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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-11-08 HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 34th Session November 8, 1979 Hilo, Hawaii The thirty-fourth session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 4:09 p.m. in the Hawaii County Councilroom, Hawaii County Building, Hilo, Hawaii , by Mr. Kimiaki Sakata, Chairman. The roll recorded the following: Present: Mrs. Amy Iwamoto Mrs. Gloria Kobayashi Mr. Kimiaki Sakata Mr. Spencer Kalani Schutte Mr. Herman Sensano Mr. Joseph Trulson Mr. Basilio Yagong Absent Mr. Harlan Cadinha and Mr. Richard Ishida Excused : Mr. Akira Omonaka Mr. Matsuo Yanaga Also Mr. Stuart H. Oda, Attorney Present: Mrs. Joan Carnett, Secretary APPROVAL The Chair called for the approval of minutes OF MINUTES: dated October 19, 1979. Motion was made by Mrs. Iwamoto to approve minutes as submitted. Seconded by Mr. Yagong and un- animously carried. COMMUNT- The following communications were considered: CATIONS: Comm. 95 : Letter from R.B. Legaspi , County Clerk, dated October 19, 1979, submitting letter explaining UPW' s position on Charter election and pending strike. Comm. 96: Letter from Keith T. Burley, Kailua, dated October 19, 1979, regarding Charter election and pending UPW strike. Comm. 97: Letter from Keith T. Burley, Kailua, dated October 18, 1979, regarding Charter Commission advertisements. Comm. 98: Letter from Councilman Muneo Sameshima, dated October 19, 1979, regarding Charter Commission advertisements. Comm. 99: Letter from William Sewake, Chairman, Citizens Committee for Clean Water, dated October 18, 1979, regarding Charter Commission advertisements. Comm. 100: Copy of letter from jack Konno, UPW, to County Clerk R. B. Legaspi , dated October 24, 1979, regarding status of election date. Comm. 101: Memorandum from Corporation Counsel Stephen Bess to County Clerk R.B. Legaspi , dated October 24, 1979, regarding Charter election absentee voting and holiday. Comm. 102: Memorandum from Corporation Counsel Stephen Bess to County Clerk R.B. Legaspi , dated October 25 , 1979, regarding postponement of special Charter election. Comm. 103 : Copy of letter from County Clerk R.B. Legaspi to Jack Konno, Hawaii Division director, UPW, dated October 26, 1979, regarding Charter election. Motion to receive and file Communi- cations 95 through 103 was made by Mr. Trulson. Seconded by Mrs. Kobayashi and unanimously carried. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I 'm sorry that the rest of the commissioners can ' t be present today for this meeting so that we can officially close the Charter Commission proceedings as of 1979 , since the election is all over and everything has been taken care of. Before I do that, I would like to read a letter from Richard Ishida because he couldn ' t be present at this meeting. It reads "I regret that I am unable to be present for the last scheduled Charter Commission meeting. Unfortunately, due to other previously committed matters, it became impossible for me to reschedule my committments. ( para) I wish to convey to you and all of my other fellow commissioners my appreciation for having had the opportunity to share an experience with all of you. Though we did not share similarly in all principles of government, we all did share in one common factor--our sincerity in pursuing the principle we each felt Was best for our county. (para) In spite of what may have been reported in the media, I feel that on the basis of what was presented to us and the budgetary limitation under which we operated, the final product of the commission was a good one. I for one feel, and I believe -2- all of us should feel similarly, that the results of the commission represent a progressive step towards a more responsive and responsible government. (para) I believe that the commission ' s work was not without error. I have noted some comments which I believe future commissions should take into consideration. i ask that said comments be filed with the minutes of the commission. (para) I , again, wish to thank you and all of the other commissioners for having had the opportunity to share in this experience and for having had the opportunity to get to know all of you personally. I found it to be most rewarding and memorable. (para) Good luck to all of you and may God bless all of you. . .Sincerely, Richard T. Ishida. " Now the comments on the 1979 Charter Commission, this is what Richard Ishida wrote "( 1) I believe that any future charter review commission should investigate into the feasibility of employing a full time salaried staff member, excluding the secretary and attorney which may remain part- time, who is familiar with the operation of a government and whose principle duties are to research and gather information for the commission, draft new proposed provisions and being responsible for the care of all records so that the commission will be kept well informed on every and all subjects when discussed. ( 2) i believe that future commissions should conduct two sets of public hearings. The first to gather input prior to adopting any proposed changes and the second to hearremarks to proposed changes tentatively adopted by the commission. I believe if the first review commission had done this, we would have received the clear objections to the three proposals which were defeated. Also, we would not have had the problems we were faced concerning the council make up proposal. ( 3) Hold charter elections together with general elections. While the first charter review commission' s decision to hold an off year special election so as not to detract from the importance of charter proposals, the apathetic attitude of the citizens do not warrant the county incurring the substantial cost of a special election. In spite of the media controversy experienced just prior to the special election, which brought attention of the special election to the citizens, the turnout was most disappointing. " These are the proposals that Richard has made to us. (Communication 104, attached. ) I 'm sure all of us have our own personal feelingstowardthe special election and what has transpired. That' s all under the bridge now. I , for one, too, would like to express my appreciation to all of you people for serving on the commission and to personally know all of you. I think it was most challenging for me to sit as chairman of the commission. We had our ups and downs in this and we had all kinds of legal situations that had to be taken care of. All of us had our own personal feelings about certain matters pertaining -to the amendments, but, I think it was most gratifying to me that all of us worked these out. We all worked together and brought what we thought was best for the county and we did present it to the people, the electorate, and it was their desire that the amendments should be accepted, or not, according to the votes. -3- i , personally, felt that when we first started with the input type situation or when we went around and had our public hearings, I felt that by looking at the turnout that one of the major concerns that I felt was the fact that even though we had an election, what would be the result of the election if the voter turnout were so low. Right now, I feel that because the turnout was so low--I think it was 24%--it seems as though a minority group has decided how the next ten years will operate, as far as some of the major things that we talked about. But all in all it ' s all pau now. I feel a little relieved for the fact that the things have transpired and have been carried out and the electorate has spoken their minds. If any of you have any comments to make. Yes, Mrs. Iwamoto? MRS. IWAMOTO: Mr. Chairman. I thought that it' s time that we recognize some individuals who helped us with the Charter election in terms of informing the public, and that is our press, Eugene Tao, Hugh Clark and Buck: Donham for really trying their best to educate the public. Besides all of us commissioners who also helped by speaking to different organizations„ :±here were also some other people involved. For example, at the Hawaii County Fair, we had the UE club members to distribute the brochures to all of the people that attended the Fair and urging the people to .vote. Many of them asked, who is running for office. . .when actually we were trying to _inform the public about the Charter election on November 3. The women that helped were: Toshie Yoshioka, Flora Song, Ayako Chang, Elizabeth AhChing, Takako Nagahisa, Yoshino Jimbo, and Kimiyo Matsuoka. They are the UE members that helped us and their advisor was Betty Jo Thompson. She is the Home Economist of the Cooperative Extension Service. So I thank them for helping us. Besides these people we also had the two members from the League of Women organization who distributed the flyers in the Hilo area- specifically downtown. They were Dale Bachman and Sue Irvine. we should thank them for helping us. :Besides that, also, our radio--like Bill Carnett and the other stations. And Gloria who distributed the posters to the supermarkets. . .and Mall Foods for the insert in their local ads urging people to vote. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you very much. As a commission, I think we recognize the fact that many people were involved in the campaign and many people did have a hand in getting this election going. When we started, Mr. Legaspi gave us a great deal of help in getting this thing moving. I don ' t want to leave the legal counsel out, after all , he did a bang:uP job. We do appreciate all of the help people have given to us and I think without that type of help and input I don ' t think we could have functioned as well . We are most appreciative of these things. -4- MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. I think everybody has just about covered everything I wanted to say except for one thing. . .and that is as far as the amendments, I was disappointed at the turnout, as you were, but we do not have to wait for ten years before the Charter can again be amended. It can be amended next year and it can be amended at any election year. So there is still a chance should some people want to approach the council and get anamendment through, it can be put on the next year' s election. I just want to say, mahalo to everybody on the commission. It has been a pleasure meeting everybody and working with everybody. As you said, we had our differences in philosophy, but I don 't think we argued in any other way. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I think the Vice-Chairman Mr. Schutte, did a bang_upjob as far as the finances are concerned. MR. SCHUTTE: I think we are doing all right;, I believe. We recorded a slight overage. A lot of this was mainly because of the education of the public. The education committee tried to do whatever was possible to aid in the education of the public on the Charter amendments. Wenow know there are very educatedindividualswho do not understand the proposals that were made-, or who understand the supplement that we put out in spite of the wording or in spite of the drawings. So I don ' t think we could have done very much more to explain it. I think the education committee did a tremendous job. . .the graphics, the design, and everything - that had to do with trying to put the point across. I must say that I think we did the job we were appointed to do. I have no regrets, whatsoever. We presented what we thought were good proposals that the public should look at. And as far as I am concerned, the public did look at it and did vote and voted their opinion, So I have no remorse over the outcome of the election. I think we all did a very good job and I must say it has, indeed, been a great experience working with a great bunch of fellow commissioners and lady commissioners. Also, our legal counsel and our secretary did a tremendous job and I give my thanks to them for the many hours of work done. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Do you have any other comments to make? MR. TRULSON : I move for adjournment. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Before we adjourn, I would like to thank our secretary for a very good job--a real super job--and the commissioners felt that--it ' s just a small tok0n we were hoping to do much more for her for being very patient with us and doing such a good job. So, in behalf of the commission, let me present this to our secretary. Do I have a call for adjournment? -5- MR. TRULSON: I so move. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Do I have a second for this? MR. SCHUTTE: I second it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded that we adjourn. All those in favor? Aye? Thank you very much. The commission is closed. ADJOURNMENT: At 4:22 p.m. the Charter Review Commission was adjourned. JEAN CARNETT, RECORDING SECRETARY -6-