Judge Martin Pence, formerly of Hilo, in one of his anti-trust decisions , advanced the theory of government participating in a similar role as parents' of the people which they represent. This analogy very aptly states the role and responsibility of county government , and especially of the legislative policy-making body. It is our duty to evaluate the circumstances and conditions we exist in and to make those decisions which will allow the community to grow and prosper and continue to be a good place to live for all members of the community. "Here in the State of Hawaii , we have a very simple, centralized form of government. The responsibilities for governmental action rests in two hands--either the State Legislature or the local county governments. We are not beset with the multitude of state-local-municipal governments along with the various boards , commissions , water districts , special districts which are responsible for the governance of many areas of our country. Our powers as the County Council are derived from the State Constitution and the Legislature of the State of Hawaii. These powers are further promulgated in that document that you are now in the process of reviewing', our County Charter. "Our local government, being the closest level of government to the people of the County of Hawaii, is charged with the responsibility and obligation ofo,providing the primary public services demanded by the people of our county. These services are basically in the area of police, fire, roads, water and recreation. In addition, and perhaps of more importance, is the local government ' s role in land use and planning. The local government through its exercise of land use controls formulate policies and decisions which not only guide the direction and growth of our county, but also dictate cost and expenses which will be borne by the people of our county. Land useTplanning considers social , economic and cultural activities which determines the life- style, vitality, and happiness of our people. -2- "In addition, to the controls of land use and planning, the last constitutional convention has conferred upon the counties an additional power which, when responsibly exercised, greatly enhance the home rule' capab- ility of local government level . This is the total res- ponsibility for the real property taxing, property within the individual counties. At the present time, the power of real property taxation is exercised at two levels. The state sets the rate of assessment and the assessment criteria with the local government responsible for the tax rate to be charged against the assessed property. This divided system has caused confusion and buckpassing in the past, but will in the future be eliminated by having the total responsibility transferred to the county. This is an awesome responsibility and when coupled with our land use control , will greatly enhance our ability to divert the future of this island. "The Council , being the legislative branch, is traditionally assigned the policy-making responsibilities with the executive branch charged with the duty of executing the policy decSisions of the Council under the supervision of the Council . "The Charter, which your commission is responsible for reviewing, will be the document by which this county must operate for the next 10 years . We would caution the members of the commission that there is a need for built- in provisions to allow for the flexibility to adjust to the changes in our society. At this time I would like to comment on our thoughts. I. REVISIONS A. Section 3-2 Composition and Terms We would recommend that the Council be composed of nine members , five to be elected from the State House of Representative districts and four to be elected on an at-large basis. All members will serve four-year terms. The proposed recommendations would assure that each district is properly represented by the choice of the people within the district, not by the electorate of other districts. The four at-large members would provide the assurance that the issues will not be localized but will be addressed on a county-wide basis. B. Section 3-7 Organization of the Council ; Officers; Employees The Current Charter requirements have already proven the impracticality of one body servicing two masters, executive and legislative. We are in consonance with the Mayor ' s recommendation that the Council be authorized to retain their own legal counsel. -3- C. Section 3-14 Adoption of Pay Plan The adoption of the annual pay plan seems to be a redundant action, the Council must approve the positions established in the pay plan and it must approve the funds for the positions in the opera- tional budget. With proper amendments, the Council could take up the approval of the positions at the same time the budgetary appropriations are approved. D. Section 10-13 Post Audit The Council does not concur with the administration in changing the post audit requirements to a biennium audit. Appropriations are incorporated in an annual budget, thus the audit report should address the fiscal year coinciding with the budgetary appropia- tions. We are dealing with the public trust and thus it should be incumbent upon us to provide a disclosure of public fund expenditures on a timely basis. E. Section 13-4 Boards and Commissions The Council recommends that the boards and commissions be retained intact. These boards and commissions are another means by which the public is able to foster their input into the governmental processes. This is another segment of the all-important system of checks and balances incorporated into our democratic system insuring the rights of the people to be heard. II . NEW CONSIDERATIONS A. Real Property Tax Assessment The State Constitutional Convention has resulted in an amendment of the real property taxation powers by transferring the powers and functions relating to real property taxation from the state to the counties. Being as the County Council is charged with the responsibility of establishing the tax rate, we would recommend that the tax assessment function be assigned to the County Council ' s Legislative Auditor. B. Confirmation of Department Heads The Council would also recommend that their confirma- tion authority be expanded to include all the depart- ment heads. It is the accepted practice that basic policy-making functions remain with the council and traditionally the administrative officers have been charged with the responsibility of executing the policy decisions of the Council. In order to assure that policies and programs of the legislative branch are implemented some supervision by the Council should be incorporated. The confirmation of the cabinet members of the administration would cast some onus on the departments to adhere to the Council policies and programs. -4- I _ "The County of Hawaii has experienced significant changes in its socio-economic status. Modern technology has brought Hawaii and the rest of the world closer together and it is reflected in the type and level of services being demanded by the people. The future outlook for the County of Hawaii is bright, our Charter should be designed to cope with the ever changing needs of our society. "In closing, we would like to commend all of you for accepting the responsibility and the arduous task associated with the Charter review process. Your decisions will determine the effectiveness of our local government structure. " Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. MR. TRULSON: Councilman Garcia, could you give us an idea if all the members of the council are in agreement with these proposals? MR. GARCIA: I could not say yes or no. All that I can tell you is that I personally am not in agree- ment with all of the proposals made. I do not believe that this matter was taken up by the chairman with the other councilmembers. I cannot speak for the other councilmembers. I speak only for myself. This is the reason I prefaced my remarks by saying that these were purely the statements and sentiments of Chairman Stephen Yamashiro. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Garcia, would you perhaps enlighten us on your differences of what is proposed? MR. GARCIA: One of the differences that I might have is in the membership makeup. I have felt from quite a long time ago that I think seven members could well serve the county. I differ from Chairman Yamashiro in that I would like to see seven members. Five elected from the state house representative districts and two at-large. It is a matter of a difference of two people. I also am one who very strongly believes that departments should be consolidated. I think this is something that perhaps the commission can take into consid- eration. I believe that perhaps the Planning Department along with the Research and Development Department could be incorporated into one department. Public Works and Parks and Recreation into another department. I believe that such a me_ rgin`g of departments would be towards running the county at a more efficient level . I also would like to very strongly say that please don ' t make the charter any stronger for the mayor. I think he has enough powers right now. I am one of the minority councilmembers who feel very strongly that we are rubberstamping, really, most of what the administration wants. I think the council has to be given more power. -5- MR. TRULSON: Would you be in agreement with the proposal where the council would approve all heads of departments? MR. GARCIA: I do. I believe then the department head would be responsive to the legislative branch also rather than just to the administration. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Garcia, do you feel very strongly about the council retaining their own legal counsel? MR. GARCIA: Very strongly. I concur with Chairman Yamashiro that it is impossible for the corporation counsel to serve two masters at the same time. I believe that the Charter Commission should provide for the council to have.:its own counsel. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Garcia, who should then be the legal arm, ,of the council? MR. GARCIA: The legal arm would be the corporation counsel as far as the administration is concerned, but for us it would be our own counsel. If there is a con- flict then we would have to have such a conflict adjudicated, But, at least, if we have our own counsel the individual could work directly with the councilmen on all matters relating to the council . Should there be a conflict develop between the administration and the council it can always be taken to the courts should the situation materialize. MR. TRULSON: Councilman Garcia, regarding real property tax assessment. Are you recommending that the tax assessment function be assigned to the County Council 's Legislative Auditor? Are there other counties now that are in charge of their own tax assessing? And how is that done? MR. GARCIA: No, the state assesses all of the properties and then the counties are given the right to establish their own taxable rate. The real property tax rate. MR. TRULSON: Then you agree with the recommendation that it should be assigned to the legislative auditor? MR. GARCIA: I haven ' t given that much serious thought. I ' ll have to give that a little more thought. But I think that once the assessing and taxing powers come directly to the county as was advocated by the constitutional convention that those might as well be taken up and properly enacted on. MR. ISHIDA: Councilman Garcia, on your statement that you feel there are many areas where the council is rubberstamping the administration policies , could you enlighten us a little bit in what areas you feel the Charter Commission could look into. -6- MR. GARCIA: I think that sometimes in the pay plan , for instance, where a pay plan is given to us and then all of a sudden we find promotions being made, realloca- tions being made. I think if you will read this morning ' s Advertiser and again this afternoon ' s Tribune-Herald, I think you will notice what I am talking about. We can only wait until such time as the budgetary meetings are held before we can at least say what positions we will approve and what we will not. But once the department heads make reallocations or make promotions whether we agree or whether we disagree with them we have to vote aye. We are compelled to vote aye. At least the corporation counsel has already informed us to that effect. MR. ISHIDA: What would be your solution to that? MR. GARCIA: I really don ' t know. That is something that I 'd like to have, perhaps , you folks kick around in one of your meetings. I ' ll be working along with other councilmembers to see how we can resolve this problem. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Garcia, you mentioned that the views of Chairman Yamashiro do not necessarily represent your views or that of the other councilmembers. MR. GARCIA: To my knowledge they do not because I have never discussed this matter with Mr. Yamashiro and I don ' t know whether he has discussed them with other councilmembers. MR. SCHUTTE : Were you aware of any invita- tion that went from this commission to the council offering them the opportunity to appear? MR. GARCIA: Yes. MR. SCHUTTE: All the other councilmembers were aware of this also? MR. GARCIA: That I cannot say. I really don ' t know. But I do know that many of the councilmembers have taken the position, :at_ least I can speak for myself and two or three others with whom I 've discussed appearing before the Charter Commission, they felt that like being candidates for the constitutional convention, they prefer to have the politicians stay as far away from the Charter Commission as possible to give the public the opportunity of coming in with its own input so that the Charter Commission would not feel compelled to listen to everything that the politicians have to say. Many of the individuals stayed away from being candidates for the constitutional convention because they felt it was the people's convention. Perhaps it may be a mistake along that line but as your commission progresses towards the completion of -7- its work there might be other councilmembers who might testify before you. I think we are waiting to see what the response from the public is towards your Charter Commission hearings first. MR. ISHIDA: I feel that as far as the problems that the council is faced with only the council- members really know about them. I don ' t think the public can really give us the input. I think the councilmembers have the insight as to what to suggest to us that we could look into. MR. GARCIA: I think you will find that little by little more and more will be told either to you by the councilman from your district who will probably meet with you over a cup of coffee or will say directly to an individual and say look I think these are the areas in which some atten- tion should be paid. I think what most of the councilpersons are thinking about is giving the public the opportunity of looking at the document and say well these are the areas in which we think corrections should be made. Judging from the way the council has behaved say within the last two years , for example or within the last four years, and then seeing what the rela- tionship between the administration and the council has been. Because the charter, right now, and I say this without any fear of contradiction, the charter provides for a very strong mayor type of government. There is no getting away from it. And to give the mayor any more powers, as the Spanish would say "chihuahua". MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Garcia, this is just what I am speaking about. You ?mention the past two years of the council and the problems that have come up during this time. This is why I say the input that you people have since you are working with this daily would be what I would imagine to be of considerable help. You speak of a very strong mayor type of a charter. This is the kind of input that I think would help us and assist us if you and the other members of the council would be in a position to offer some information relative to the px,oblems that you maybe have in the council with regards to the charter. MR. GARCIA: I really appreciate your position, Sir, and we are having a meeting in Waimea tomorrow and you can be certain that your comments will be transmitted to those councilpersons that are in attendance at Waimea. This may give them the necessary impetus that they need to come and testify before you. Maybe Councilman Yamashiro' s statement here today is just the beginning of-z-what will transpire between now and the next few months. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Councilman Yamashiro, I extend to you and to your committee our sincere thanks for allowing us to appear here this afternoon. -8- CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, ,Mr. Ga.rcia. . GUEST The Chair introduced Mr. Fred Koehnen as SPEAKER: guest speaker on the various forms of county government. MR. KOEHNEN : Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Fred Koehnen. I was the chairman of the third Charter Commission which put together this infamous document. I 'm sure you are going to get a lot of flack about what is in here. We had a few trials and tribulations in putting it together. Like every document of a constitu- tional nature or like every legal document a good deal of it represents compromise. Compromise of opposing positions. I have no particular ax to grind in appearing before you. As a matter of fact, I didn ' t make any notes other than jotting a few down as I came in here. But I thought it might help you a little bit if we sort of reviewed the history of all of the various Charter Commissions and how this document finally came into being. It may give you a better understanding of what has transpired and perhaps a change in social and political climate today from what existed at thee:: time that the various charters were being worked on. The Act 73 that empowered the counties to appoint a Charter Commission was enacted in 1963. You will recall that prior to that and I 'm not sure of the exact date, but several years prior Honolulu had been granted a charter enabling legislation and it had proceded to come forth with a charter which at that point had been adopted. The neighbor islands were always sort of country cousins. They I think in the eyes of the legislature were not deemed responsible enough to have their own form of government. Indeed if you will look back at the form of government that existed prior to the charter, it was a hodge- podge of special legislation that had been enacted throughout the years. And the organizational form was prescribed by law. Partially by special law. It didn ' t exist on a uniform basis. At any rate, by 1963 the neighbor islands had progressed to the point where they were deemed responsible enough to enact their own local form of government and Act 73 was passed. In 1964 the first Charter Commission was appointed and had as its chairman, Dr. Kaoru Noda who was at that time at the local University of Hawaii , Hilo branch. The idea was to get the charter out in time for the general election in 1964. Realizing that the commis- sion was not appointed or did not start work until 1964, they were on a rather tight time schedule to get it ready to go out with the general election in 1964. -9- Looking back there were several reasons perhaps for the failure of the first charter. It was turned down at the ballot box in no uncertain terms . And I think one reason was the general fear of change, the unknown . Secondly the time schedule that did not permit adequate discussion of all the issues. And , of course, the most practical reason was the very heated opposition of the government unions who were afraid that the charter might take away some jobs and might, in some way, be negative to the interests of the members of those government unions. I remember very vividly that there was quite a bit of opposition from both the HGEA and the UPW. In addition there was a good deal of opposition from the semi-autonomous agencies, primarily the Board of Water Supply. Bill Thompson who is a personal friend of mine, we are, really, on quite good terms opposed that very strongly. He was the chairman of the Board of Water Supply which was an independent agency at that time established by special law. They pride their autonomy a great deal . It was a very difficult thing for them to think that they might become a part of the county government subject in any way to outside control. To control by the county government. So they opposed the charter. As a matter of fact, there was an adver- tising campaign against the first charter. Largely financed by both the semi-autonomous agencies and the government unions and as a result the charter went down the drain. We didn ' t have a prayer. We tried to combat this with informa- tional type sessions. We started with too little too late as far as informing the public was concerned and the charter went down the drain. In 1965 , I 'm not sure whether it was ' 65 or ' 66. The exact time frame sort of eludes me. I started work for the county government as the administrative assistant to Chairman Shun Kimura in 1965 ,shortly ,after he took office and I served as an advisor to the second Charter Commission. At that time it was deemed advisable to have a liaison between the government and the Charter Commission and I served that function appointed by the then county chairman to do this. Ralph ,Kiyoski ;; who at that time was the head of the Peace Corpsover here was the chairman of the second Charter Commission. I was talking to Akira awhile back and I had forgotten whether he was a member of the first or the second Charter Commission , he tells me he was on the second as well as the third. At any rate, the second Charter Commission did have the benefit of some experience to go on. Furthermore, in an attempt to mollify the opposition of the government unions , representatives of each of the government unions were appointed to the Charter Commission and they served on that commission and therefore had excellent input and they knew what was going on. -10- The commission evolved a charter but there was a great deal of confusion when it went out on the ballot. It went out in the regular general election of 1966. As I recall that second charter there was, you 'd have to go back and dig the ballot out at the County Clerk ' s office. But I think you would find that there was something like twenty-five or thirty alternatives that people could vote on. It was an extremely confusing situation. The charter went to the council and the council could propose alternatives to the Charter Commission ' s recommendations. If they proposed an alternative it had to go on the ballot. So we had alternatives concerning apportion- ment, we had alternatives on almost every issue. It was a very confusing ballot. With another provision that worked against it , it required a majority vote, I think it was 'of, the registered voters , for the thing to pass . Now the manner of counting the votes then worked against the charter. The multiplicity of alternatives worked against it and as a result it too was defeated primarily on technicalities. The technicalities being the fact that even though the overall approval for the charter without the alter- natives carried a plurality of votes it was not a majority and therefore that charter was defeated. This led in turn to the appointment of the third Charter Commission in 1967. By mid 1967 I had left the county government and was back in private employment and Chairman Kimura at that time asked if I would serve as the chairman of the third Charter Commission. Which I was very happy to do. We had mostly experienced commissioners in the sense that all of them had been exposed to the work of the two prior commissions in one way or another so that everybody had some idea of what the ball game was all about. We did have the fairly tight time schedule. One of the things that had been determined from our previous experience with the two unsuccessful charters was that putting the ballot on the general election tended to submerge the charter to other interests. To the interests of the political campaigns themselves. Therefore it was felt that a special election would focus attention on the charter. Meanwhile, the various county officials realizing the difficulty of the way the law was written concerning counting the ballots did prevail upon the legislature to change that so that a simple plurality of those voting in that election if they approve the charter would be sufficient to pass it. The charter was completed at a fairly early stage. We then embarked upon a very extensive schedule of hearings throughout the island. We went into almost every little nook and cranny. I think Akira can tell you that we had at least two, sometimes three, hearings in almost every district. We vena back not only once but twice and three times. We never closed a hearing until the last person who wanted to speak had spoken. We let everyone have their say. We tried to answer every question that came up. We spent some real long nights believe me. But I think that in a way it paid off. -11- There were very few alternatives. We pur- posely kept them down to just two. I don ' t know how many of you have seen this but this is the charter ballot of the special election in which the charter was adopted. There were just two propositions. One. .shall the proposed charter of the county be adopted and two. .an alternative on represen- tation. And that was it. Well , this did get it out. Whether it was the selling job that we did or whether by this time the people were less reluctant to change. Whether they understood the proposed:.=-changes better or just what the reasons were for the successful passage at that time it is a little hard to say. But I do think that because of the special election the interest was focused on it and it did pass. And that brings us to the document that you are reviewing today because one of the things that was written into this was the proposal, or the requirement for a mandatory review every ten years. And of course this was adopted in 1968 and ten years have gone by. At this time I would be very happy to try to answer any questions. Remember that memory turns dim after ten years but I ' ll be glad to try to answer any questions that you may have as to any specific item in this or the rationale for it. Perhaps giving you a little background on how and why some of these things are in here might be helpful . So if I may at this time, Mr. Chairman, I 'd like to throw it open to questions of that sort. I won ' t guarantee you that I can remember everything but maybe Akira can help me out on a few. MRS. KOBAYASHI : Mr. Koehnen , I thought that you were going to talk about the city manager form of govern- ment. Could you perhaps give us a short synopsis as to why the strong mayor form was chosen over the city manager type. MR. KOEHNEN: That goes along with why the strong mayor. Prior to the enactment of this charter we had a very weak mayor system here. We had the chairman and executive officer of the county who was elected at-large, county wide. We had three supervisors from East Hawaii , elected at-;large from East Hawaii and three from West Hawaii . And that was it. To begin with that probably would not have stood a constitutional test because only East Hawaii voted for theirs and only West Hawaii voted for theirs and there was a big imbalance in population. So I don ' t think that would have sold under the one man one vote concept. However the main reason for the idea of strengthening the mayor was the fact that the old county chairman really had no authority to speak of. He was a member of the board and he couldn ' t do a doggoned thing on his own. One of the biggest items that an executive has to control an organization is the budget. Under the old setup there was no specific responsibility as to who would make the budget. You couldn ' t find a thing in the law that said -12- who made the budget and how it evolved. By custom in those days the county auditor made the budget. Now remember that at that time we had an elected county auditor, we had an elected county treasurer, we had an elected county clerk, we had an elected county attorney and we had the elected officials of the board of supervisors. The county auditor used to take the previous year' s budget and assemble it., He'd go and ask the various departments I guess for a wish list and then he took last year ' s budget and put it together and that was presented to the county board of supervisors and it was up for grabs from there on out. The mayor really didn 't have any control over anything except after the board of supervisors as a body had gone ahead and implemented. All department heads at that time had to be approved by the board of supervisors. We had a situation there at that time where we had just come off of a lot of controversy concerning the approval of certain department heads that the chairman wanted to appoint but the rest of the board of supervisors were not in accord with. As a result the chairman could hardly get a viable administration going. You might say that there were certain department heads forced on him whether he wanted it or not. This is not con- ducive to very good administration. So, we had just seen all of this happen. We had seen individualsupervisorsvho assumed the very dominant position in government. Notethat we may not have similarities from time to time even under any other system. But neverthe- less we had just seen that and most people did not feel that this was a desirable system. We studied the various forms that were available. The weak mayor, the strongmayor, the commission form, the county manager form. There were a number of commissioners at least by the time we got around to the third Charter Commission who I think felt philosophically that a county manager would be the best way to go. The usual analogy of business versus government and the county manager form is more closely allied to the business form of running things. However, even those that were philosophically in favor of the county manager I think came to the realization that in the political climate that existed at that time it wouldn ' t sell. There was no way we were going to get it through. As a result the strong mayor form became in effect the next best thing. I don ' t think that there was ever a majority of the Charter Commission that was in favor of county manager but there was a pretty fair faction there that really would have liked county manager but they didn ' t feel they could sell it. So there wasn ' t much point in coming out with it and as a result we ended up with a strong mayor system. Now, did we go too far overboard? Well , maybe we did. I don ' t know. One thing that I was going to hold for closing remarks and maybe I ' ll say it now and say it -13- now and say it again later. I don ' t blink it makes a damn bit of difference what form you people decide on or what form we decide on, it is people that makes things tick. You could have taken the old form of governm'ent that we had and with different people it could have worked beautifully. You can take the existing form that we have and with different people it can work beautifully. It is more people than it is form 'that really determines the kind of government that you have. I 'm not knocking anybody, I 'm just stating a simple fact. Now, any other questions concerning anytl{in'g in here? -(Held up the County Charter booklet) MR. ISHIDA: Regarding the confirmation of department heads the charter provides for the confirmation to department head of the corporation counsel and the planning. department director by both the mayor and the county council. Was there a specific reason for this? - MR. KOEHNEN: Yes, we were rather cognizant of the adminis 'rative versus policy functions. It was felt that the planning director really represented two bodies. He ';' represented the administration as an administrator and he also represented the legislative body in view of the fact that your county plan is a legislative document. It is the intent , it is enacted as e'kpress: ng the intent of the legislative body as to which way the county is going to go. Because of the fact that he really had the responsibility then for two functions we did feel that he should be confirmed by the policy body. He was an administrator and he had to work on the mayor's team as an administrator. So he had to be accept- able to the mayor and at the same time he had to also be • acceptable to the county council because he was in effect carrying out their legislative intent. That was the rationale;, as far as the planning director is concerned. What was the other one that you were asking about? The corporation counsel? The same reason really. He represented both and we felt that he should be approved by both. We didn ' t frankly envision some of the problems that Councilman Garcia here was just saying. At that . time we just thought. . .well , too many of us just view the law. . .and you are a lawyer, Richard, and you know that too many of us view the law as black or white and as you know it is mostly shades of grey. And that is the problem you are . running into now. The thing about Councilman' Garcia's proposal that struck me was that you are going to have an awful lot tied up in litigation a lot of times. Because you are going to have opposing opinions a lot of times if we go with. . . MR. ISHIDA: Was the proposal made by Councilman Yamashiro that all department heads be approved by the council ever proposed in the other charters? MR. KOEHNEN: When we worked on the charter of course we were constructing the br;g'anizational thing department by department and the question came up with every department should we require confirmation by the council. -14- And our guideline at that time was primarily the difference between what we saw as administration and what we saw as . policy. Because the whole idea of the strong mayor form and for that matter the county manager form is a separation from administration and policy. I would assume that the beef that the council has right now is that the administration is entering into policy. Maybe they are, I don ' t know. I 'm not close enough to tell. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Koehnen, we 've had some testimony regarding redistricting of the County Council. Mr. Garcia had one proposal today. We have had others. Could you remember perhaps how you came about to the present structure where we have six districts, three at-large. MR. KOEHNEN : I can remember that very well because that was and will be for this review body one of the most pressing issues. It always is. It is an emotional issue. You go to people in Kona and they feel very uptight because they think they are not adequately represented under the present system. Interestingly enough the present system was actually a compromise that was proposed by Ichiro Shikada who was the Kona representative on the commission. But it was really a compromise. We were working at a time when the supreme court had just come out with several of their decisions concerning the one man one vote idea. We were very concerned with trying to conform to the supreme court 's decision as to what would be an acceptable form of representation and what acceptable apportionment would be. We had a difficult time coming up with figures. The census had, the last census was the 1960 one which was quite some time before. The figures on that were not all that good. There had been population shifts obviously. So we could use the State Department ' s planning figures on population _and their estimates. We could use the census figures. Or u se: €he,registered voters. There are any number of criteria that you could use to say this is what the popu- lation of Ka'u is or this is what the population of some other area is. Ultimately we came down in discussing repreeP.:. sentative, or the concept of district representation. We came down to the fact that Ka'u is the smallest entity and if you took the population of the island, or if you took registered voters, or whatever you took and you worked out the numbers you came up with a council of something like eighteen members. We thought that was a little much. At the same time there were some who wanted pureL- at-large. You know in theory I think you might argue that pure at-large is the most perfect form of representation. But here again it was obvious that in a pure at-large there might be too much dominance by Hilo being the major population center. So we went through innumerable plans and we finally came up with this when Shikada proposed this and he finally was able to garner enough support for it and that is what we came up with. -15- I heard someone say the other day that this idea of residency requirement was unconstitutional. I would tend to disagree because as I recall we had a direct decision by the supreme court that was quite similar where you could stipulate residency as long as everybody got to vote on it. And that is really what we have on the other than the pure at-large seat. Now, the other thing that enters into that is that under the old system we had East Hawaii and West Hawaii . As far as other subdivisions between East and West Hawaii you get down to the traditional geographic district. North and South Hilo don ' t seem to fight too much. Basically you had Hilo, Hamakua, Kohala and there is a little bit of feeling between North and South Kohala but basically Kohala would sell® You had Kona and it didn ' t matter too much be- tween North and South Kona, and you had Ka'u. So you were trying to come up with something that would give you. . .make the numbers come out and there was a very strong feeling that if you were going to go district you had to go those districts. Now maybe you could have gone Ka'u, North Puna, North Hilo, South Hilo, North Hamakua or just Hamakua maybe, North Kohala, South Kohala and two Konas® You might but here again you've got the numbers problem. _ So what we came up was something that seemed acceptable then. Now, if people are willing to go representative district which is what Councilman Garcia was suggesting, I don ' t know, maybe that would be fine® I see no great problem there. At that time, they didn 't seem to want to go that way. They felt that was fine as far as the state was concerned but when you get down to local government that wasn ' t what they wanted at all. Maybe things have changed. Ten years changes a lot of things. MRS. IWAMOTO: Mr. Koehnen , can you explain why the councilmen ' s terms were set for four years? MR. KOEHNEN : Yes , there was a lot of discussion over the expense of the election. And certainly it is higher now than it was then. So whether you could really get people to run for two years was a question. The other thing that came into pl-aT ,was that once we decided on the business of the at- large - large election because basically that is what you have., you, . have at-large with district residency in some cases,, it was obvious that campaigning would be more expensive so to sort of to amortize the expense of campaigning, four years seemed better than two. Also from the point of view of the administra- tion , it was pointed out by almost all of the existing officers at that time, existing elected officers,- that two years was not enough time to get a program through and that if you really were going to have a program you needed four years to implement it. Once we decided on four years for the administration as the proposer of programs, let ' s say, then you could also make -16- a case for saying that four years is a time when you can come out with a legislative program on the council side and get it implemented. So this was the main reason. Or these two things were the main reasons. One expense and secondly that it gave you a chance to show what you could do where two years we thought was too short a time. MR. ISHIDA: What about staggered terms? Were they considered? MR. KOEHNEN : We considered staggered terms. You can make a good case for staggered terms. To provide some continuity, you know right after it went through. . .well , really notright after it went through, but the last election is a good example of almost a whole new house with no continuity. Maybe, you know, maybe when you think about it, that might be part of the current problem? It may be. You know, people that are in office get intrenched and your power builds up. Rather subtly sometimes but your power does build up and have a good power base from which to operate. So, maybe part of the problem is the fact that we had a whole new council . Because some of those old councilmen were in office when I was working for the government and they were no patsies. MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Koehnen , on a number of occasions we've had people come from the Police Department, the Liquor Control , Personnel Services, etc. , that have always complained to some degree about the last paragraph that gives the administration the general supervision and control . I notice that in a number of these appointed department heads or the departments here the mayor does have the final, control. Why was that put in? Does that give it the strong_ mayor. approach? MR. KOEHNEN: I think you are talking about Section 13-22 Coordination of Work? MR. SCHUTTE : No, I 'm looking at, for in- stance the Department of Water Supply, Page 19 , Section 8-5 Administrative Supervision. The department of water supply shall come under the general supervision and control of the mayor. And yet you have a Water Commission and a manager. You go to the Liquor Control and you have a Liquor Commission and you have the executive secretary, but you still have that final section that gives the mayor the final say. MR. KOEHNEN: I know what you are getting at. It ' s in every one. And there were some on the commission who wanted to actually put all of these agencies directly under the administration and yet we retained some semi-auto- nomous aspects to many of these agencies. This was a hold over because without it you would have had those agencies fighting as they did on the first charter and you probably couldn ' t have gotten the charter through. Secondly they were very jealous of their prerogative so you might say it was a compromise to give them semi-independent status. -17- At the same time they were all part of the county and the feeling was that as long as they were part of the county you had to have somebody put all the pieces together to coordinate it. Just like in any big business the chief operating officer is responsible and he ' s got to effect some form of coordination. I 'm afraid we may have been a little bit optimistic about what that would do. One of the things that was being discussed at that time for example was the computer which the Board of Water Supply has, being used for a county computer. It would never happen. When they are talking computer now I understand they are talking about a completely separate one. But the idea behind it was basically to have the mayor at least have a crutch that he could lean on saying okay, I 'm responsible for the overall supervision. To get back to what I said earlier, it is people, it is people. If people want to make something work they will make it work. MR. SCHUTTE: One other thing. Why was it that everything seems to relate back to that -Board of Water Supply? Because of its semi-autonomous position? Can you give us some background on that. MR. KOEHNEN: Well the background on that is in the old state special laws where they were set up that way. It was thought that water was such an important thing that you didn 't want it exposed to "politics" in any way, shape, or form. That was the old thinking and I guess it went back practically to missionary days , I don ' t know. But whatever the case, water was sacrosanct and so you put it under a commission , you divorce it completely from the rest of county government. Yet it is a governmental function. So our problem was how do you get this thing back into the framework of government without antagonizing them completely and without them making a major issue of it. What we came up with was a compromise. It did give them a separate water commission. To get back to the way your things change over ten or fifteen years. At that time, I don ' t think it would have been possible to make them straight departmental agencies and have it sell. At this time, maybe. A lot of what we did in this thing was patterned after Honolulu. It ' s inevitable. We took the Honolulu charter and said ah, this looks good, that looks good. You 're starting from scratch, you know, you have got to start some- where. So a lot of that was picked up from the Honolulu Charter. We had several charters from theamainland. We had the Maui Charter. They had worked one out by that time. All of these things we looked at. We tried to pick the best of each. But if you look at what has happened in Honolulu. They have succeeded. They have taken away the autonomous setup of the Board of Water Supply and it is now a department of the county government. And whether we can do that or whether it is desirable to do that or not, I don ' t know. That is something that you people are going to have to argue. But at that time we couldn ' t have done it. Maybe now you could if you feel it is desirable. -18- MR. SCHUTTE: The reason I brought that up, Fred , is because there have been questions as to why the Public Works and the Water Board weren ' t put together. Or, if the Water Board could work under the Public Works Depart- ment. And there is also another situation where they feel that the Economic Research and Planning should come under the Planning Department. It seems that they step on one another ' s toes and you need all of it to put something together anyway. And they have questioned this position and 'I wonder if there was any particular reason why Research and Economic Develop- ment was pulled out of the Planning Department. MR. KOEHNEN: Yes, there was , because at that time the emphasis was on restimulating theeconomy over here. You know, in 1968, well by ' 68 things were a bit better when the charter went through but you have to go back to when it started in ' 64. In ' 64 we still had a very,,,,very depressed economy on this island. Economic Research and Development at that time had more emphasis on the development than it did on the research. It was far more promotionally minded than it is now toward getting businesses in here and getting existing businesses to expand and creating jobs. I think one reason for separating the two at that time was because we felt that the emphasis of economic development, research and development would still be more on creating jobs , stimulating the economy of the islands. Now that and land planning have become more and more interrelated and so you must remember that the subdivision and zoning ordinances were only a year or a year and a; half old when this charter went through. The extent to which those things have grown and been implemented was not envisioned I don ' t think by the Charter Commission. The fact that they have become such a tool of economic development , I don ' t think that was envisioned. MR. SCHUTTE : One other thing, the thought that was brought up today by Councilman Garcia of a separate counsel to serve as legal counsel to the county council . Did you people consider this when you went about this or did you just never anticipate this ever being a problem? MR. KOEHNEN : We really didn ' t anticipate _ _ it being a problem. The old county attorney,. used to -wear two hats _Youknow,_' this charter split the county attorney' s functions for the first time because prior to that the county attorney, who was a separately elected, independently elected official was both the prosecuting attorney and the legal advisor to the county. We decided that there was a little bit too much of a load for one person and a very small staff to serve both functions so we split them up and had a prosecuting attorney as well as a corporation counsel . I suppose probably because he was an independently elected official he didin!_t have to favor either the administration or the policy branch at the time he was making his ruling or giving his opinions then. And I remember nobody ever argued about the county attorney' s opinion. When he came out and gave you an opinion, all the time I worked for the county, that was it. The only people that would question it were those outside of government. It wasn ' t a case of are you -19- interpreting this in favor of the administration or of the counsel . It was a case of I am interpreting this as a matter of law for the county and that ' s it! Nobody argued it. So you didn ' t have the problem. And I don ' t think we really foresaw the problems that have evolved. Also, we were dealing with a much more simplified , much smaller and more simplified, form of governmental structure at that time. The first year that Chairman Kimura took office he decided that even though we still did have a county auditor, at that time, if you are going to run the show, by god , you 'd better make the budget. Because the budget is the key to, really, management. So, one of the tasks that he assigned me, as his administrative assistant , was that of making the budget. Interestingly enough, our combined operating and capital improvement budget in 1965 was around 10 million dollars in rough figures. That was operating ,and capital improvement. Take a look at what it is now. So it was a much more simple thing. I might add that in those days one man made the budget and that was; me. Now you have a staff. Mr. Chairman, I don ' t want to rush you. I ' ll be very happy to stay as long as you wish but if there aren ' t any other questions maybe if I could I 'd like to throw out a few things. There is a personal thing I think you ought to consider. I have no ax to grind whatever. I have no real major complaints. I think in looking back everyone realizes that there are certain things that you do in life that you wish you had done otherwise. There are certain things in this charter that I wish now maybe that we had done otherwise on. Yet I don ' t think it is all that bad. I think it is an acceptable document. But in view of the fact that ten years have gone by and that a great deal of social change has taken place in this period of time as well as political change, I think it is well that you review that and this is one reason that I wanted to give you a little bit of the history of why we did the things we did. They are not necessarily the things that you have to be concerned about today because the whole thing is different. What you have got to do, I think , is analyze where you are, what you think is good and what is pertinent under today's conditions. One thing that I think we are all concerned about on the national basis. You see it in the paper every time you pick it up. You hear. it on the news media every time you turn on tv or radio. That is the complexity of government today. The fact that it has become so complex. In the period of ten years the size of our county government has roughly trebled. The size of our budget has gone up far more than that. So we have a very complex type of thing in comparison. You know the old law in bureaucracy. . .bureaucracy feeds on itself. And it expands , makes work. -20- Maybe you ought to look at this thing with an idea towards trying to simplify wherever possible. Trying to cut back the growth. One of things that we used to do in budgeting, or we tried to do, because I worked for Chairman Kimura for roughly three and &half years so I had the chance to make three annual budgets. One of the things that you notice when you make budgets is that you tend to take last year ' s figure and say okay we are going to allow no more than a ten percent increase on this. But what you are really doing is compounding at a ten percent rate. There is a little rule we use in financial business that if you want to know how long it takes your money to double there is something called the rule of seventy-two. You simply take whatever rate you are working with, divide it into seventy-two and that is the number of years that it takes to double. So if you are compounding at a ten percent rate, you are going to double in 7.2 years. : it is not starting from a base. You hear a term zero base budgeting. That is what zero base budgeting does, it gets you back to the base so that you are not adding ten percent on last year' s figures, you are not compounding. You go back to a simple base. Maybe zero base budgeting is something that this Charter Commission can start thinking about a little bit. Whether this is a good thing to have in the county. All of us are concerned about increasing costs, increasing taxation. There has been almost a national revolt saying that we don ' t-want any more tax increases. Something has got to give obviously you can ' t have an increase in services and lower taxes at the same time. But maybe zero base budgeting is 'a good way to start from scratch every year. It takes a little longer to make the budget. It would take a good deal more thought and effort. But nevertheless it can be done. Maybe you ought to look at other basic forms. Maybe there are some of you who feel that county manager would be desirable. Maybe it would. In .a way a county manager form is a little bit of a compromise between a really weak mayor-!or commission system and a strong mayor system. It ' s got aspects of both so maybe you ought to look at that. Maybe you ought to look at some sunset clauses. This has become one of the things that bodies of this sort consider now, should we put in sunset clauses? The constitutional convention considered this. I don ' t mean just sunset clauses for boards and commissions. Councilman Garcia said today he thought the boards and commissions that existed ought to be continued and maybe they should and maybe they shouldn ' t. Maybe some sort of a sunset clause where it automatically would go out of existence after a period of time unless specifically _renewed? might not be a bad thing. If you want _.to"really keep__ from having the government continually burgeon in size on you. - Not only in commissions but in departments. Now, Councilman Garcia did mention the possibility of consolidating some departments. Perhaps that should be looked at. Is a department really necessary? What is it doing? Is it serving a valid purpose? These are some of the things. I think all of these are areas that you could look•, at. -21- 0 The other thing that I would like to perhaps caution you about because I fell victim to it. I think the whole Charter Commission that finally worked on this one fell victim. We were so convinced that we had the perfect document', that we had the answers to all of the county' s problems, that we really went all outfor this. We had an advertising budget which was permitted. We went out and we campaigned for.. it We advertising for it and we really pushed it. We were, in effect, campaigning for the charter and we got it passed.' Now I think some of us may look back from time to time and say did we really do the right thing. You are going to have the same problem. You are going to come up with some changes and._+ -you are going to feel very strongly about those changes and this is good. This is what makes) us all tick. You are going to work like the devil on getting those things through. Internally, within the commission , you are going to work for your point of ,;uiew because you think it is right. And once the thing is adopted by consens'.us then you are going to work for the consensus point of view. And it is important that you do. But at the same time maybe you shouldn ' t feel too bad if on some of it the public says no. Because, basically, I get back to what I said in the first place, the form is not as important as the substance and the good will of the people that are going to make it work . And with that I would like to thank you for inviting me. I will be happy to answer any other questions but those are L ?ust' my own personal feelings.. MR. ISHIDA: On this Initiative and Referendum I notice that recall is left out. What is the rationale of that? MR. KOEHNEN: We thought that recall really • should be for malfeasance not merely because you are an un- popular guy. Sometimes you have to do some very unpopular things. Sometimes I wish that some' elected' officials would do more unpopular things because I think they really are the right things-_todo. And yet you can get recalled if you do something like- that. " I 'm not saying that Bilandic is a good mayor or anything else, but you know you have a perfect example - there of he does something the people don 't like so ypu throw ; out a recall petition against him. - The charter does provide that anybody can be removed for malfeasance. They can be removed for malfeasance or misfeasance or what have you. So that we felt was basically the only reason he should be removed. That is why no recall. Well , again , I 'd like to thank you very much.' CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, very much, : Mr. Koehnen. RECESS: At 4:50 p.m. the Chair called for a short - recess. • -22- RECONVENE: At 5 :09 p.m. the meeting reconvened with all members present except Mr. Cadinha and Mr. Trulson who were excused. APPROVAL The Chair called for the approval of minutes OF dated February 6, 1979. MINUTES: MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Chairman, I . would like to direct a correction to these minutes. On page 35 , second to the last sentence in the fourth paragraph under my statement where it says, "We are allowed to use up the entire amount of that budget up to that time. " That should be changed and (the entire) should be deleted and the word that put in. In "amount of that budget" ( that) should be deleted and the word the put in. So, it should read, "We are allowed to use up that amount of the budget up to that time. " That is the only correction I have to the minutes , Mr. Chairman. There being no other corrections to be made to the minutes the motion was made by Mr. Schutte to accept the minutes dated February 6 , 1979 as circulated. Seconded by Mr. Yagong and unanimously carried. COMMUNI- The following communications were considered: CATIONS: Comm. 39: Letter from Milton Hakoda, Director, dated February 5 , 1979 submitting an overview of the duties and responsibilities of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Comm. 20: Letter from Clarence Garcia,` Director, dated February 6, 1979 submitting a Table of Organization of the Department of Research and Development. Comm. 21 : Letter from Sidney Fuke, Director, dated February 6, 1979 submitting an overview of the duties and responsibilities of the Planning Department. Comm. 22: Letter from Dwayne Miyashiro, Chairman, dated February 9, 1979 submitting the Board of Ethics departmental recommendations for Charter revision. Comm. 23 : Letter from William Takaba, Executive on Aging, dated February 9 , 1979 submitting a departmental overview of the Office of Aging. -23- Comm. 24: Letter from Edward Harada, Chief Engineer, received February 6, 1979 submitting an overview of the duties and responsibilities of the Department of Public Works. Comm. 25 : Letter from Stanley Nakamae, Director, dated February 9, 1979 submitting an overview of the duties and responsibilities of the Department of Finance and recommendations for Charter revision. Mr. Yanaga moved that Communications 19-25 be received and filed. Seconded by Mrs. Iwamoto and unani- mously carried. RE Mr. Omonaka moved that Section (c) Business APPORTIONMENT of the Day to consider proposals for the COUNTY reapportionment of the County Council be COUNCIL: deferred to a later date. Seconded by Mr. Schutte and unanimously carried. APPROVAL ( 1) AMENDED RULES OF PROCEDURE. FOR ( 2) RESCHEDULING OF PUBLIC HEARINGS. PUBLICATION: The Chair called upon Mr. Stuart Oda as the attorney for the commission to explain the procedure. MR. ODA: Mr. Chairman , I have taken the liberty of making some changes to the Rules of Procedure that was originally in effect for this commission. Primarily to Section IX on page 3 of the original Rules of Procedure which is on the matter of public statements. The reason that I made, and are making, some recommendations to this commission is that in effect all rules of procedure that affect the public' s right to speak before this commission or any public agency has to go through a publication procedure. If we are going to do that I thought that it might be best if we clarify the original section by adding a number of provisions in there which you will see on the so-called revised page 3 which was handed out by Mrs. Carnett. The notice of public hearing on the rules of procedure has to be published in the Tribune-Herald and 20 days have to pass before the public hearing can be held to approve the rules of procedure. Now, assum'i_ng it is approved after the public hearing, the public hearing of course would be for the purpose of having the members of the public who have any comments to make about the rules of procedure make their appropriate comments at that time. Assuming it is approved after that then the mayor would have to sign the rules of -24- procedure and the approved documents would have to be filed with the County Clerk ' s Office. Ten days after the filing of the Rules of Procedure with the County Clerk ' s Office the rules become effective. So there will be of necessity from today at least twenty days before the public hearing. A couple of days to obtain the mayor' s signature and for filing with the county clerk. Then count ten days beyond that for the effective date of the rules. `So we are getting into some- time in April before the rules can become effective. The public hearing that I have tentatively scheduled for this commission ' s approval is March 27 which is the first Tuesday following the twenty days after the newspaper publication which I am proposing to be this Friday. Ten days after that would make it April 6. I would say to play it safe probably the first official public hearing for this commission in any place around the island should not be scheduled for any time earlier than the 17th of April. MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Chairman , I move that the revised Rules of Procedure be adopted and we set up the public hearing on March 27, 1979. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I second the motion. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that we accept the revised Rules of Procedure and public hearing on March 27, 1979. All those in favor of this motion say aye. All opposed. Motion carried. MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Chairman, I also move for a change in the schedule of the public hearings. This is in regards to the legal dates necessary for publication. The changes to be noted as such : (The first public hearing will commence on April 17. ) April 17 Ka'u 7 p.m. Naalehu School Cafeteria April 24 Puna 7 p.m. Shipman ' s Gym May 1 Hilo 7 p.m. Hawaii County Councilroom May 8 Honokaa 7 p.m. Honokaa High School Cafeteria. May 15 Waimea Time and location at a later date May 22 Kona Time and location at a later date MRS. KOBAYASHI : I second the motion . CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that the changes in the schedule of public hearings be accepted. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed. Motion carried . MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman , I move that the Chair direct our Counsel Mr. Oda to publish the public hearing dates. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: The Chair so directs the legal counsel to publish the foregoing statements pertaining to the public hearings and the public hearing calendar. -25- MRS. IWAMOTO: I second the motion. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: All those in favor? All opposed. Motion carried. LEGAL MR. ISHIDA: Regarding our counsel. The COUNSEL: corporation counsel informed me that his contract has to go through the council for approval. So what they want from us is just a letter from the commission to the council saying that we request that his contract be approved. It is just a matter of formality. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: To the County Council? MR. ISHIDA: To the County Council. It is a matter of all contracts. The corporation counsel is now re- drafting the contract for our legal counsel . I move that the commission recommend to the County Council our hiring of Stuart Oda as our legal counsel for the duration of the commission and that they approve the contract as it is forwarded to them by the corporation counsel. MR. SCHUTTE : I second the motion. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that we send a letter to the County Council informing them that Mr. Stuart Oda has been hired as legal counsel for the Charter Review Commission and to approve of his appoint- ment as legal counsel for the commission. All those in favor? Any opposition? None. Motion carried. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:00 p.m. until Tuesday, March 6, 1979 at 3 : 30 p.m. , Hawaii County Councilroom. /i "Joan Carnett RECORDING SECRETARY li 1 -26- 1