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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-03-20 HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 10th Session March 20 , 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The tenth session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 3 :44 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. 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 Also Attorney Stuart Oda Present : Recording Secretary Joan Carnett GUEST The appearance of the United Public Workers before COMMITTEE: the commission today was cancelled and has been rescheduled for Tuesday, March 27, 1979. APPROVAL The Chair called for the approval of minutes dated OF MINUTES: March 6, 1979. Motion was made by Mr. Trulson. Seconded by Mrs. Iwamoto and unanimously carried. The following corrections were noted in the minutes of January 30 , 1979 : Page 35 . . .Comm. ( 11 ) should be 12 Comm. ( 12) should be 13 COMMUNI- The following communications were considered: CATIONS: Comm. 33 : Letter from William W. Moss, West Hawaii Committee, dated March 10, 1979 accepting the commission ' s invitation to present recommendations for charter revision and submitting a copy of proposed organizational chart. Comm. 34: Letter from Merle Lai, Councilwoman, dated March 7, 1979 submitting a copy of Resolu- tion 379 for commission ' s information and endorsement. Mr. Trulson moved that Communica- tions 33 and 34 be received and filed. Seconded by Mr. Yagong and unanimously carried. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman. In Communication 34, I notice with regard to Councilwoman Merle Lai ' s letter requesting endorsement, although it has already been moved and seconded that this communication be received and filed, do you think we should do anything on this endorsement? MR. TRULSON: Mr, Chairman. Although the detail of Communication 34 in our Agenda, today, says, "for Commission' s information and endorsement" the letter itself does not seem to me to request an endorsement or require one. She is merely asking us to "consider" anendorsement. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I think the thing in question is the Sunshine Law requirements and I think she is quite concerned about this because of the fact that it violates Hawaii County Charter, Section 13-20 unless we have open meetings rather than having closed ones. I think that when we do deliberate on this area, I think what she wants us to do is to be mindful of these things in the charter that cause open meetings and I think we should be very clear on this. BUSINESS In the absence of previously scheduled testimony OF THE DAY: the Chair directed. the Commission to go into discussion on consideration of suggested proposals for charter revision. MR. TRULSON : Mr. Chairman. I feel that before we make any decisions that we should complete hearing testimony of the guests and people who request to speak before us and also the public hearings. I think we would be premature in making decisions now and then ask for input as to what we should do. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman. Just to concur with what Bud has already stated, I feel the same way. I think it is somewhat premature for us to really decide on the form of governance. I think that the assumption is that the public hearings are for more input. - 2 - Also, I 'd like to say that in matters like in thepart of the charter where we have departments where we have commissions, I don 't know whether it makes any difference whether it' s a city-manager type of government or not. I think we can more or less discuss whether we should retain commission type or not. And if we in fact do make the decision, Ithink then we would really have the problem as to deciding and inter- preting what the final general administrative superivsor control phrase means in all of those three or four different departments . I for one would like to have the thing clari- fied because apparently on the basis of what testimony we have already received, the respected departments don ' t have anything to offer nor does the administration have anything to offer as to what it really means. Or if they do there seems to be some confusion as to what it means. MR. OMONAKA: Page 35 , Section 13-22 answers that. MR. ISHIDA: No, I was more specifically referring to the commissions like the police commission. . .the administrative supervision clauses where it says, "the depart- ment shall come under the general supervison and control of the mayor. " What does that really entail? I don ' t think that the departments or the Mayor, or the administration, came up with a definitive-answer of what they felt. I think the police department was very clear in their position saying that the police chief has two bosses. I don ' t think that that provision should become construed in that fashion. But I could be wrong. I thought maybe since the confusion is there it is incumbent upon us to at least clarify that interpretation. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: So as of right now we are still not very clear: °.about the administrative supervision per- taining to the department of personnel services or the police department, right? Or what "general supervision" is. MR. ISHIDA: Unless we can ask our counsel to see if he can find out something about it. I think we also should, at this time, since we anticipate we will be faced with the problem of whether we should determine or adopt a different type of plan as far as councilmembers are concerned, as far as their representation as far as county is concerned, I think that we should ask the counsel to initiate research as to what is the standard we must follow. We have, candidly, among -ourselves _determined that this be on the basis of one man , one-vote type of principle, but I think it should be clarified to us what does one man, one vote mean. I would suggest we ask our counsel to start working on that in anticipation of the problem which I think definitely that we will be facing. - 3 - MR. CADINHA: is that a motion, Richard? MR. ISHIDA: I so move. MR. CADINHA: I second it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Then the motion on the floor. . . MR. ISHIDA: The motion is for counsel to begin research for us to determine what standard we must use and follow as far as determining apportionment as far as council represent- ative districts are concerned. To elaborate on this more is the fact that, as I have said, we have gone, I think,,, on the assumption that it is a one man, one vote principle. However, what I would like counsel to also do is to inform us what is one man, one vote. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: All those in favor of this motion? Any opposed? Motion carried. MR. ISHIDA: I guess we are back to the same problem, of a sort. How do we proceed without having really completed our input. If I could suggest something and it is very general. . . .I know that as far as the charter is concerned, we are going to have to cover certain areas, different areas and to help expedite this I was thinking that maybe the Chairman could appoint this group into three or four different groups and each group could probably work on a specific section instead of all eleven members working on one section together at an open meeting. So that a draft in certain areas could be developed with recommen- dations of changes , if any. If no changes , fine. I thought maybe this might help speed things up. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: On your recommendations now, what areas , specific areas would you consider, Mr. Ishida? If, as you say, we went into groups? MR. ISHIDA: Also being in the way of the fact that we will be faced with the same problems as to whether we want to commit ourselves as to what form of government we want, one area, the council and the administration and then divide the administration into whatever different departments. Especially, take the council as a section in and out of itself it can have maybe a group of people working on that area. We have heard some recommendations although we have not completed all our input. We can ' t close our eyes to further changes and if we do start we can two or three people assigned to these areas can talk among themselves to determine. . I don ' t want to suggest anything which would violate the Sunshine Law and we will have to get legal counsel ' s advice on that whether it can be done or not. - 4 - MR. OMONAKA: I like the idea, very much. If we can proceed in what Mr. Ishida suggests we do. If we broke up intodifferent committees with different assignments by sections and if we don"'t make decisions, would this be okay with the Sunshine Law? - - -- -- - MR. ODA: I. think this is an internal organi- zational matter and it doesn ' t have to be put on the agenda. It can be handled at this point. MR. OMONAKA: To review. . .each committee,`getting certain assigned parts of the charter. MR. ODA: Right, we are not going into any substantive matters of discussion. Just organizational matters. That is what we doing, right? MR. OMONAKA: No, I think Mr. Ishida is suggesting we take it one step further and make a recommendation or at least MR. ODA: But not today. It is just a matter of organizing today. MR. ISHIDA: I think what Akira is asking is assuming we do organize, can these committees function on their own without giving notice to the public. What the committees will be doing will not be making decisions, they will just be putting up some kind of proposals to be presented to the commission. MR. SCHUTTE: Why is it not possible that we take so many sections of this charter for a specific week, for a specific meeting and in the meantime everybody has the opportunity of reviewing the sections prior to coming to the meeting and set it up in our agenda and we can openly discuss it the following week. Then pick up another-additional sections to work on for the week thereafter to conform to the Sunshine Law without having the problems of possibly making decisions outside of the public. It gives us the opportunity to really look it over and to disucsss whatever sections we have in open session. We have six or eight articles and we may go over three or four that may not warrant any changes but in leaving it open everybody has an opportunity to put in something to it. MR. ODA_ : Mr. Chairman, I think I misunderstood the previous question. if the question as I now understand it is that the commission will be broken up into a number of groups, committees to make studies and come up with a general recommenda- tion, I would say that under those kinds of circumstances that those subgroups would have to have open meetings just like we are right now and discuss all matters openly. There cannot be any special private sessions at somebody' s house or anything like that, or in the library for that matter. So that would have to conform to the Sunshine. Law. - 5 - MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. I think that if that is thesituation and although I like Mr. Ishida' s idea, I think that Mr. Schutte is correct and we are going to have to work on it that way. The thing is we are going to have to, again, change our calendar. I notice we don ' t have openings until the 29th of May and that is for commencing to draft revisions to the charter. Would these discussions then be under drafting to the charter? If it were broken down into say this week we are going to discuss Articles I , II , III , or what have you. Is this going to come under the weeks where we are supposed to be drafting revisions? MRS. KOBAYASHI : After listening to all the discussion that we have been having about looking at the charter sections, article by article and section by section. . . I still cannot help but agree with what Mr. Cadinha thinks that we need to decide whether we are going to accept the charter as is or not. I really feel that we need to at least make some kind of preliminary statement that we will accept the present form of government as it is. How can you look at a department or how can you look at the county council, the changes, if you are not even sure you are going to take the present form of government? MR. TRULSON: We would not begin discussions until after the public hearings. According to our present calendar. MR. CADINHA: In the interest of expediting this whole affair, I would like to move that we table any further consideration about managing director form of government or the old board of supervisors form of government and we assume that we are going to stick with the strong mayor concept as we go down the road. Now, if at a public hearing, I 'd like to qualify and caveat this motion. . .if at a public hearing we hear good reason to reopen and reconsider--I 'm not saying, put it to bed. But we all have so much time to spend and unless someone here feels otherwise, I haven ' t been persuaded by any of the communication that we have taken in or testimony that we've taken in, that we should abandon our form of government. And in the interestof expediting this whole review process, I 'd like to move that we assume we keep this current charter, the current form of government and that we proceed page 1 and start taking it apart. Keeping in mind that if a good reason that I am not aware of, or any of the commissioners are not aware of, pops up in a public hearing that we have to go back to first base. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I second the long, long motion. MR. gCHUTTE: Mr. Cadinha, was that a motion that you made? And, what was that motion? MR. CADINHA: That was. The motion was that we abandon our search, or deliberations temporarily, insofar as the alternate forms of government and that we assume that we are that we currentlyhave. going to stick to the strong mayor concept t t Unless public hearings or input, as we get our input, is valid - 6 - enough to change our minds, we can reconsider. What I am saying is, let' s just temporarily put it out of sight. Otherwise we might as well just go home until the hearings are through. MR. OMONAKA: Then, are you suggesting that we go from page 1 and formally adopt anything which we feel would be a proper amendment? Let' s say we go through the Preamble and if that is okay we day, okay that stays. And we go through the First Article and we find something that needs to be changed--we go through the formal motion to amend or maintain? Is this what you. are suggesting? That we go page by page and formally take actions as we go along? MR. CADINHA: The suggestion is more an interest in saying that as a body, I 'd like a policy decision as to whether we, from what we' ve been given in written communications or oral, whether we want' to further examine other forms of government at this time, or whether we are pretty much committed to the strong mayor concept. Keeping an open`.;mind because we haven ' t completed our input. I 'm making this;o.motion only so we can facilitate the whole process and then if we are in agreement, as a body, that should other reason not pop up, we can discuss what are&:we going to do with commissions under the strong mayor concept ; what areswe going to do with the council under the strong mayor concept ; what are we going to do with the water function and these other things. Until we know that it is going to be an elected mayor situation, we've got to halt and I would like to move that we stick with our form of government. MR. OMONAKA: So assuming the motion does pass, then you are suggesting that we go from page 1 and review and adopt or amend MR. CADINHA: Well , not today. Now, whether we go to committees at that point, at least we know philosophically what we are looking at. We are looking at the present form. In essence, I am saying, let ' s cross the bridge that the Mayor gave us that first day in office in saying, "what you people have to decide is whether you are going to draft a whole new document, a whole new form of government, or try and streamline this thing and improve on it. " I think we can make an assumption. I 'd like to make an assumption. If the others want to leave it open , defeat the motion. MR. OMONAKA: If this motion carries-then the procedure is that we break up into committees. Is this what you are recommending? MR. CADINHA: Not necessarily, no. Then we at least know we are looking at this document and not starting to draft a whole new one. That is the only step I 'd like to take. - 7 - MR. TRULSON: Harlan, your motion would be for the only decision today would be to accept the strong mayor type of government, the present form of government. Is this mainly so that we can go home and study so we aren ' t studying for nothing. We know that we are going to go this way so we can prepare oursel;ves:,now, because we can_'t.;'get; into the position we talked about earlier where we were going to make any other decisions whether it be a commission form or whatever it is before we have the complete input. So you are just on the one thing. MR. CADINHA: Yes , and it is not a final decision. In other words, if somebody has a good argument in the public hearing as to why we should have a "czarist" form of government and it makes sense, I 'm saying we should keep an open-:_mind towards that. But so far, from everything that has been available to me as a commissioner, the decision seems clean. I would like to pursue our present form of government until somebody can show me otherwise. I would like to move that we adopt that philosophy, as a body, and start thinking about this document and reviewing it. MR. ODA: Not making a, . judgment on Commiss- ioner Cadinha' s motion, as I look at it, as counsel for the commission, I think that in my opinion that if this commiss- ion rules or make a decision on that motion--let ' s assume it goes in favor of the motion--that may be considered to be a procedural error and defect in the entire proceedings of this commission for the reason that if you make a preliminary decision,._ ndmatter how preliminary, you are forecasting before any trial is held, so to speak, of what the commission ' s opinion is going to be. It is like the same thing as a judge saying, ttweI-Ilbefore I hear any testimony I will preliminarily rule this way and all testimony will be geared in that direction, never- theless I will hold an open=mind. " I think that this commiss- ion would have to consider itself somewhat a little bit in that light and I think it is fairly dangerous. Procedurally it would be very, very dangerous. MR. CADINHA: Stuart, I appreciate your saying so and I withdraw my crazy motion, again. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I can see this possibility because of the fact that if you look at our calendar, we have our public hearings from April 17 through the .22nd of May. To make any prior decision as of now could be. . . . MR. SENSANO: Mr. Chairman , I think we ought to be very careful as to how we proceed because up to the time we complete our hearings. . .you see, we don 't know what is going to come up at the hearings. It may be that at those hearings there will be some who will say that we should change the form of the charter and change the form entirely. Or, let' s assume that we will keep the present form and that we are just suggesting changes within the charter, itself, so I think that while we would like to expedite this thing, I don ' t think we can. Because if - 8 - we do then we may have to start all over again. I think our experience with our calendar has shown us that very thing. I think we should wait until our hearings are all over. Then we will be in a. . .we may be in a good position to make a decision now but we can ' t, because we ha: en ' t had our , hearings. At those hearings our minds are supposed to be open as to what testimony will come before and I 'm afraid that if we make a decision now, preliminarily, we may get ourselves boxed in and find that we will have to do this whole thing over again. Since we feel that we have enough time if we follow the schedule as we have it, I think we should stick with it. I know that the commissioners don ' t want to come here and sit and feel as if they are not accomplishing anything but since we are working under certain rules and regulations, I think we should not be--too anxious and jump the gun. Maybe nothing will come out of these hearings but, still , I feel we shouldn ' t jump the gun but follow our schedule as we have set it. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Chairman , a point well taken. And because of that then our calendar is invalid and we shouldn ' t even meet until April 17 when we start taking public input--we can ' t cross any bridge. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman . I was just talking to our counsel here, on the side, and he would like to relate a little bit as to what we are able to do without drawing any final conclusions relative to this. MR. ODA: I don ' t think the fact that we have a calendar precludes discussions of charter provisions, you know, or discussions for the sake of discussions and clarifi- cations. But not decision making, preliminary, or otherwise. If any kind of preliminary decision is going to be made at all, certainly it has to wait until all , so-called, all evidence is in. But this doesn ' t mean that studies cannot be made in the meantime. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Chairman. Along those lines there are different areas of the charter which will have no input from anyone. If there are any of these particular articles in the charter that need to be reviewed now that we might under- stand what it means--maybe we can work in that area. Certain articles like Transitional Provisions we need to consider -do we understand what they are so that when the time comes we will know what to do? MR. ODA: In other words, Mr. Chairman, educa- tional discussion and background discussion of the various provisions is certainly not prohibited. RECESS: At 4: 31 p.m. the Chair called for a short recess. - 9 - RECONVENE: At 5 :05 p.m. the meeting reconvened with all members present with the exception of Mr. Ishida who was excused. RESIDENCY MR. CADINHA: Mr. Chairman, I have a question of REQUIREMENTS: legal counsel . Stuart, what constitutes--what is a constitu- tionally proper term of qualification for residency? I 'm assuming that a lot of this is going to be rewritten. MR. ODA: Are you referring to Section 3-3? MR. CADINHA: Yes. Two years, would it hold up if a person said. . . ? MR. ODA: I 'd have to look into that. When I first read this it raised a little question in my mind. There may be some problems with the residency requirements. MR. CADINHA: I then move, along with the one man, one vote and general supervision research that Stuart has to do that he research what a proper term of residency would be for a qualification of elected officials. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman . In reference to Mr. Cadinha' s question, either the first or second session we had, I believe, there is a legal opinion that was from the corporation counsel ' s office'regarding that particular section. There have been one or two various legal opinions written in regards to that. Of it being unconstitutional and that it be deleted. If you check the minutes of the Corporation Counsel Steve Bess' his testimony indicates that that should be changed. MR. CADINHA: To nothing? Or can one year still suffice? MR. SCHUTTE: I don ' t know exactly but the way it stands now, it is not legal . MR. ODA: We have to look into that. I think two years would be illegal. The question is, what is the minimum. I think if we are talking about something like 6 months or so, it might stand up. I ' ll have to look into it. MR. TRULSON: We do have .a Communication #4 and Session #4 where it was brought up. If you look in your index it shows the residency requirement for the council as Communica- tion 4 and Session 4. That may help. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Communication 4 is from Ted Suzuki , County Clerk and this dated November 10, 1975 addressed to Mr. Clifford Lum and says, "In your opinion rendered on June 29, 1972 and reaffirmed on October 6, 1975 , you advised that the two year resident elector requirement for a person to qualify for election to the County Council was unconstitutional and, therefore, unenforceable. " - 10 - MR. CADINHA: Yes, but it doesn ' t, as Stuart says, tell us what is constitutional and what is enforceable. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Here is a memorandum from the County Clerk to Katsuya Yamada, Deputy Corporation Counsel , dated February 3 , 1976 and the subject is, "Your request for an opinion dated 11/10/75 pertaining to the 2-year resident elector requirement In our opinion of June 29, 1972, we advised your office that the 2-year resident-elector requirement was uncon- stitutional and, therefore, unenforceable. " MR. SCHUTTE: What you are asking, Harlan, though is, what is constitutional? MR. CADINHA: Yes. If we are going to rewrite this. If we are going to have any residency requirement, are we allowed to have any written in, number one? --.And, number two, if it is, what would hold up? I 'm just saying, Stuart ought to research that. That was my motion. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Chairman. Is a motion necessary? Can the Chairman just instruct? We did pass a motion earlier. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Chairman, would you ask Stuart to research that. Actually, he does have the discretion to give it to himself. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Oda, would you look into this matter of residency requirement' as suggested by Mr. Cadinha. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman. While we are on the same Article. In Section 3-5---there has been some talk of vacancy in office. This is in regards to the county council. I ' think a question of this nature was raised in relation to a situation that exists right now ,with _the _council having one of their members ill and not able to perform. I think clarification of who makes this decision seems to be an important part of this particular section. It says here that "When any vacancy occurs in the county council , the remaining members of the council shall appoint as a successor a person of the same political party as the person he succeeds with the, requisite qualifications to fill the vacancy. Within thirty days after the occurrence of any vacancy the council chairman shall notify -all remaining members of the council by registered mail that on a specified regular meeting date formal action shall be taken to fill the vacancy., _ Should 'the council fail to fill any vacancy within sixty days after its occurrence, the chairman of the council shall appoint a successor to fill the vacancy for the unexpired term. " Now, this vacancy does not specifically say due to death or injury or sickness,' or what have you. But, the question arose, what happens when you have a situation where a councilmember is unable to perform his duties, unfortunately, what happens to representation from that particular district? - 11 - Who makes the decision that he is unable to perform? What constitutes "unable to perform"? MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. Perhaps a definition in the chapter as to what constitutes the vacancy. Is vacancy illness? Is vacancy death? Is vacancy the position is open? Perhaps a definition of the word "vacancy" would help. We have to know what "vacancy" means before you know what to do with it. That is unclear. Perhaps in the present situation, it is not really a vacancy, but more like a sick- leave. Maybe we should define "vacancy". MR. CADINHA: Well , in here it seems implied. It specifically says that after the--"within thirty days after the occurrence of any vacancy" which implies to me that on a specific date a vacancy occurs which would have to mean death or complete incapacity. MR. TRULSON: Well , a vacancy of position. The position is not vacant. He is not present but the position is not vacant. It has been filled by the voters. I 'm not arguing with you though we are looking at it from different ways. Certainly, he is vacant from the chair but he is not vacant from the position. The position , itself, is not vacant. As I say, perhaps a definition as it pertains to this section would help. MR. OMONAKA: I think the intent is the inability of the councilman to perform as a councilman. MR. TRULSON: That could be the intent and let ' s put the intent in black and white, then, if that is the intent of what vacancy means. . .a man is not able to perform his duty after an extended period of time, or he is dead, or is recalled or whatever. Maybe to settle that question we could define what a "vacancy" is. Perhaps different people can interpret it many ways, whereas if you have it defined there is only one interpretation. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman, could we have our counsel check into that section -to define "vacancy in office" for us. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Chairman , a question for Stuart. Could you explain, very briefly, what impeachment proceedings would be? How does one begin to become impeached? How does it happen? MR. ODA: I 'm shooting from the hip, here, Mr. Chairman. My understanding of impeachment is, again , you look to the President of the United States , Richard Nixon. I would say it is a specific procedure provided--this charter doesn ' t provide a procedure, I suppose--it ' s a legal proceeding - 12 - of how an elected official is removed from office for malfeasance, or misfeasance, or criminal activities, or whatever may be appli- cable, clearly contrary to the requirements or the dictates of his office. It ' s like recall, in a sense, _but it' s a procedure whereby you remove an elected official from office for violation of his duty as apublic officer. It is not spelled out in the charter. At least I haven ' t seen any provision in the charter that does. There is a provision on Initiative and Referendum but there is nothing on recall. If there is anything in State Statutes , it might only apply to state officials, primarily. So there may be a necessity to clarify that and expand on that provision. I doubt whether it will have to be used but you never can tell. Nobody expected it to be used against Richard Nixon but I guess the people who drafted the Constitution back 1796 sure the heck knew what they were doing. MR. SENSANO: While the charter is silent on , like for example, impeachment, then would the appropriate body that will enforce the impeachment have to follow either the state or the federal law? MR. ODA: If there are any provisions that apply. But most federal and state laws do not apply down to the county level. There may be impeachment proceedings in the State Consti- tution with regards to state officers. Unless they specifically apply to county governments , you cannot assume that they do. In fact, just the opposite would be applicable if they do not apply. MR. SENSANO: So it ' s possible then for example, for the charter to contain that provision where the requirements for impeachment are not as stringent or even more stringent than federal or state laws. MR. ODA: Federal or state impeachment proceed- ings , if they do exist, if they don 't apply to county governments it is wide open as to how you want to make the impeachment proceedings apply to the county officials. My personal gut • feeling is that I doubt there is any state or federal statute that would govern county level impeachment. I don ' t think that anything like that exists. I ' d be very surprised if it did. MR. CADINHA: Stuart, then what you are saying is that maybe we should list what impeachable offences would be and then follow that and then • in the process voted on by the members of the council , or whateverit—may be, if we keep that in. MR. ODA: Right. I think there is a federal constitutional provision on impeachment of the president and vice-president and maybe congressional representatives and senators. There is one, I 'm sure, but as to whom it applies to, I 'm not sure right now. Of course, it applies to the president and vice-president but how far down it goes , I 'm not sure. MR. CADINHA: One more question, Stuart. If this body deliberates and in the absence of an impeachment - 13 - proceeding decides to institute recall. Would recall have to be defined or is there a specific recall process? Would we have to re-define that also? MR. ODA: Procedures generally should be defined because, again, there is nothing in the State Consti- tution that I know of that applies, or State Statutes , that applies down to the county level for recall purposes. MR. CADINHA: Thank you, Stuart. MR. OMONAKA: Would it be possible to--the impeachment proceeding that you are talking about can be a long document--would it be possible just to make reference in the charter that the county adopt an ordinance of impeachment proceedings rather than spell out the entire process? MR. ODA: Right. That can be done. MR. , SENSANO: Mr. Chairman. I 've talked to some of the people on the-former Charter Commissions and they tell me that the charter is sort of a framework , they said, of broad principles and not specifications. In other words, if everything were written in the charter it would be a long and voluminous document but I think it is well for us to think of this as sort of a guideline - of principles on which to run the county government. Like, for example, you have a blueprint of a building but your blueprint and your specifications are altogether different because the specifications will go into details as to what you may put into the building, what kind of material , whereas your blueprint is just a plan whereby you can construct the building. What kind of construction materials is not specified in the blueprint. Your specifications will take care of that. Now, Mr. Oda, is this right? That the charter is sort of a. . .these are broad principles and not specifications? MR. ODA: Like any charter, it cannot. . .as you know the charter is a broad constitution for the county. . . like the State Constitution is for the State. How specific you are going to make it is generally a discretionary matter for the commission. Generally speaking, the specifics of legislation should be left to ordinances to supplement the charter provisions. So the charter provisions, generally, should be left general for the reason that if you make it too specific, you make it in fact . . .the ordinance itself, as it was pointed out, it need not be that way unless there is a specific provision. Like, for example, there was mention of the ethics provision in the County Charter. The ethics provision in the County Charter is repeated in the County Ordinance almost word for word. It can bedone that way but in case there is a conflict between the two, the County Charter supersedes the Ordinance as the so-called parent of the particular legislation. So you can be either as specific as you want or as broad as you want. But, generally speaking, county - 14 - chartersare generally worded in a very broad language unless, of course, as I say, specific provisions are necessary where there are not those items generally covered by ordinance. Like powers of the mayor and how the county council is to be organized and elected. Things like that, generally speaking, are not in any ordinance. You have to be quite specific in the charter. In the charter provisions creating the branches of the county government, they have to be quite specific, obviously, because you don ' t generally do those things by ordinance as a matter of practice. To organize the government itself you have to be pretty specific. Asto what laws are going to be violated after the government is organized, that is left generally up to the ordinances, to put into the ordinances. Sometimes. . .if you get too broad in your language you leave more problems in there than you resolve. And more questions than you answer so the question is where to draw the line as to how broad you want to make the language. Like the problem with the impeachment thing--it just doesn ' t spell out anything and really just makes a bald-faced state- ment and there is nothing else. I guess they assume there is some other provision in the law covering impeachments but sometimes when you put language like, "as provided by law" it ' s really coming down to a cop-out from the legislative standpoint because he doesn ' t have the time or he can ' t work out the specific provisions, he just puts "as may be provided by law" and is really passing the buck to somebody else. Because you either don ' t know how to work it out, or you have time problems or it is too controversial, or whatever, and it is left hanging in the air. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business , the meeting was adjourned at 5 : 37 p.m. until Tuesday, March 27, 1979 at 3 : 30 p.m. , Hawaii County Councilroom. Joan Carnett RECORDING SECRETARY - 15 -