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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-06-19 HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 23rd Session June 19, 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The twenty-third session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 4:21 p.m. in the Hawaii County Councilroom, 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 Mayor Herbert T. Matayoshi Present: Mr. Stuart Oda, Attorney Mrs. Joan Carnett, Secretary CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Will someone please amend the Rules of Procedure so we can go right into testimony from the Mayor. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I so move. MR. TRULSON: Second. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that we amend the Rules of Procedure and go into testimony at this time from the Mayor. All those in favor, aye? Carried. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I am very happy to be here and glad to see the members are all here now. I understand, Kalani, you were not feeling too well? Too bad. I see occasionally we have been missing a few people, looking at the minutes , but I see we are in full force tonight. This afternoon I have come as per the letter that we received regarding the organization of my office. I did have the opportunity to read some of the minutes. Parts of the minutes of the twenty-first session , June 5 . I had a chance to review it completely and to see the various comments that were made. Perhaps I will just give you an idea of how it is set up in my office and then we will come to the basic point, I think, that was being made of whether positions such as the organization of my office should be as a charter provision or not. I assume that that is the basic question. Whether it should be spelled out so clearly. 1. Managing Director; 2. Deputy Managing Director; 3 . Administrative Aide and on it goes. Whether that is the issue of the charter or not. I take it, Mr. Cadinha, that was the question per se? Of course, it comes off kind of funny occasionally, but I assume that that is it. Also, in the minutes in the past I did see a few comments by Gloria, Mrs. Kobayashi , regarding some of the Finance Department ' s duties and problems and I thought if you had anything that you would like to ask questions about, I ' d be happy to haveyouu do so. And also, I understand there is quite a bit of thinking of whether all divisions or departments should have confirmation or not and also it was not clear in the minutes whether you were talking about just the department heads or deputies. And also, if I may, if I do forget will someone remind me, is whether the Department of Research and Development ought to be merged with the Department of Planning. Recognizing that theresponsibility or the duties of the two departments will not disappear. The requirements are still there. If you will look at the minutes of the responsible areas, they are still there. The question comes whether in one department you can have better coordination or .(2 )_ -; Lf they are separate then would there be a better result factor for a measuring rod. So these are some of the points I understand `_ you are asking comments for this afternoon. If there is anything else that you would like to ask me, I shal_1.;. be very happy to _ =answer- if,::I can. Okay? You will notice that I don ' t have any pre=pared text so I will deviate and go all over. First of all , let me point out that my office is set up in the Managing Director'__ and the Deputy Manager' s position. The Managing Director ' s position is as stated in the charter and I think the reason for it being in there as a charter provision more than an `ordinance, a salary ordinance provision.. . I believe it was in the charter and Akira, you can correct me if I am wrong, I think it was the idea that if w`e ,had it like this, there would ( 1 ) be succession and ( 2) at least the Mayor would be assured of an administrator to help him with the daily coordination of the various agencies. -2- The Deputy Managing Director has come about subsequently ' back in the early 70 ' s, I believe it was. Someplace around there anyway that there was .-a ;heed as greater and greater responsibilities were put on the Mayor' s office in terms of interdepartmental coordination became necessary. And of course, the housing, the LEAA and some of the other various staff agencies and office of manpower all began to expand and the emphasis shifted in that area and it became necessary for someone to coordinate all those activities. If you look at that in that light--I do have a table of organization set up for my office. I don ' t know whether you have had occasion to look at it. Chairman , did someone pass out the table of organization of my office? Is a machine handy around here someplace? While they are being run off for you, let me just explain to you how I have it set up. With this in mind, I have set up the Managing Director being in charge-:of and to coordinate all of the activities of the outlying agencies and the Deputy Managing Director in all areas of staff agencies. In other words, the Deputy Managing Director in terms of areas of finance, personnel , corp counsel and R & D and then in the Deputy Manager' s coordination areas and supervision and in the area of the outlying agencies, the police, the fire, the water, parks, public works. I might have missed a few here but anyway that is the way it is done. And the reason why I feel very strongly that there is need for this kind of effort is like any corporation, I think you need the various vice-presidents , or group of vice-presidents, if you want to call it that. It is necessary to have. And then you have groups, if you call it the group vice-president. Then the planning director would be considered the group vice-president of outlying agencies and then he would report. And the Deputy Managing Director would be the group vice-president in charge of staff agencies. And then , therefore, these two would then report directly to me. And myself, included , there are other than just needing these various things but we also have ceremonial duties which, by the way, gets pretty heavy at times and I have been passing it on quite a bit to other people, other members of my staff and my cabinet as much as possible. It does become very necessary in the local political picture to be asked to appear at many of these things. And the island is big and it does take time to go around and around. So we are called upon to do quite a bit of that. So, basically, this is way it is set up and I feel it is very, very essential because in the present managerial problem areas of business that these managerial staffs be put in the County Charter. Because that would assure at least ( 1 ) succession and ( 2) a control factor. Otherwise, I have not had the problem with the Managing Director but Deputy Managing Director I have had a little problem with in the past. But it could be that the legislative branch may want to sometime put a real crimp in not counting the spirit of the charter, itself, in separation of powers, but may really -3- want to put all kinds of roadblocks along the way. If that is the case then even if you call for an ordinance change or a request for ordinance, you can ' t get it done. Then as an, administrator you' ll get extremely frustrated being able to pull anything off or to accomplish anything. It ' s like a plantation, I 'm sure. A manager being required to submit to his board of directors every year or every other year when he comes on and asks or requests for his field superintendent; his garage superintendent; his mill superintendent ; his office manager if you will. His top echelon people. And then to have the board say, no, we won ' t do it. And if they won ' t do it you do it yourself. Now, I recognize in the case of business, these things will not happen because the manager is tI n responsible not being able to do this. But the manager in this case needs the tools to be able to accomplish this and this is the way he sees it. Now, if that kind of climate is to exist where you say, okay, if the manager says he needs it he is accountable for the bottom line and therefore if he asks for it give it to him and then we will look to see how it comes on the bottom line. If that be the case, then I can well appreciate the fact that some of these things not be written. But the other side of the coin in service areas, how do you count the bottom line? If__youu_ can ' t, then you are stymied, you are stifled , you are frustrated. Yes, the Mayor, the Chief Executive will hurt but more than that and most basic the hurt comes to the people. Because if you are going to move to have something done, the Chief Executive is the only one who can make it move with the powers vested. And if you frustrate him in his accomplishments, everybody loses. I think this is one of the reasons why if you think back on the first charter commission minutes and why it came out. .if you go even one step beyond that. .the enabling act for the charter review when it was requested in 1962, you would find that it became necessary to get away from the old board of supervisors idea where you had seven administrators and one so-called chief executive officer. There was quite a bit of meddling. Quite a bit of dispersion of responsibility. A lot of buck passing back and forth. It became very frustrating. So the enabling act was requested for charter review so that the clearer separation, the cleaner form of government would be had. I think now if you meddle in again, I think you would be going backwards to the days when. . .to the board of supervisors. Looking around, I would say that perhaps maybe Akira and maybe Herman are the only ones who are quite familiar of that time of the old board of supervisors. I don ' t know if Kalani was active at that time or not. But I think Akira and Herman are probably familiar with that form of the old board of supervisors. And therefore the election of the first charter commission was 1964, right? First ,one. ' 65 was:it? Anyway this is what I feel. That is all the rhetoric. This is how you look at the map, the table of organization , if you will . The first one of course is not quite complete but the organization of the County of Hawaii -4- gives you setup as are the commissions, forms and so on as so stated. This is as you can see for yourself. And then, of course, the next one of the outlying organizations we have parks, public works, liquor, civil defense, police, fire and water. supply. You will notice the little parenthesis on the bottom of that. And of course in the staff agencies, corp counsel , research and development, planning, finance, LEAH,' personnel and office of aging,, L,EAA, by the way, this is the area of the office of manpower that CETA programs are coming up. They used to call it -LEAA and I guess for our purposes LEAAis a lot easier to identify than office of manpower resources. Let ' s hit one topic at a time. Would any of you like to ask any questions regarding it? MRS. KOBAYASHI : Mr. Mayor, one of the main reasons I wanted some clarification about what the Managing Director does..-. It is something that we never did talk with him about. But then the other thing was when you first came to talk to us you said that you wanted the power to create your own department. As part of this, I thought maybe you would prefer putting all the. departments that are under that Managing Director in Article VI under your. . . . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I can appreciate that and then I was going to comment where you talk about confirmation. I was seeing where you know, Richard and Harlan have commented about all confirmations of department heads, as i mentioned. pointed out that all corporations ,But I also I don ' t see any organization, the papers to organize the corporation, sitting down and putting all of the departments and so on down the line, the whole thing is so well written. You usually put the functions of the responsibilities and the scope of what the corporations will be and put a period after that. But, so thereforeif we take the position that all are going to be and the Chief Executive can take care and organize all then I say, fine, I would like to see it. But, if you are going to set up a structure and put the various departments along the way, you know, if you do one then you have got to do more. Because once you set up one organization you have structured that for the Mayor, already. He cannot move out of it. So, if you do that, then I was going to say when it comes to confirmation, that every one of them should be down the line. So, if you go and set up the public works department, you set up the parks department, you set up the corporation counsel ' s department right in the charter, then I think he should also come down and I think to myself, the Mayor' s office in terms of structuring, you should also have with him, the structure like I have it, the Managing Director. At that level , cut it off. Like all of the departments then have the chief shall be, you know, the departments shall be. They shall have, whether the fire chief shall be appointed by the Mayor and removed by the Mayor, onand on it goes. Each department then has a department head. Then the Mayor' s office and the overall management Chapter 1 of the page 14, Managing Director. . . like a department it is coming down. -5- I assume that the charter commission, when it drew this up in ' 66, was thinking of it as a department in and of itself. So you've got chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4. So you will notice on page 14, and page 15 . . . This is what I feel , we should leave it. I certainly feel that, in fact, it would be very good if you really wanted to make a succession to--and i notice that in your discussion how removal was quite a bit of concern too. S . , . But I think it. -shotlild,':have in there, if you are making all the departments andso on. .I think that the Managing Director and Deputy Managing Director should be very clearly so stated in the charter. Then you make succession. Right now, it is by ordinance. Beyond that , the Managing Director, I think it is the finance director and we have never corrected that. I guess he goes to the Finance ,Director more than to the Deputy Managing Director. It should really go Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director and then after that leave it up to ordinance. By ordinance control of succession after that. I think, Stuart, isn ' t that right? That is the way it reads right now? Succession follows after the Managing Director it is by ordinance and then it goes Finance Director. It doesn ' t go Deputy Managing Director at the present time. Not now because that ordinance-}and there was quite a bit of discussion--it was whether we should update it or not. . .It really didn ' t matter. Nobody was really hungup after the first position. And even in our pay scale, if you will look at the pay scale which was set up by the salary commission , headed,= by Bill _Mackenzae _and_Art Herbst, myself and one more set up the categories that became the hierarchy of management. The Mayor, the Managing Director the third category was the -Department of Finance, the Deputy Managing Director and the next below, I think, was the public works , parks, and so on. 'If we, -don ' t have these two positions and you look at span of control in managerial areas and of course in practice, you are going to find that the Mayor, if not given when no other political things that go on , if not given the opportunity to set these things up, you are going to find that he has a tremendous, a terrific difficulty of having a so-called span of control. If you look at the chart you can appreciate the fact the span of control is so severe that all he will be doing is looking at every day operations, if not yesterday ' s kind of thing and double checking and not have an opportunity to develop programs to move forward. And I think at the top echelon in all managerial parts, and I 'm sure all of you will concur, that management, top management are agents of change. If that be accepted then the top managment should always be looking ahead and bring in new programs that bring a change. This is very necessary. -6- MR. CADINHA: Mr. Mayor, do you have any ideas of how the county should get rid of elected officials if they committ impeachable type crimes, or anything? That step is not clear and I was wondering if, in your experience, you have some thoughts on this. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , let me say that there has been quite a bit of discussion on this and I think it is not very clear in there. It just talks about the statutes, Stuart, correct me if I am wrong, of the procedure of malfeasance, misfeasance and it goes on and then it puts all of these things as the problem and of course the impeachment procedures are quite clear amongst the statutes. That is the procedure to be followed. So anyone in a position to want to remove an officer once you feel that he has violated these or created some of these malfeasance or misfeasance, that area, then anyone could bring a case against him and through recall. In 1963 there was one attempt at impeachment, if you will recallI think Akira will recognize that, do you remember that? At that time what happens is then I think the procedures are that you submit and if approved it goes to court and then it goes on through the courts and not as a political body. Basically, the way it is set up it goes through the courts. I think I am correct on that and I think that is ' correct, it should go to the circuit court and no place else. It must not be a peer judgment kind of a thing. It should go through the courts and the courts should then set it up. If someone then should feel , a special body, to impeach somebody then you start the procedures by what legal action and you go to court for removal. This is the malfeasance, misfeasance. Some of you were talking about being out of an office for six months, or whatever dates I think there were a few comments , three months or something, he was not in office and I thought somebody mentioned three months in here in the minutes. . .I don ' t think you can do that, I would not say that you can ' t do it but I wouldn ' t do a thing like that. Because you suddenly begin to judge. Whoever it is that is going to sit or be in the courts, or otherwise, if you go to court, I _think it wouJ_dget thrown out. But somebody is going to act like god and tell_ the.:guy, look three months he was sick and So _next month he is not going to be back to work. He might well come back and recoup, right? And the electorate voted that person in and I can ' t see any body, any political body deciding that just because thatPP erson who was voted in happened to be sick or P whatever for three, four, or five months , suddenly he is not capable ' of serving, so can him. .get him out of office. I don ' t think that is right. For all you know, he might recover, if he is sick and he can serve again. Then you will have to leave it to the judgment of the electorate and leave it at that. So I would be silent in those areas so that you will always go to the impartial body and go through the judiciary system. To me,_ I think as far as that area is concerned, I think it is sufficient. I don ' t think I would really define it down to the tee because then you are. going to find yourself in a hell of a box. -7- It is going to be hard for you to figure out exactly what language should be in all the situations that would have to be covered. They would have to cover every situation and you would have a bigger mess by trying to be specific. Keep it general and refer to the courts. That is my opinion. I wouldn ' t touch it unless somebody has a real idea, putting each point in. Point (a) . Point (b) , Point (c) , (d) , (e) , ( f) and all of these conditions, and these things shall happen. I don ' t think there are enough pages and enough things to write all conditions on. One more comment. I notice in there, Stuart, they have referred this to you for your research. Did you have time in one week to do that? I 'm looking at the minutes of the 5th. MR. ODA: It was already presented last week. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I am one week back then in my reading of the minutes. Sorry about that. Are there any other questions regarding the managing director spot that you might have? Or the organization of my office? The administrative aide is not in the charter. I have used him more as a personal liaison. It started off as a complaints office and still is. I believe it is called the Office of Complaints and also there are so many other things that come in like ceremonial duties, of meeting people at the airport, visiting dignitaries, setting up the pro tocol. visits and so on. These are what I have asked the administrative aide to handle. If President Carter does come to Honolulu on a short visit and if we have an occasion to invite him to come over to the Big Island so that he can see the volcano the way his wife did and he decides okay, he will come over for a day and a half or what- ever. Suddenly, the whole gears of the county' s system has to open up. The protocol , the security and so on. To coordinate that we have the administrative aide handle that kind of a situation. When Mrs. Carter came, we did the same thing. Obviously, as far as security, the secret service comes in , the police, and all of these things, you know, they handle it quite well . The telephone company, communications, comes in to set up all those things. That ' s fine. The advance people come in as to the routes they are going to take and so on. They set that up. The people they are going to meet, yes, they will set it all up. All of these things are done, but, at the same time we are handling all of the other things such as whom do they contact, what do they do, what happens at the airport as they come down, what the leis are going to be, who is going to play music, where are the people going to stand, what kinds of things would happen. All of these things have to be worked out and this is where the administrative aide can handle these things very well . We work with in this case the President ' s protocol team and then we work with the Governor' s protocol office and start coordinating all of these sorts of things. That is the kind of job that he does, and of course complaints. There are so many umpteen number of problems that have to be followed up and he does that too. That is the administrative aide spot. When he is not available then of course we shift -8- it higher and of course this is where the deputy managing director and the managing director start stepping in to help out too. If it becomes a big issue. I will, be happy to answer any questions. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Mayor. We were just kind of wondering why we have never been able to get the actual managing director here to help make his own personal comments throughout our whole meeting schedule. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , this particular one, did you folks ask him before, or this particular time now? At this time here he is on an economic mission with the state director on a coast to coast tour of economic--our presentation to the various--economic mission , they call it. The DPED organizes this annually where representatives of the four counties get-together and go talk to the business leaders in the various parts of the United States. Washington, Atlanta, Florida, Chicago. We go on this thing with a rather extensive visit. This is what he is on right now. As far as him coming back , he is coming back the schedule should be over on the 26th and subsequent to that, certainly, the occasion to be with you, he would be happy to be here. But the reason why he could not be here was because he is off on that economic mission. As far as the deputy managing director is concerned, I didn ' t ask him to come because I don ' t know whether you want to talk to him, but you can call Barney over too. He would be happy to come over. No particular problem. And , by the way, there may be some few comments of people who have said I have assigned, as you will notice, one 'of the last tasks--according to the managing director where I can assign him anything--what I have assigned to him which I did consider is the major program of emphasis that the administration, I have taken, is the alternate energy develop- ment. So I have placed this under him and asked that he head the whole program which does cross over several departmental requirements. Mainly planning, R & D, corp counsel , finance, and personnel, are the more immediate ones. So he is heading that and with it of course he replaces the chairman of Hawaii State Energy Laboratory Board which does take him off this island quite often. _ But he is on top of that. Through their efforts, we have been able to get the geothermal and of course the OTEC, and so on. I need not repeat. This is one of the tasks t-hat have been assigned to him. Also you might notice where there are grievances they usually come up to my office, then it comes either the managing director or the deputy managing director at the third level. Kalani , if you have any specific questions about that area. I assigned the responsibility to the managing director, therefore, if you have any questions as to why he has it, he probably would have to tell you, I got them, the boss gave me. If you want to know why. . . . -9- MR. SCHUTTE: No, I don ' t think there is anything in particular, Mr. Mayor. It is just the idea that sometimes talking to the individual , he has the daily workings and he is more familiar with what he is doing and the ihtricaci;esof the department itself and sometimes it is easier to understand. I appreciate the fact that this is your second time before us and I appreciate knowing about your departments and what they are supposed to be doing but sometimes it is just good to talk to the individual actually confronted with this daily. Although you oversee it, but still it is interesting to talk to these other individuals. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think if you look at-- basically, I can appreciate that , the very specifics of the problem--but I think if you think about it as a group like sort of a thing, a whole corporate structure, it would give you a good idea of what his responsibilities are. MR. SCHUTTE: What I am getting at is then if that be the case, then we didn ' t have to have all the other directors here. You could very well have handled the job by discussing what their duties were. In spite of this, we had the individual people here and that, to me, is the difference. I know that you can very well relate to the structure of it and what they are supposed to do but I just wondered why this one individual wasn ' t available. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : He should be back Tuesday of next--he will be back the coming Tuesday, one week from now. So probably if. you want to ask him for the Tuesday after that. And he does, as I just pointed out, go to the;.laboratory, the National Energy Lab, which by the way has become crucial for us because we are pressing for the development of the geothermal and OTEC really heavy now, Kalani, and want it rolling, right? And I 'm sure you all do too. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Chairman , one more question. Getting away from that for the time being, from the managing director and going to the planning department. . .you mentioned the controversy that was brought up relative to the planning director, the office of economic development. There has been quite a bit of discussion, even last week , as to why these two departments should not be combined. Would you be willing to relate on this a little bit more? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Yes. One of the things, of course, the responsibilities of the two departments that do exist, the functions. Whether you try to put one into the other or not. What is going to happen is, you are not saying there is a duplication effort of one to the other. . .It is going to happen anyway, you know. What the research areas, the R & D does, right now, it is doing all by itself and the planning department does not do that particular area. So whether we put them together they are still going to have those functions. They are going to exist, point ( 1) . Point ( 2) now if you look at the development side and this is where everybody gets hung up on the word development. What is the development area? But you think the government should be -10- developing something. Well , if it is going to be a business of sort, I think it should be private businessto come in. What basically should happen would be development of activity would be like we are going to go into geothermal , biomass, , with the sugar problems. Like for instance, if the sugar industry is having a problem with the development of that agriculturally. Is it a product promotion- development for helping the anthurium growers and so working together. The ginger growers working together. Getting the farmers and the truck farmers working together and at the same time trying to help with the development of the promotion by the hypo-baric system. This is the kind of development that we are talking about. That kind of function will exist and also like tourism, the planning department is not in the promotional side, it is merely on the planning side. So now it is up to the development, the promotional area of tourism. Now that function still exists and they all become necessary to be handled. I think when you come into that area it is strictly a promotional and researching area and this is why I think it should be separate. But if it is at any time put under the planning department. . .for instance, the state deal on economic development and planning in Kona, you make it so massive you miss out on the small area such as like Kaniwai where you had the promotion and development areas. The promotion becomes buried within the planning area. You don ' t have the flare of development because it comes under one department. Then I think you have missed the boat. This is why you have to keep them separate. If you keep it separate and then you have the research and development area, the promotion area, then this department becomes that part. In other words, promoting business, getting out brochures to encourage people to come out to invest in the areas , speak to the manganese nodule sea mining. Example, manganese nodule refining, we want them to be placed here. Now what they do is develop brochures , statistics and everything else and follow it up with the American Mining Congress to whether we can entice people to come here to place the refineries. This is the_ kindof _things that they are doing. In the tourism area, the Society of American Travel Writers are having a conference on October 15 of this year. The research and development then have developed the statistics and the brochures to promote, to have that happen here on this island with the right information to help tourism, to help promote their efforts. The same thing with the airlines to come in, to create common fare, senior citizens fare, air freight, the attorney ' s office will start going into the CAB for hearings, the statistical backup, the testimonies for is in control and coordination of the research and development department. I think you saw in the newspaper, recently, the CAB is coming. They will have a hearing here in Hilo and in Kona on the common fare. This is the kind of thing that the research and development would do. So -that function still exists and that is not a planning department ' s function, right? -11- No matter how you cut it it is not going to be. So if you move that department into the planning, you are still going to have it. But now you are going to have that thing diluted in areas and these important functions would be lost. This is why I say it should be then kept separate. So, instead of confusing the issue I am not going to recommend any change. I think it should be a separate department. MR. SCHUTTE: What promotions are you talking about. . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : You have public relations efforts too. We have special events like Merry Monarch and special events carried through the Parks. We have special events coming in on tourists, travel writers, this is a special event, all' go through R & D. These are the promotion things necessary and I think there should be a department in charge of them and accountable. This is why I think they should be separate and two different departments and should not be all under one. MR. SCHUTTE: Thank you. One more question. Since you are here, I hope you don ' t mind us taking advantage of the opportunity. Regarding the planning director, other than what is stated presently in the charter, are there any suggestions that you can make relative to the powers that you feel the director should have in conjunction with the planning commission? And what relative role each should play? If you could just give us some--a rough idea of what you might have in mind . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Talking about additional powers or lesser powers, plus or minus, of the planning department? And the powers, plus or minus ,of the commission. . . MR. SCHUTTE: Yes. As it stands right now, is there any additional power that you feel the planning director should be allowed to have, you know, with your vast experience? And how does the director move in conjunction with the planning commission? How do they work together relative to this additional or new powers? If they be added. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I really cannot take issue on the--any additional powers. I think it is sufficient. As far as cutting down from the powers of the planning director, I don ' t think it should be. I think , as far as I can see, in Section V. Sections 4-1 through 4-3, this is sufficient. I think this fine. I have no quarrels with this setup. If you are referring to the comments about the planning director ' s powers as far as general plan is concerned. MR. SCHUTTE: Right. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : If you are referring to that, I would say that those powers , or that division, or dilution , or whatever, should not be a charter problem, but an ordinance problem. Because he may want to amend it and dilute it even -12- further or increase it, whatever side it is. This is where the planning director, himself, Sidney Fuke, with my concurrence obviously, because otherwise it won ' t come out, , have recommended the change in the ordinance that is coming in for the general plan. . .Not taking the history now of the corp counsel making its own ruling of who can change the general plan. I think this is what Richard was addressing himself to in the June 5 meeting. I don ' t think you have to worry about that. That would take care of itself when the ordinance is passed and it goes back to the county council. Then at the review point, the council , the public input, initiation can be had by public and from the county council as well as the administration can be doing this. This is the recommendation we have now suggested. I recognize that the ordinance gives these powers to do this once at the review period. The reason for this is, I think , I 'm not that familiar with the Dolphin case, but I 'm sure the attorneys are. . .where, if we are talking about the integrity of our general plan then it should be made at the various review points and not if you make the plan and it doesn ' t fit, we change it. . and the next day we change it. Then there is no integrity of the general plan. So therefore you are talking about certain significant points and if there should be some amendments. . . . that for which we have no quarrel. I think that should be an ordinance area of handling and not a charter provision. So, the general powers. .I don ' t see any increasing it, and I don ' t see any decreasing of. In other words , I think it should be status quo. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Mayor. I have a question on Section 10-9. Appropriations: Reduction and Transfer. We have had some testimony to clarify the transfer of funds between agencies, we have had testimony to the fact that it should be done by both the mayor and the council. I would like your opinion and your feelings-- on that. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Are you talking about para- graph two of 10-9? Where it says , the mayor may at any time during the fiscal year transfer part or all of any unencumbered appropriation balance. . . ? It is correct. The reason is I can ' t see where we , are asking an administrator. .you know, x number of appropriations for funds. .now, certainly he is accountable whenever the quarterly balance sheet comes out , the monthly balance sheets can come out. These things are reports and are accountable. But when the project is rolling this is where the redtape comes in. If the administrator cannot move his funds into a program that is set up and move it within a department, not external , then you are going to have to stop. You have the bureaucracy, go back , set up the council, council meets every two weeks. If they decide to hang onto it for awhile. . .finance committee, research, public works and back to the finance committee and on it goes and the project dies. A lot of times you are looking at a project and you want to roll , this is where governments" are always accused of being bureaucratic, you know, too much paper work. -13- To cut it down this is the way it goes. Make the mayor responsible, that is the way it should be. So I think within the department any sort of balance between classifi- cation of expenditures within an executive agency, fine. But between departments, no, I think that is where problems come. MR. TRULSON: What about the council ' s ability to transfer funds? At the present time the charter is silent on that. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : That is right. MR. TRULSON: Should the council have the prerogative to transfer funds between agencies? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No, I don ' t think so. I think otherwise you would be frustrated in your efforts. Example, now, this is not happening, but if you use an example it has to be quite qualified. It is not now happening, it is not now contemplated, it is an example. . . .the SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers conference is coming here on October 15 of this year. We are working very diligently on it. Our research and development is working and we have very, very good response from all of the travel writersIndustry people are all extremely enthusiastic because they say this is really the way to promote an island or any destination like ours with the reasonable amount of bucks to get the biggest bang, this is the way to go. So we are 'working on it, putting all of the funds in it and setting it all up and going down the way. . . . . . . .if you want to frustrate it, what the council could now do with that particular fund is shift it out. You would virtually cut the program at that particular mid-point. It would become impossible to have any kind of a goal set up, administratively, you would frustrate the administration so much. Then the people who are the civil servants would say look, I worked like heck on this thing. So if there isn ' t a council change at the election point, suddenly their votes swing the other way. , All your efforts go down the tube, you have no continuity or the achievement of the goal. What people would like to be called down on or pat on the back for is achievement of a goal , right? In the R & D, research and development, and this SATW in particular have been working with the varied divisions on it and everything is coming out very nicely on it. Now I am sure, in October, if it all goes well , and we get good response. . .it is really an accomplishment. . .we cannot as government officials give any compensation for work well done except a pat on the back, right? Because there is no bonus system like industry may have. But certainly a pat on the back for having achieved that goal with the amount of money that is available. But you could frustrate it by cutting it off at any point, as an example, and I 'm not saying this is going to happen. Just an example. -14- MR. TRULSON : Mr. Mayor. I think perhaps it is the unencumbered balances in agencies, not money that has already been spoken for. In other words, say there is an excess or a surplus of money in this one agency. At the present time, your office is the only one that can transfer this money over to this agency that maybe needs it. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Another agency within the department, yes. Not outside agencies. That goes through the county council for transfer but the initiation of it comes out of my office and I think this is correct. If maybe it is not now encumbered but it is going to be used for something it should be handled. . .On top of that if you look at the budget quite often you have some, balances as a source of income. And too sometimes the council , in their efforts to balance, have a tendency of increasing their fund balance. . .then for me to balance it at the end of the year, I ' ll have to meet that project, right. I may have to hold it. Then these are appropriated but unexpended funds. It is just virtually savings. It is not a surplus, as everyone is led to believe. It is savings in operation. And this is important for operations. And the management should be accountable for savings. And the manager who should be accountable for it is the Mayor. For efficiency of operations and also for achievement of goals is also the Mayor ' s responsibilities. But you cannot frustrate it. You have an operation like yours , an office, you appropriate x number of dollars for this , this, and this and okay that is your program. So you are moving along and you say okay, prioritywise in manpower and service you say project (a) is priority. So you are putting all the moneys in there, what- ever, and you are spending it. Project (b) , project (c ) you have money but you are letting it slide for a little while because you will come to it later on. If the board of directors were to say well, Trulson, you haven ' t done anything with this so take it and put it onto another department. You are going to say, wait a minute. Right? Then the tendency for you, as a department or a division chief is to spend everything right along the line so that nothing would happen and there would be no withdrawal. But that would not be good management of programs, nor good management of funds. You have begun to develop people who will spend for the sake of spending so that the thing will not move out of the department, right? That is wrong. You must do it as efficiently as possible. Be account- able for the money and see what happens. That same thing, this is the money you have, that is what you run it for. You 've got one year to run it. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Mayor. I have a question with regards to this. Under the present language, the transferal of funds within a given department, let ' s say that in the budgeting that comes down for council approval , there are x number of dollars to hire 50 more patrolmen in the police department and the logic behind the passing and acceptance of this budget is that 25 of those are going to be needed in Kona and 25 are going to be needed in Hilo, or 10 in Ka' u, or whatever it is. -15- If the Mayor has the authority within that department to transfer funds , what assurance is there to the councilmen and their constituents that the respective districts are going to find that number of policemen? How can assurance be built-in that Kona is not going to get all fifty? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : One of the things we are looking at when we look at government financing of program . operation when you say running like a business , you should get the greatest return, or the optimum return, of the expenditure. Right? And the administrator ' s responsibility where there are limited funds , is to use it where it will get the maximum return, optimum return. Now, if you have the others say no, you shall put here, here and here regard- less of the statistical problems , certainly you might say the area will get the thing. But now as all taxpayers contributing to a pot, you want the most return for your tax dollar. That is why Proposition 13 came up. Because a lot of times the politicians were spread all over. you will not get the optimum return on funds, point ( 1 ) . Point ( 2 ) but if there are going to be that kind of a situation where you are forced the problem you could, I would think , by resolution by the council so direct by policy that there shall be at various areas x number of policemen. Now if it varies from that policy position then it would be up to the administration to come back and explain why they are not doing that. But to shackle and say you shall do this and you shall do this and you shall do that as a legislator or as a policy maker and not as administrator, and sit back and then ask that the government be efficient. . . MR. CADINHA: The point is , Mr. Mayor, isn ' t that part of the budgeting process? In other words , if you are going to ask for x number of dollars for a specific function of government, it has to be justified. And the justifiable reasons would be services are needed here, here, and there within a department. Isn ' t that part of the bud-' geting process? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Yes, it is and it can also be for example with the police department that we shall have seven dispatchers in Kona. We come up with that kind of designation because we feel that is the proper number for that particular division. But when you come up to the troops. . . . to float around. . .we don ' t come up and specify that. But each department each division in the case of the police has fund allocations for each one. It goes by division areas to the county council to show where they are. . MR. CADINHA: In the budget? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : That is right. MR. CADINHA: Now the question is does the executive department have the right after the budget is approved to change the allocations by division within that department? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No, we don ' t take the money away, we move the bodies. We don ' t take the provisions away. -16- MR. CADINHA: I 'm not saying you did, but are the mechanics s=etup so that it can be done? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well , I guess you could. But we have not. For very practical and political positions , we don ' t. But I feel , as many of you have mentioned in the beginning, our government being really :a. business organization, that is why I started off,-- talking about non-structured and --leaving-the Mayor t;o structure-`his own. ... For the same reason, you are going to have to in talking to the Mayor and say you have got to be accountable. Heavens, give him the tools to work with. Don ' t put barriers all along the way and then ask why aren ' t you accountable, it is your responsibility? Heaven help your soul, you have enough problems with civil servants, all of the unions`' restrictions, you have all the political( concerns, you have all kinds of things coming in. You have the monetary restrictions. All of these things have to come in. It is enough, as is. Then you put further restrictions. Then you have got one heck of a problem. This is why it becomes very difficult but, obviously, very enjoyable and challenging, to say the least. As far as the confirmation now, of the various departments. I really am not that much against confirmations but let me just say something about it. You know, you talk about separation of powers. Administrative vs legislative branch. If the administrator is to be responsible, these people he has onboard have got to be accountable to him and to perform. The legislative body in meeting_.wth the Mayor, they are on equal terms. They set budgetary limits for departments or whatever. They have the control over programs by its appropria- tions. This, I think, the ordinances , rules and regs, all have to be approved by the legislative branch. This, I think, is where the legislative powers should be. I don 't see a point where if you tell the Mayor, okay, if a guy comes down and if he doesn ' t listen to me then I am not going to confirm him." On this you. are coming to a board of supervisors again. You got a couple of stray birds. You have a guy who is running a department listening to nine other people plus his own boss. You have one hell of a mess. And this is, I think, I know I qualified it at the beginning and not pressing it that hard, but I stated that it would be kind of nice if the Mayor had the opportunity to select and remove. The comment has been to select, have confirmation and when you remove, the Mayor removes him, himself. That, I think, is a worse situation. You submit, the council confirms, he comes back, the Mayor doesn ' t like him, can the guy. He brings another guy in. Where are the confirmation powers? What good is the confirmation? Forget the confirmation. Or remove with the concurrence of the council. . .If you did that then you already -cut off the _administrative ability. You have areal hybrid-. A guy doesn ' t want to work with the Mayor, administratively, he runs off to be a--not a semi he would be an autonomous department himself. You could never coordinate because the Mayor could never remove him, the council is thereto support him, yet he is running all over. You are going to get 16 departments running in 16 different ways. It will never happen, you will never pull it off. It would be much more wasteful of the taxpayers money. I think there should -17- be one guy who is accountable, if he doesn ' t do it then he is out. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Mayor, how would this differ then from the state where the Governor receives confirmation of his department heads from the senate? How does the county differ in respect to the state? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : . . . .When you get to be two bodies, like senate and house, you get a big area like the state, the idea is not confirmation but advise and consent. So as you confirm the person you would want philosphywise, programwise, prioritywise, you would advise as to what the thoughts are and if the department then concurs and all then you consent toit.So there is advise and consent in these areas. But in the case of the county level , it is just everyday operation systems. It ' s fixing the road here, fixing _this , getting this done. I guess the scope of program, an area _ I guess is the only thing that is different, right? The county is much smaller and I think that it is not necessary for , -the advise and consent portion of confirmation. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Mayor, one last question while you are here. Why do you want the Water Board under your administration? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think and I feel very strongly about this, by the way. You' ll notice now they are going to float some bonds and it is a doggone good idea that maybe it is finally happening. When I talk about coordination of efforts , all of the services that are coming through the county or the county can deliver has got to be from one source,; point( 1 ).So when you think about the coordination between the Water Board, Public Works , Parks, Planning Department, Fire, it has got to be a lateral coordination. That is extremely necessary. That can happen when the administrators -of each division are answerable to one person. He sets the- goal. He says where the things are going to go and that thing moves in that direction and everybody has to then coordinate and go in that particular direction. This , I believe to be correct. Point ( 2 ) , I think that the money coming from the services rendered is something like our gasoline tax, our weight tax and so on. They are separate and a separate account. The users fee concept , so you put it into a special account. The water fund, as is, I have no objection to. But when it comes to a capital investment of some sort, now if you are going to go CIP, capital investment, you have to look at two things. Is it an area service or is it ofg eneral benefit to all. And I think if you look at development as an example, South Kohala' s water development areas. Yes , it would benefit South Kohala but I think the whole Northern section and possibly the whole island would benefit from this investment. Then I think it is proper to use the general obligation bonds, if you will , to finance it. Because we will all benefit from this water development that takes place. Yet, if you were to come_back _again and say if there is an industrial zoned area or farm _area and say -18- only that part shall have water then you could go to the . improvement district, or water board for that little, small little district. For_ that it ' s a different kind of a bond. That, I think that is fine. Then I think to be able to coordinate that, the department should be directly__answerable . again to the Mayor, the administrator. Then you can use the general obligation bond credit to bring your costs down. Also, I think, any time you move into a service area like this you cannot insulate that with a commission so that they become insensitive to the people who are really paying their bill .- In this case I am saying the customers o-n the water line are taxpayers. The administrators of that department should be sensitive to his customers. You cannot make him once removed. To be insensitive and say talk to the commission about this, don ' t tell me, tell the commission about this and back off. He can ' t pass the buck. He has got to be right up front and if he . is not there, then I think the Mayor should be right up front, accountable. Basically, then this is what I feel. Because if you are going to be accountable, then it has got ,to come right on up the line or go right down the line. And I feel very, very strongly that the water system can move faster in its direction if it is coordinated with a capital improvement program of the County of Hawaii . We can really push it through. I qualify all of this. . .in the past I was for semi-autonomy. You can check the minutes. I argued for semi- autonomy three times around and I am reversing my position. . . . but I was thinking all the time that they would float the individual bonds and go according to. . .float the water bonds and everything else and just keep moving along in their areas to give better service. Then what happened was the moneys generated would be used to retire these bonds, not looking for general obligation bonds. At that time and Harlan can probably verify this , the water bonds were going at something like 6-61/2%, 7% 7% at that particular time, in the ' 69 ' s and so on. Whereas, you know, obligation bonds were going at 42-5%. Now, general obligation bonds are going 6-7%. Water bonds are going at about 9% and even then they are not very popular. Isn ' t that right, water bonds are not very popular? MR. CADINHA; The revenues are much higher. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : '® . .much higher. So now to be able to _give- the service you have to go general obligation bonds. If that be the case, then the water board should be right under the water department. Water service should be a water department under the direct control of the mayor' s office. This is why I really feel strongly about it. Let me also state the commission has its place. The commission can certainly be a buffer as far as policy, as far as program, or rules and regs and so on. . .and it can be like the planning commission. The way the planning commission operates , I think it has a rightful place by being in that kind of a role. So you can leave the water commission, leave it as is. Have the director reporting directly to the Mayor but leave the commission -19- like the planning department. As far as the qualification being engineer, I really don ' t think it is necessary. I think all of the departments on the county level ought to have administrative experience rather than the technical experience because the technicians are covered by your various civil service. Engineers, your division chiefs all have your expertise. I don ' t think it is necessary to have to limit it to engineer, water board engineer. By the way, I am not knocking the present guy. This is not a personal attack on anybody. I want to make that very clear. Because a lot of times I have been hearing that after I make the statement, it was a personal attack. It is NOT in any way intended as such. For example, Ed Harada is the chief engineer. I-Ie has his degree. He does a marvelous' job. No quarrel . But I don ' t think it is necessary to put that restrictive a language in there. it is like a stockbroker being a manager, you know what I mean. You don ' t have to get a degree, right? MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Mayor. On this water funding, as I understand it , the state does provide, specifically, grants for development of water resources, I believe, for construction of pipelines or whatever. I don ' t know this and this is why I am asking, in the event the water board loses its semiautonomous state, is there the danger that such grants may be cutt off? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No. I doubt it very much. That was also posed to me by some of the legislators and I doubt very, very much if that would happen. You see on Maui, they still get a lot of money for their projects. And as far as the legislative funding goes, they have always asked when we have testified before the house finance, ways and means, how come you folks don ' t float your own bonds instead of asking us for money. That has always been the question. Then of course everybody asks. . . . . .whenever we have gone to testify I have been asked that question. I see nothing in the wind that is going to cause in any way a cutback on that. Because what we come down with, we come down with a program and we. -are saying okay, pure water act has come up and therefore in Hamakua it is going to cost x number of dollars to upgrade the lots , in North Hilo district, x number; South Hilo so much; Puna; Ka' u; Kona and on it goes all of these things are listed and what they intend to do and these are the grants and aides that we ask our representatives to help us with and they have always been very helpful. They have funded the bigger ones and also they see that the other projects should be and we give them a little extra list of things that we would like to see and they have also funded those. When we submit to the legislators , we go in County of Hawaii budget, CIP operating and CI`P; and water board herein attached. And when it comes with it we ask for the particular funds. That is how it goes. And I don ' t see and I cannot see how by being directly under the 'NL-ayor°'s office where there is going to be any problem. We ask the legislators for some of our county roads , homestead roads , for help with sewer lines , for park improvement helps, university heights, Puna Parks. We have asked for Hamakua Park , the road down to the Kulaim.anb; . _ -20- all of these things. Specific projects that are mostly county oriented. We ask and . ifin their infinite wisdom and great generosity they decide to give us the money and we get the grant in aid,@;. Same thing with the water. Now whether the Governor is going to release or not release is an entirely different ball game. MR. ISHIDA: On this funding of the water budget on this general obligation bond. .this South Kohala project. As I understand your argument right now if the development of water resources and such are to be financed with general obligation bonds, there is the rationale _there,' as to why it should retain its semi-autonomous state. Now was this purely a mistake that this general obligation bond was used for that development? How did it happen that it turned out that way? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : The South Kohala water? why it became general obligation? Well what we hadTdecided;_ _, administratively, is that we would put our emphasis toward the development of the West Hawaii region. . .and as a tourist destination area and we started the Kahaluu Well . We went to the Governor, I went with Thompson and with Minoru to ask the Governor for his early release and so on. He was very cooperative and sent it up. Once the water was assured in the South Kona area and the Kahaluu Well , we knew that that part would be taken care of. The next area came in South Kohala in that region where we felt that we should, now that the roads , things should happen. The only thing that was holding us back was water. Then of course the big land owners said now these are bigger chunks and therefore they would have to be on top too. And then when things seem to be there, okay, they all seemed to be ready, but they needed water, we could not, in pure conscience, float a general obligation bond just to service a certain amount of developers. But the front end money for these people would be too much if they put up all of the moneys when we are just in the areas that are growing. It ' s not like Honolulu or Maui that are now growing very rapidly. It was kind of a frontier area, right, so we said, okay, we ' ll float the general obligation bonds but that they would pay the tab. They would pick up the tab. And with that we thought that they would generate the interest in the South Kohala area and the whole West Coast would start opening up and that development--a planned development, controlled development, by the way, so it was neverthought of any kind of which way development, but controlled development and first class development would take place. Therefore, I made the decision that I would float that bond, that general obligation bond and we called the water board to come in ,of_ course-- they always keep telling me that is the county' s problem, not the water ' s problem. It is the water board ' s problem we would have a whole slew of areas going if the'>wwater development takes place the users of water will take over all over. More people, more tax base and everything else. That is why I made the decision at that level at that time to go with the water board as a general obligation bond. -21- we could have gone improvement district, industrial bond concept but at that time the Constitution was very prohibitive and we were not sure. I don ' t know exactly what the language was , Harlan, you can pick that point up. Under the improvement district, industrial bond section of the older Constitution it was not clear and we couldn ' t float with confidence in industrial bonds so we always had a difficult time. So we moved into general obligation bonds. But now that the Constitution has been amended and some legislation will take place we may go into industrial bonds if another situation arises like this again. MR. ISHIDA: Then you mean the water board did not initiate this general obligation plan? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : They can ' t. I think it ' s a great day I got that bond going. I think it is going to open up a lot of new jobs. I think it is going to have a good development. I think it is going to be good for the island and I think the water board is going to get more revenues, too. I would like' to see it very much, that the water situation be directly under the Mayor ' s office. I recognize if it passes in November it has only got a year. After that, I don ' t know, but whomever is sitting in the Mayor' s office ought to have that responsibility. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Mayor, did I hear you correctly? Did you say that the revenues from water should be kept separate even if the water department comes under the MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Yes. Like the highway fund. MR. OMONAKA: Specifically for that department. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Yes, just like highway funds. The county has four special funds, right? General fund, parking meter fund , sewage fund, and highway fund. And, of course, there is the CIP. I 'm saying keep all four and the CIP account plus water. So then we have all of this. Right now, we have the general fund. General fund kicks into highway fund. Sewage fund. General fund kicks into the sewage fund. The parking meter fund. Luckily we are doing all right here. That is a special fund and when we do buy parking meters it comes out of that fund ; the salary of those people comes out of that; the street lights. ..that program comes out of that. So it is a special account. These are the four accounts and I 'm just saying add another. MR. OMONAKA: So that fund would be used primarily to take care of the operations of water. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Yes, the operations of water and so on. MR. OMONAKA: You kind of defeat the purpose to say that you are going to have it. . . -22- MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No, it will not be defeating the purpose at all. Because now you will be short funded for capital programs. They have been operational. Now you are talking about all these people who are operational accounts. They are not funded debt. . . MR. OMONAKA: Under the present concept the water department cannot operate beyond its operations revenue. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : That ' s right. It cannot. Unless you go deficit financing and I don ' t think anyone would want to go deficit financing. And I doubt very much whether we would ever go into deficit financing in the water anyway. Even in the highway system, we have always been trying to keep that up, Akira. The only one that we have not been able to do and bring it up, because the capital investment is so heavy and the use is not as much, is the sewer system. And I recognize there are other problems there, too, with collections but other than that, that is the only area. Highway fund which I am going to make that more self-sufficient by a weight tax increase, gasoline tax increase. . . .it becomes self-sufficient, too. The parking meter, the only thing is if I say increase that. . .the penny is getting to be a historic monument, with the penny nobody wants to change it. So we will probably have penny meters forever. It is kind of an attraction , too. So it can become, Akira, very self-sufficient. But that is what I am suggesting. `-If they say no, don ' t keep the money separate, put them all together. we can do that , too. But I think it is totally unwise. I think it would be nice to have a separate one. If, to put it together, there is prece;dence_ in the sense that, for instance, the police department in their licensing efforts. . .when you relicense you go in for a driver' s license and relicense and all. . .that money goes into a general fund. It is not earmarked for the police. The amount of revenues generated from fines does not go back to the police department, it goes to the judiciary under state. So when you look at it police-wise of all of the income they can generate from weight, from relicensing and so, if you can focus and put it into their accounts that would be like the water board. But they don ' t, they put it all in the pot. So if we are thinking the water board money should go directly into the pot, well. , you' ve got precedence to do that. The parks and recreation , when they charge people for the use of the gyms; and the pavilions and so on, those also do not have a special account. They put it all into the pot. All of these people do that too. You can ' t very well follow the same process but I was just thinking if it still is very much of a concern of people in terms of keeping moneys from the water board identity separate, then set up a special water account. MR. OMONAKA: Wouldn ' t there be a big difference? Because the policedepartment is not a department that can generate funds that can operate its department. But in the case of the water department, they get their revenues to operate the department. There is a big difference in terms of the example that you are giving. -23- MAYOR MATAYOSHI : For instance, a golf course. You can set up a golf course conceptually. Put that concept into the golf course and let that run. This would gross about $600 thousand bucks. Itcomes to about the same. The lease rental can all go in. So you look at the water system. You can put it in or keep it separate. That is fine, too. Like the highway fund. The highway fund is exactly the same system. It stands alone. You can have better coordination of engineers, if you will , moving back and forth, to help engineers. Move =ohe engineer _fromover-~here to there and back again if you wanted to. You could have your baseyards consolidated to bring down the cost of operations. You could have personnel problems taken care of together. you could have the data, processing. Right now if we—use the data processing we have, to pay the water board. We could work it together. If you need a special revenue, you could put it on the side. You have the fiscal officer. You have a duplication, right now You could probably have one. You could have many kinds of savings, in all kinds of ways. If , you look at the manpower requirements of both sides. You see a lot of duplication. Could you consolidate? I recognize sometimes you get a bigger one and they don ' t move quite as fast. Well , keep some of them separate. That is the administrative capability if under one. I think if it comes under the Mayor ' s office directly that it would be as responsible to the various rural areas too, Akira. I don ' t think it would be insensitive. It would become more sensitive to the rural areas, the various plantation areas can take advantage of that. I feel confident it will. So I really think it is a recognized way of coming from. I think you will find that it will become very responsive. MR. SCHUTTE: Mr. Mayor. You still have, in spite of your suggestions of moving the Department of Water Supply under your office, you still have maintained the general supervision and control over the water department. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : It is very vague. I know you folks were talking about it. The language has to be clarified. What does it mean. Not necessarily the water board now. The police, you've got that. You've got that in personnel services, you ' ve got it in liquor. Those are four agencies you have the same language. It is never quite clear and I guess the police chief objected to have that little control factor and I called him up and we had a nice chat. But what does control mean? General supervision. This , this and this priority. You set the priorities to this and that. No, you cannot. Because the managing director of that water board is responsible and serves , at the pleasure of the commission. So you talk to the managing director, he goes to the commission and tells you what are you going to do. Because if you look at it he serves at the pleasre of. So that is: how it comes. And you also have to watch out some- times the reverse takes place where the commission starts serving the director instead of the director serving the commission because there is a whole citizens 'committee. You look at all citizens ' committees, and I don ' t care what it, -24- is, usually unless somebody is right on top of it, you are going to find that boards are serving the director instead of the director serving at the pleasure of. And this comes down , and I 'm not talking about government agencies. I 'm talking like YMCA, YWCA, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, all of these agencies who hire the director and h'e'ssup5osed to -serve at the pleasure of the board. Usually you fin-d the director, the board of directors is listening to the director telling him what to do and running around for him. That is exactly what happens all over. And this is no exception. MR. SCHUTTE: So what you are saying is that that particular section does not mean very much then. . . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I would like to see it so I could challenge that, the ultimate end but if you are going to change it then knock it off. . . MR. SCHUTTE: Well then it depends on the circumstances of the particular situation. . . MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well you are asking me an opinion and I 'm telling you I would like to. Right now, I can ' t very well exert it and so I figure well , I can override the darn thing. But, if it stays the same and I start working on a project and if I find , like in the case of the Kohala area and some moving, when the geothermal starts moving and the industrial development starts taking place and that water does not come down and we can ' t develop it, then by golly we can ' t be sitting around and waiting until they finally are going to decide whether that water is going to come down. With everybody looking around for a job and unemployment is on past 10%. Somebody has got to go down there and press the button and make sure we can get some developments taking place. MR. SCHUTTE: I notice you mentioned also that funding for the water board is not dependent entirely or self-sufficient on their revenue that they handle. They do depend on the county for a source of survival so I would assume that there is certain amount of control there. But if you get to put this under your department you are talking of public works. about puttingit under the the department MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Who said that? MR. SCHUTTE: I 'm just asking you. Are you speaking of putting it under the department of public works? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : No. MR. SCHUTTE: Where would it go? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : The water board. The Department of Water. Directly answer to the Mayor. 25:-m MR. SCHUTTE : Then you wouldn ' t be saving anything from that , other than the semi-autonomous? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Well, it could be. I was just saying you could look at the table of organization. There is a duplication of manpower, duplication of services, who is paying for what? Do we have the other services elsewhere? Can we share? Can we move? Engineers? Can we have public works take part of that? Right now, the corporation counsel services them anyway. The general fund and the county pays the corp counsel ' s fees. The engineer serves as an ex-officio member and if they wanted help from public works, they would come and help them. So maybe if we sit down together maybe we could consolidate. And the very baseyards are all separate? Can ' t they be consolidated? Save money that way? It may be an absolute savings. Engineers. You've got engineers there. You've got engineers up here. When construction comes down a little bit, can ' t we share engineers. If we have a direct departmental agency we can consolidate it, put it together. It can happen. Or it could be kept separate, yes , and just move personnel back and forth. I 'm not saying eliminate the engineering division because they have the technical expertise that is necessary. You may as well leave it like that but when the time needs you can move the personnel back and forth. I think that is possible. But until you have the control to see what can be done, it becomes very difficult to speculate at this level. And I wouldn ' t want to be quoted as saying I am going to eliminate this division. . .I 'm going to eliminate that division. Heavens , I wouldn ' t say that. Not having had the experience or knowledge of the full operational system. MR. SCHUTTE: Isn ' t it true that at one time when you appeared before us you mentioned that this water board could become a part of the department of public works? MAYOR MATAYOSHS : I don ' t think I ever mentioned that. I never thought- of it as being part of the public works. MR. CADINHA: I believe that Ed Harada said that. MR. SCHUTTE: Ed Haradasaid that: MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I don ' t think I have ever said that , Kalan ,, because I have always taken the position that. . . I don ' t think that Ed said that, did he? MR. CADINHA: I asked him if it could and he said yes. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Okay. He didn ' t propose it. You asked if it could and he said yes, right? I guess anything could. Well , the reason I say that is there was one thought in the county, if you will recall , the city and county was talking of moving the sewer system over to the water board. I wonder if that ever happened. The city and county was thinking of moving the sewer system over to the water department. Did they move over? I don ' t know. There was quite a bit of controversy over it. -26- MR. CADINHA: The billing is the same, isn ' t it? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Yes, because all of the billings and sewer systems are geared to the use of the volume of water. That is how the fees are set up. So I assume city and county went to merge it together. I don ' t know what happened. I don ' t know. I ' ll have to talk to Ed about that. I was reading the 5th Session meeting and you were talking about the department of finance and the problems that are related to it. I think the way it is set up now in the department of finance is fine. The divisions of the treasurer,7with Frank and the purchasing department and the accounts division under Takeo are the three divisions and the program audit, four divisions really under the •department _of finance I think works out very well . As far as movement,- or some functions being shifted to other areas , it could well be. Like the internal auditor and things like that could very well switch over. But that is not a charter issue. I. think, as far as the functions of the treasurer, purchaser and accounts , this is Irthi-nk the way it runs. MRS. KOBAYASHI : We have been getting testimony about limiting the property taxes in various ways on residences if you sell. Do you think that is something that should be in the charter? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : Let me say the first day, I think , I testified, I suggested some kind of limit but did not give you a solution, if you will go back on it. And I thought that a limit in the charter as a charter provision as a percentageof something. I 'm not adverse to that. Like the state :has _also a limit of expenditures in the new Constitution. I see nothing wrong with a limit here. But now if you ask me how to do this--Stanley and I have gone through this several `rays;;: to see how this would come out and it is not that easy to tome to a kind of a logical concusion. I 'm sure if you went to gross revenues, taxwise and so on and took a percentage of that you could probably come to a reasonable figure. If you went by Proposition 13 to 1% of the real property tax valuation, the lZ%, we are right there right now. We are not higher than 'Proposition 13. So if you are going to put a limit of Proposition 13 and everybody says oh, you are going to have a hard time. We are already there. We are not high. Although $17.90 seems awfully high. We are still not higher than the Proposition 13. As far as limits , I really have no objections. But how, I would reserve my comments. How are you going to limit it, you know. But putting a limit in the charter, I think it is not a bad idea. As far as limits for bonds , the statutes takes care of that and I think the limit of bonding is not as significant as the ability to repay the accounts more. They show how that service charge to general revenue has become the most significant factor to look at than is the now floating limit that you have. That, in itself, I think is inconsequential. I have said that the 16% as upside limit before is now down to 13% and will be down to about 11% of total operation , total income as a debt service charge percentage. -27- Whish, I think , is a very good one. We are about there, right, Harlan. I think it is a very good, a very conservative position to take but I think it is correct. So that , I don ' t think, is necessary. You may want to place a limit as far as that debt service charge as percentage of income but if you did that then you would also have to put in provisions for the case of emergency, that you may exceed that limit. Then you will have to define what those emergencies are. It can be pretty messy. So you would have to sit down and tell them there shall be a prudent limit of debt services, right? What is a prudent man? '"T think the attorneys can tell you what a prudent man is. He is the national average. MR. SENSANO: Mr. Mayor. I realize that the charter is just a set of " guidelinesa. -;:.But you have been talking about deficiency in managing the county' s affairs. We now have a collective bargaining setup where the county has to operate under it also. I am just wondering, of course, this does not deal with the charter, but in the operations of the county' s different departments , how much training do your supervisors have as far as administering the contract is concerned? MAYOR MATAYOSHI : We do have a program, Herman. I couldn ' t give you the exact amount we do. I could ask Ed Silva from personnel services to see what level of training they are doing right now. But they do have a program ;in terms of getting our supervisors, foremen and so on, a training program as far as the contract and so on and personnel management and all that. We have to, as I take it and under- stand it, anyway, there are two prongs. One is the contract provisions of collective bargaining and two there is also the civil service rules and regulations that are also within this purviw. My understanding is that the personnel services are _doing this and at what level we are coming on, I will have to ask Ed. I will have to defer, I 'm sorry. I will have to defer to him and have him comment on that. MR. SENSANO: The reason why I ask you is that I have had limited contacts with some of your supervisors and one comment that I got when I asked about certain operations of certain departments and these supervisors seem to have had the feeling that now that they have the union why your hands are tied. That certainly is not what it is supposed to be and so I just wondered how much trainingsupervisors are having as far as employee and employer relationships are concerned. This person that I talked to--I don ' t want to name names but seems to me to be afraid because of the collective bargaining or your contract. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : I think he is an exception more than the rule. I don ' t--I hope anyway. I ' ll have to check but as you say, is it because of union. If we are union it doesn ' t mean that one is shackled. The management rights are still there. I ' ll have to check -into that. I 'm sorry. -28- I don ' t want to overstay the visit here but I just wanted to relieve all the comments that you made right now. I ' ll answer. . .but if nobody has anything else to say, I will just pardon myself and leave. But I just hate to stand up and leave and have you say, well , he left before I had a chance to ask a question. If you want to ask a hard one and then criticize me after--ask me first and then criticize me. Don ' t wait until after. Anybody? If there are no further comments here I would like to be excused , if you will , and unaccustomed as I have been to sit here at this table for so long. . .but, I must say, it has been a most enjoyable experience talking to the members of the commission. I know it has been a very difficult one for you folks and I hope that you are on the time schedule and I hope that things jell accordingly and I hope that our thoughts are in the same frequency. MR. SCHUTTE : In any case you can say we are enlightened. MAYOR MATAYOSHI : With that , I say, thank you very much and we must some day meet again for dinner or lunch. RECESS: At 6: 20 p.m. the Chair called for a short recess. RECONVENE : At 6 : 25 p.m. the meeting was reconvened. APPROVAL The Chair called for approval of minutes dated OF MINUTES: June 5 , 1979. Mrs. Iwamoto made the motion to approve the minutes of June 5 . Seconded by Mr. Yagong and unan- imously carried. COMMUNI- The following Communications were considered : CATIONS: Comm. 67: Letter. from Deborah Chang Abreu, dated June 5 , 1979, submitting signatures of persons endorsing her expressed proposals for charter revision in Communication 55 . Comm. 68 : Letter from Hardy Iida, Vice-Chairman , Water Commission, dated June 7, 1979 , submitting recommendations and related material concerning charter revision. Comm. 69 : Letter from Masayuki Kawasaki , Captain Cook , dated June 9, 1979, submitting suggestions for charter revision. -29- Comm. 70 : Letter from Representative Herbert Segawa, dated June 12, 1979 , submitting suggestions for charter revision. Comm. 71 : Synopsis of the functions of the Hawaii County Pension Coard as presented to the Commission, - on June 12 , 1979. Motion was made by Mr. Schutte to receive and file Communications 67 through 71. Seconded by Mr. Yagong and unanimously carried. BUSINESS CHAIRMAN. SAKATA: The business of the day is OF THE DAY: to receive the report from the subcommittee on Article III , Legislative Branch, County Council. MR. ISHIDA: As far as the subcommittee is concerned , we don ' t have a written report. We actually finished our thing this afternoon so I will be giving an oral report. If you will turn to your Article III , Legislative Branch, County Council , page 2 of the present County Charter. Basically, the provisions that we spent much time on is Section 3-2. There are some revisions on the other sections. However, I will restrict myself right now initially to Section 3-2. Composition and Terms. Through the testimony that we have had and that was digested by the subcommittee, the subcommittee was of the opinion that we are somewhat mandated by the testimony given before us to effect some type of district representation. We were informed, or we were asked to consider possibly up to nine different districts, each being represented by one council member and we had modifications thereafter concerning the number of districting. Now, as far as the subcommittee was concerned the problem that we were faced with as far as coming up with nine single districts was that we do not have, or nothing was presented to us to base any districting into nine different districts. We were given by one of the committees, one of the groups from West Hawaii using the registered voters as a basis upon which to determine different districting. Legal counsel has already informed us that he felt in his opinion that such basis would not be valid. Consequently, the subcommittee disregarded that basis. The only other basis which the legal counsel stated would probably be valid would be based upon population and census. The only census information of course we would have would be the last federal census which was in 1970. I think we were of the opinion that 1970 was somewhat too far gone so that would definitely not be valid. However, the only alternative that was available to the subcommittee concerning districting is using the present State Representative districting. That may be questioned, however, but since the districting is in existence, we were informed by -30- legal counsel that that basis probably would be held valid as of now. Seeing that there were no other bases upon which we could consider any other form of districting, we, the subcommittee, then found itself restricted to using the State Representative Districts. Using that as a premise, we then have 5 representatives as far as the ..State_.Representative Districts are concerned . One from District 1 ; one from 3 and 4; two from District 2, which totals five. So the subcommittee started from there. If we are going to use districting as a basis then we are limited to that. I think I can relate to the commission , as a whole, that as far as the subcommittee is concerned, we do recommend districting. So, we are then, you know, limited to this basis. Now, the next problem facing the subcommittee was what number should the council consist of. Presently we have nine council members. There were actually two proposals presented to the subcommittee. One was two at-large and the other was four at-large. In other words, the alternatives were 7 council members and the other was 9 council members. The rationale for 5 district and 2 at-large was that--correct me, other members, if I don' t complete this whole thing correctly--we had much testimony as far as economizing and the efficiency of the county government. The rationale was that 7 could do the_ work just as well as the number nine. There was no real„ distinction or any advantage of having 9 over the seven. That the 2 at-large members could equally do the job as in the event of four. And as far as efficiency was concerned, it probablywas as efficient, if not more efficient by having just 7 members in the council. MRS. KOBAYASHI : There was one more thing, I think , which Akira brought up when I asked him. If you have 5 district and 4 at-large, the 4 at-large would offset the district representation theory. Because you will have almost as many from the district as you have at-large. And this was why the suggestion was to have =-seven. MR. ISHIDA: The emphasisas far as that was concerned was that we wanted to go districting as much as possible and the 4 would, in fact, might, defeat that purpose. It might be counter productive. Anything else on that point, Akira? MR. OMONAKA: Well , basically, that is if we went into a districting concept then if the only district that we can use is the house and if we go one from each house district then if you add more at-large you are just going to defeat the purpose. In other words, how can you really make it work in terms of district representation and yet get, big numbers like four to run at-large. It is hard to break, down the districts anymore.' -31- MR. ISHIDA: Anything else concerning the 7 number? The other one was of course the 4 at-large. The rationale for that was one, why change, we have 9 now so why change; -.stick to nine. There doesn ' t appear to be any real advantage of reducing it from nine to seven. Also, as far as the diviation of the nine, it was also brought up . that possibly instead of having just 4 at-large, we could possibly place some residency requirements so that 2 at-large could represent West Hawaii and 2 at-large could be representing East Hawaii. Another thing that was brought up was that if there are 4 at-large each voter would be able to vote for five positions. Of course, those voters who reside in District 2 would be voting for six, because they have two district representatives. As far as the other districts are concerned they would have at least a say in voting for five positions. Five being at least a majority of the council , whereas , in the other seven they would be voting for three. I suppose; basically, that was the argument that was presented generally :for.. those two positions. Other issues that were brought up which, in effect, would affect the number too, in some way, the length of term in office. There has been testimony presented to the commission whereby the at-large members would run for a four year term and district members run for a two year term. Then, of course, the subcommittee also discussed that all members run for four year terms regardless of whether they be at-large or district. Also, proposals were made concerning staggered terms. Of course, if we consider two year terms , the issue of staggered terms really becomes moot except for those areas for the at-large positions which would be running at four year terms. There may be some practical problems initially as to how to determine which positions would run for two year terms and which positions run for four year terms if we consider staggered terms. A suggestion was made as far as to solve that thing that as far as the at-large positions are concerned whether it be four or whether it be two, in case of two, the highest vote getter would get the four year term and the next one of course would get a two year term. If there were four at-large positions, then the two highest would probably get the four year and the two lowest would get the two year terms. On the district level , it could be considered that the two or three, whether it be two or three district council members who receive the highest number of votes proportionately to the number of registered within that district would be granted the four year terms and the other remaining district council members would then be receiving the two year term. -32- As far as this position whether we should have seven, nine, staggered, the length of term, or a combination , a hybrid of at-large and district and different length of terms , the subcommittee felt that the proposals that were presented were those who made those proposals felt very strongly for their position , consequently, it was the sub- committee ' s position to pass the buck. In other words, we tried to centralize the issue as much as possible and we think both proposals have many validities. We didn ' t want to just cut it out. Whatever we recommend is not binding upon this commission. We thought at least this issue was of major significance, therefore, it should be discussed openly and we left it at that. This thing, I think, should then be discussed by the committee as a whole. The next area that the subcommittee actually went into is the creation of a reapportionment commission. I think during the testimony, if the members of this commission will recall , there was suggestion that such a commission be created similar to the one in Honolulu. The committee has a proposal to present to this commission that we will recommend it be adopted. In essence, without being very specific at this time, the proposal is that the reapportionment. commission be created and it commence or be started as of 1983. It to consist of 11 members and its initial date would be' Februaryl , 1983. No member of this commission would be eligible to run for any of the positions in the first election after the apportionment. The commission will be authorized to apportion the existing council seats and it would be based upon, but not limited to, the recent federal census. Now, to clarify that the existing council seats that will be apportioned will be restricted to the 5 district seats. If we are talking about districting, it would be strictly to the district seats. As to how it would be apportioned it would be up to them. This reapportionment commission will have, in essence, procedurally up to the last day of September to come up with the final recommendation. It will, during the interim, it will be mandated to hold at least one public hearing during it throughout the districts of the county. On the last day of September it will file its reapportionment plan and upon filing, the reapportionment plan will then become effective. If any disgruntled resident of the county is not happy with that plan and wishes to contest it, that individual will have at least 30 days after filing to file his objections then with the court. The other modifications that were made, if I can direct your, attention to Article III , starting with Section 3-4. Qualifications. Mr. Chairman, do you want me to go through that now. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Why don ' t we hit the major areas like terms and composition at this meeting. -33- I . MR. ISHIDA: For all the others ' benefit then if you will turn to Section 3-4. The reapportionment provision will be 3-3 . So the present 3-3 will now read 3-4, Qualifications. Onthe second line the last word ./two/ will be changed to one. . .for at least one year. On page 3 , we are still on Section 3-4, the last two sentences before the next section which starts out /Should a councilman who is elected. . ./ shall be deleted in total. Immediately above that on the second line of that page there is the word /two7 the last word in the second line. Those words /two years/ will be deleted and substituted there will be 90' days. MR. CADINHA: Question. Mr. Chairman , how did we arbitrarily arrive at 90 days? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: By law. MR. ISHIDA: Legal counsel , answer that. MR. ODA: Before the nomination papers- are filed there are' 90 days between the nomination being filed and the primary election. So it wasn ' t arbitrary. There is a 3 month period, a 90 day period, between the close of nominations and the primary election. MR. CADINHA: Why can ' t there by one year? MR. OMONAKA: By State Statute election laws. MR. CADINHA: Do the election laws say we cannot put a residency requirement in the district? MR. OMONAKA: 90 days was spelled out in the law. MR. CADINHA: How can you differentiate district from any other MR. ODA: If you were a resident of the county to say that you--have to "live ri a specific district to run from: ;that district is different than saying you are a resident of the county. MR. ISHIDA: In other words , the one year would still be applicable to run for office. MR. CADINHA: On the county level but we could still have the musical chairs going on within districts and so the theory of representation being district representation is completely blown out the window. MRS. KOBAYASHI : We are leaving the choice to the wisdom of the voters. : MR. CADINHA: The wisdom of the voters. Okay. -34- MR. ISHIDA: Okay? Section 3-4 will be renumbered Section 3-5 . That remains no change.' Then Section 3-6. Vacancy in Office. That remains as is. Next Section, 3-7. Removal of Councilmen. The last word in that sentence /law/ is to be deleted and replaced by this charter. So' it' will read, Any councilman may be removedby `i'mpeachment proceedings as provided by this charter. Next Section© Section 3-8. Organization of the Council ; Officers ; Employees. There is no change in this except there will be a new paragraph (c) added to this section. Subparagraph (c) will be added to this section which is still yet to be drafted by legal counsel which, in essence, will provide the authority of county council to hire its own legal counsel. MR. SCHUTTE : I would like to point this to the attention of Stuart. Section '5-2.5 . Special Counsel. The council may, by two-thirds vote of its entire membership, authorize the employment of special counsel for any special matter presenting a real necessity for such employment. . . It is already in there. MR. ODA: That is basically to hire special attorneys to represent the county in litigation. That is what it has been used for. MR. SCHUTTE : But was that the intent of it? I would assume that that would give them the authority that they needed. MR. ODA: The intent was for litigation purposes. Special matters like. . . .that the county attorneys just wouldn ' t have the expertise and background. . . . MR. ISHIDA: That provision is in the corporation counsel ' s provision and consequently the inference is that the corporation counsel still supervises the special counsel. MR. SCHUTTE : What is this supposed to be then , this new addition? MR. ISHIDA: It is just giving the council the authority to get its own counsel for its internal purposes. MR. ODA: just to advise the council. . . MR. SCHUTTE: On a permanent basis? MR. ODA: Yes. It has nothing to do with litigation or anything like that representing the county. . . -35- MR. SENSANO: Mr. Chairman . That means that this will become a mandate. In other words , they have to. MR. ISHIDA: No. I think that the subcommittee is of the opinion that it would just be written, in other words , authorizing them. It would be optional on their part. They will have the authority but it is up to them whether they want to do it or not. The next Section 3-9. Meetings ; Rules and Journal ; Voting and Quorum. There is no change in that section except for the renumbering. Next Section. .3-10. Actions of the Council . No change. Next Section. .3-11 . Resolutions. No change. Next Section. .3-12. Ordinances. No change. Next Section. .3-13. Emergency Ordinances. No change. Next Section. . 3-14. Submission of Bills to the Mayor. No change. Next Section. .3-15 . Adoption of Pay Plan. No change. Section 3-15 . County Code. To be deleted in total . Mr. Chairman , I have some reservations on that. Afterward, during discussion, I would like to suggest something on that particular action on our, part. Then going to the next Section 3-16. General Plan. There will be a new subparagraph (c) added at the end which will read Amendments to the general plan may be initiated by the council or the planning director. Is there anything more that should be said to the commission as a whole? Did I miss anything? The proposal for the reapportionment commission should be9 iven to the other commissioners and the corrections be made. MR. ODA: They already have it. They were passed out last week. MR. ISHIDA: They already have it?' Then let ' s make the corrections right now. The reapportionment commission will be Section 3-3. In paragraph ( 1) the year 1981 changed to 1983. Paragraph ( 2) the blank should be filled in with 11 members. -36- Then we go to ;D'aragraph (5 ) at the end of that provision, delete that period and add a comma and these words, the hiring of necessary staff. The next modification will be in paragraph ( 7) . There is a major revision in paragraph ( 7) so I will read it from the beginning. It will read as follows : The commission may apportion the existing council seats among the districts and redraw the district lines where and when necessary. . .then insert after that. . .according to law. And after that insertion delete the words /in such manner that each councilman would, as nearly as possible, represent a similar number of persons as in every other district in the county7-delete until the word county. Then the provision will continue. . .based upon=-and then insertion--but not necessarily limited to--then it will end the -most recent federal census. The next revision on paragraph (8) . The blank is to be filled in 120. And the paragraph ( 9) the blank is to be filled with September of the reapportionment year. Then we go to paragraph ( 10) . The second to the last l. ne, _the last word /fifteen days% should be changed to 30 days. MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Chairman. This section here has nothing to do with our reapportionment plans at the moment, does it? It is just a section which is going to be put into the charter. In other words, we are not ,passing the ,buck off. . . MR. ISHIDA: We are for the next years until 1983. MR. SCHUTTE: Which means we are not working on this other reapportionment. . . .this is just to be added to the charter. It has nothing to do with reapportionment as we look at it now? Mr. Chairman, would it be proper to move that this be accepted? MR. ISHIDA: It is somewhat premature right now because we haven ' t adopted a district representation yet. RECESS: The Chair called for a short recess at 7: 05 p.m. RECONVENE : The meeting was reconvened at 7: 15 p.m. -37- CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Right now there are two proposals from the subcommittee on 3-2 the composition and terms of the council. The first one was 5 from the district and 2 at-large. The other proposal was 5 from the district and 4 at-large. MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Chairman. District 2 would have two, is that correct? We are looking at four districts with 2 coming from District 2. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Right. One, three and four will have one each and the second district will have two. MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Chairman. I move that we go on a 7 man council of which 2 councilmen run at-large. One councilman run from the 1st Representative House District. One from the 3rd. One from the 4th. And two from the 2nd House District. MR. TRULSON: I second that motion. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that we have 5 district councilmen. One from the 1st Representa- tive House District. Two from the 2nd Representative District. One from the 3rd. One from the 4th. And two at-large. Any discussion on this? MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Chairman. In terms of procedure, the motion is merely to get 5 from districts and 2 at-large. Will that motion fly or would we have to adopt the term as well? Or can we take this one motion at a time? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I think it would be better to take it one motion at a time. Separately. MR. SCHUTTE : I would like somebody to explain the reason a little bit more for five and two. I 'm looking at five and four. MR. OMONAKA: You've heard testimony and I guess you have read the minutes and no matter where we went there was a strong position by all those who testified that we need to have some kind of district representation. One of the biggest complaints they had was despite the fact that they voted for nine councilmen, they couldn ' t get one of them to really respond to their "needs. So they reaLly felt that with a pure district, at least some form of district representation on the council, they will somebody responsive and so the only way we can go into a district without spending a lot of time into cutting up into small different areas. If we went for a pure district setup and we had only five councilmen, I think that the five council would be too small . So as counsel has told us what can really stand up in terms of any challenges with the present house we would be on pretty good grounds. So that is the rationale for that five district setup. In terms of the addition41. If we go for four at-large, you kind of -38- defeat the purpose of having district representation -if you have four people running at-large. So I thought in terms of numbers, two would be more suitable to that concept if you are going to the five district makeup. So that is the reason. MR. CADINHA: Why is a 5 -member council too small? MR. OMONAKA: To me, personally, I think numbers are not important at this point. we- have to go out to the electorate. And if we tell the electorate from a nine you are cutting down to five, you know, would that fly, would we have a hard time selling that? MRS. KOBAYASHI : The other argument, Harlan, would be that say you have the particular councilman from your district and you don ' t get along. Then you have no district representation at all. Because your district representative doesn ' t listen to you. So I think five is too smal-1 To go purely district might mean nothing for youe- ,i-t dependsriow. If you really get along then you get everything you want ''but if you don ' t get along then you have nobody to turn to. MR. SCHUTTE: One more question. why is it 2 at-large instead of four? Weren ' t we discussing the possibility of moving two from West Hawaii and two from East Hawaii , at-large? MRS. KOBAYASHI : We answered that. MR. CADINHA: I will just make my point before we go ahead and vote. I feel five and four is very important. Five and two distinctly put the Hilo voters in a position to vote for the majority of the seats on the council, period. Ka' u voters, Kona voters, Waimea voters, whatever can only vote for what represents a minority. MRS. KOBAYASHI : How would we have the majority? MR. CADINHA: Because you have 2 districts and you have 2 at-large. That ' s four out of a seven man council. The Kona voter is going to vote for basically three in terms of geographical distribution. If you go to -five, four any one of the outlying districts that has one representative, Hilo having two, can still vote for four at-large which is five votes and would be a majority on a 'nine man council. That is why I personally feel that a five, four makes sense. But, now you take a vote. MR. SCHUTTE : That would be my intention also, a five, four. . . . MR. TRULSON : Mr. Chairman. I understand where you are coming from on this but how strong is that going to be for the individual voter. Are you talking about the one-man, one-vote type of thing? -39- MR. CADINHA: I 'm saying that five, four. . . MR. TRULSON: Yes, I understand that. . . . I don ' t see where that is overloaded. I don ' t see where that makes any difference. MR. CADINHA: It makes a difference in that four is an adequate buffer to allow for demographic and population changes within a period of time. Two is not. Two is very definitive and any demographic and population changes don ' t make any,.matter, don ' t make any difference with the five and two. On the five and four they can. That is all I 'm saying. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman , may I? I want to speak in favor of five and four. I am not in favor of five and two. Basically, my reasons for not for five and two, I would rather wave five and four, is ( 1 ) Akira said one of the issues that he considers, whether it is significant or not is another thing, but it is a thing that should be considered, whether we can sell it .to the public. Since our present council makeup is nine, i don ' t think there is any problem about selling nine. If you are going to sell seven , I think it is a responsibility or task that we have to convince that seven is a good number. I feel that there is no real advantage of seven over the nine. I know that they say maybe seven is a more district type representation with more district ratio as opposed to at-large. But here again I am kind of concerned about people being able to participate and vote, how much say they have in - their representatives. One of the things that I mentioned was that if you have a five and four at-large, any one voter would at least be able to vote or have his say in a majority of the council makeup. Each person would be voting for at least five. District 2 people under the present districting will be voting for six. Also what I somewhat proposed was a residence • requirement. The reason I say this is just attempting to be realistic. That under the present system° we have six residence requirements, three at-large. The three at-large is from Hilo. If we make four at-large, does that mean it is going to come all _from. .Hilo? Harlan says if we make it two at-large, does it mean that it all is going to come . from •Hilo? This is why I feel that whether it be West, you know, East and West or whether it be North or South , some type of residency requirement I think should be seriously considered. In that way, I think we can definitely consider the two representation. The testimony that has been given to this commission I know has placed a lot of emphasis on district representation. But also I think what we should also be aware -of is the district representation that has been proposed in the testimony before this commission--if I can recall--has been mostly nine,: Aline district members. We've had five districts, four at-large. There mayhave been someone speaking in behalf of seven. There has been the issue raised of keeping it at seven for fiscal purposes. That seven can do just as much good as nine. But again I think we are talking about representation and if you give the electorate more say in the representatives, the council members here, I think that is what we should do. And this is why I feel that seven member makeup is really something that we really should not consider. I think we should maintain the number nine, status quo, and work from' there. -40- MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. Maybe I am getting a different view of the testimony that we have had but it seems to me that most of the testimony, the majority of the testimony would do away with all the at-large and get strictly to districts. As far as the residency requirement, the way that the population growth of the county is now, probably within five years, Kona will be electing the at-large candidates anyway. We are looking at a ten year charter. Perhaps at the present time like it has been going, the at-large candidates come from East Hawaii but there is nothing to say that at the 1984 election or 1988 election that this would be true. I personally doubt it very much the way the growth of the island is going right now. It is growing in West Hawaii . MR. ISHIDA: Don ' t you think that is why we need a residency requirement in the at-large? MR. TRULSON : No, I mean , like you are proposing will all the at-large come from the Hilo areae I don ' t think that is going to necessarily hold true in the future. MR. ISHIDA: But this is why I suggested to protect both sides, we have residency requirements in the at- large position. MR. TRULSON: By residency do you mean one from or two from West Hawaii, two from East Hawaii or one from one and one? MR. SENSANO: I think that in the hearings there was quite a bit of concern about the high cost of government and i think that we can sell the electorate the seven member council. MR. CADINHA: How much does a councilman make? MRS. KOBAYASHI : $15 , 000. MR. CADINHA: $15 , 000. How much does a deputy managing director make? MR. SENSANO: . . .and again whether we have two or four at-large, unless you have some kind of residency requirements it could be that the majority would either come from Hilo or Kona. MR. CADINHA: The majority could never come from Kona. . .Under five, two. . . MR. SCHUTTE : Mr. Chairman. As has been stated, the number of inquiries or letters that have come to us , correspondence relating to reapportionment, I would say the majority of it has dealt with the nine member consensus of a council. We have had all various cutting up of the districts whether it beby the existing districts as they stand today or by voting districts , Kona had a voting district. .there have been all types of ways of cutting it up. But in every case to -41- my knowledge that I have read about, they. have always dealt with a nine member council . Whether that is relative to anything, I can ' t very well say, but I am inclined to look at that same position. If there is a possibility of having a district put on the at-large candidates that two come from East Hawaii and two from West Hawaii, so be it. But I think if we are talking about what has come before this commission in correspondence or testimony, the correspondence has been more towards a nine member body. Redistricting has been done in all sizes , shapes or forms so whether it is legal or not and I would just like to read a portion here that Mr. Oda just picked up. It says in generally speaking the courts tend to favor representation by district wherever possible and it need not be numerically one-man, one-vote. They don ' t necessarily condemn at-large either as long as it is not used as a basis of discriminating against a certain group of voters whether they be racial or otherwise. Then it goes on to say that the example that I gave the last time where in one Supreme Court case they had one representative councilman representing 218 residents and another person had 4, 000 people. And the Supreme Court upheld that. Clearly not according to the one-man , one-vote principle, but they look at the overall scheme of things , not just numbers. I think it would be interesting to note that what counsel has mentioned here and the fact of the districting I think it is a matter of the number of at-large whether it be two or be four. I 'm not saying that cutting it back to two is going to solve anything or Willthat'create_afinancial problem with the county. But I must say that nine has always been the number that has been discussed. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman. I don ' t know if I am in order but I consider this the meat of our problems as far as our considering the revision of this charter. And I think it would not be fair for us to make a decision tonight. I think we should have at least one week to reevaluate and go through all our testimony. MR. CADINHA: For those of us who weren ' t in the subcommittee. . . MR. ISHIDA; I really feel that this is such a serious issue, I hate to just take a vote on it. I would like to move that we defer ..'any action, on this matter until the next meeting. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. Regarding the five, two makeup, one of the present councilmen has suggested that, in fact it was Mr. Garcia, his recommendation was five elected from the State House Representative Districts and two at-large. He also feels that many of the departments within the county can be consolidated. He feels that seven members on the county council would be sufficient. -42- MR. OMONAKA: Does the motion to defer take precendence over the main motion? MR. ISHIDA: I think it does. Maybe we should act on that motion to table it. MR. CADINHA: . I second it. i personally would like, you know, we just got okay, these are the perimeters, bang, bang and we are going to run a vote through. I would like to wait a week and make sure we cross the bridge. We can defer it until the cows come home but if we cross the bridge next week , first thing, it is fine with me. MRS. KOBAYASHI : Mr. Chairman. If we do defer it then I think we need to also in considering, we need to consider the other parts of the article too. The length of staggered and a also there is the terms and whether they be for at-large, if residency any. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I think one of the problems we are going to run against is the fact that if we are going to go on a five, two basis and if we go four years on staggered terms we are going to have a problem. If we go on a five, four basis we are going to have an easier time for staggering terms if we go on the basis of five councilmen from the district running for two years and four at-large running for four years. We might have a little easier time with staggering. But if we are going strictly on four years for everybody then we are going to have a real hangup on this staggering terms. So I think it is wise if we go home and really study this thing as far as terms and the council makeup. This is really a major problem for all of us. , We have to live with this for the next ten years. So the motion now is that we defer the makeup of the council which is proposed now in the motion which was given by Mr. Omonaka on a five, two basis. We will defer this and look this situation over very carefully until next week and then come back and discuss this over again. MR: OMONAKA: Mr. .HChairman. Does this motion in any way affect the rules that we have adopted that we will consider taking action on this particular section before we started after recess? MR. ISHIDA: I didn ' t quite get that. MR. OMONAKA: Can it be considered part of our rule that immediately after recess we agreed that we will work on this article before adjournment. MR. ISHIDA: I don ' t see any problem in that. I don ' t think it should be prolonged, let ' s put it that way, but i think we should have more time. I hate to see a decision be made on it tonight. -43- CHAIRMAN SAKATA: The consensus of the group right now is that all of us feel that we are not in a position as of now to really vote on this item. The motion was made to defer until next week and it was seconded. We' ll take a roll call vote on it. Ayes--Trulson, Kobayashi , Noes -- None Yanaga, Schutte, Iwamoto, Yagong, Cadinha, Omonaka, Sensano, Ishida, Sakata -- 11 Carried MR. ODA: Mr. Chairman. I would like to say that I am sure many of you are aware of it but we don ' t have very much time. We have until July 10. . . MR. OMONAKA: Mr. Chairman. I think if we get through this article, the rest could pretty much fall in line. We have just got to determine from next week on how many hours we would like to put in. MR. ISHIDA: My suggestion for next week is that we start early and we go. MR. ODA: T_ am rather concerned because I have to put all this together and I need time too. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: 2 : 30 next week? MR. OMONAKA: 2 : 30. I move for adjournment. ANNOUNCEMENTS : Next meeting date Tuesday, June 26 , .: 2 : 30 p.m. , Hawaii County Councilroom. ADJOURNMENT: At 7: 45 p.m. the meeting was adjourned. /, , / Carnett Ioan ECORDING SECRETARY -44-