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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-04-17 PH HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 14th Session and Public Hearing April 17, 1979 Punalu'u and Naalehu, Hawaii The fourteenth session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 4:46 p.m. in the Punalu'u Village Restaurant Meeting Room, Punalu'u 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. Herman Sensano Mr. Joseph Trulson Mr. Basilio Yagong Mr. Matsuo Yanaga Absent Mr. Spencer Kalani Schutte and Excused : Also Attorney Stuart Oda Present : Recording Secretary Joan Carnett APPROVAL The Chair called for approval of minutes dated OF MINUTES: April 3, 1979. Mr. Trulson made the motion to approve the minutes as submitted. Seconded by Mrs. Iwamoto and un- imously carried. COMMUNI- The following communications were considered: CATIONS: Comm. 40 : Statement from Jack Konno, Division Director, United Public Workers, dated April 10 , 1979 submitting recommendations for Charter revision. Comm. 41: Statement from Garry Garrison , President, Kona Coast Chamber of Commerce, outlining the Chamber' s recommendations for Charter revision. Motion was made to receive and file Communications 40 and 41 by Mr. Trulson. Seconded by Mr. Yagong and unanimously carried. RULES OF The Chair requested legal counsel , Attorney PROCEDURE: Stuart Oda, to detail Section IX of the Rules of Procedure for the Commission prior to the start of the public hearing. ATTORNEY ODA: Rules of Procedure, Section IX, Subsection A, "All persons desiring to speak before the Commission shall register with the Secretary prior to the convening of the meeting and shall provide the Commission with their name, address , and organization they represent, if applicable. No person who fails to register shall be heard. " On that point, the county council requested last week, Saturday, that we do not apply strict enforcement to that particular rule. I assured them that the Commission would be very liberal and that rule would be used only in extreme circumstances. Subsection B "The Chairman shall call the name of the person desiring to speak, and all persons shall speak before a microphone and be informed that their statements will be recorded. " Subsection C, "All statements before the Commission shall be in reference to provisisons in the Charter of the County of Hawaii or those that may be proposed as amendments or additions thereto. Statements not relevant, at the discretion of the Chairman, shall not be heard or considered. Whenever requested or appropriate, the speaker shall specify the charter provision referred to so that members may be familiar with its provisions. " That provision is to prevent any discussion on matters that are not related to Charter amendments. People might have complaints about county road crews or whatever. Subsection D, "All statements are to be made to the Commission in general , and not to any specfic member, unless in response to a question by the said member. " Subsection E, "At any time, the Chairman or any Commission member may interrupt any person making a -state ment for a clarification or answer. " On that point, it is self-explanatory but no Commission member or Chairman need to wait for , the completion of the entire statement before asking for a c1_arfication or question. - 2 - Subsection F, "At the discretion of the Chairman each person may be, allotted a specific number of minutes to speak. " Again, that is very discretionary how you want to handle that. That is one reason why it would be nice if you had a specific number of people who you know who have registered. If, let ' s say, twenty people register in advance, you may have to set a time limit to the length of their state- ments. If not, if only five people register, there would be no need for it. ' Subsection G, "Written proposals regarding any amendments or additions to the Charter may be submitted at the time of the hearing or thereafter. " Some people are gun-shy about testifying in person and that is very understandable. - These people are permitted to submit written statements either at the time of the hearing or after that without making a verbal statement. Subsection H, "Written statements on issues before the Commission may be deferred until such time as the subject matter referred to in the statement appears on the Commission ' s agenda. If deferred, the writer shall be informed when the issue will be on the agenda to allow the writer the opportunity to address the Commission and elaborate and/or clarify his statement , should he so desire. " There is no specific agenda for thei,.•Public Hearings. It is wide open. The purpose of that particular provision is mainly to allow the Chair the discretion to reschedule an individual for another date if there isn 't enough time for a specific matter he might have. Subsection I , "Oral statements before the Commission will be heard at scheduled Public Hearings to be held by the Commission. " There is one other matter in Section XIV, Public Access, "Any person may obtain information, or make submittals or requests by contacting the Office of the County Clerk, County of Hawaii. . . . " All the other provisions refer to house- keeping tu.lesfor your information. So they do not affect the public. Any questions or clarifications? MR. SENSANO: Would it be proper for us, during the time that we are hearing the testimony, to call a recess in case we feel we 's;hould put our heads together and have a dis- cussion? ATTORNEY ODA: You can call a recess at any time. I see no problem with that at all. I don ' t think the situation will come up, though, because no decisions will be made insofar as any Charter amendments. I don ' t think there - 3 - will be any need for us to put our heads together. But in case it comes up, yes. MR. SENSANO: What would happen if someone were to get out of line and the Chairman calls him down but lie doesn ' t respond and cooperate? ATTORNEY ODA: In a situation like that we would just have to call a recess. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Chairman. At the beginning of the public hearing we will advise the public as to the Rules of Procedure as far as testifying? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Yes, I think I will have Mr. Oda read that part so they will know what is taking place as far as the public hearing is concerned and the Rules of Procedure. So they will know for sure and everything is clear that when they do testify that these are the guidelines to follow in testifying. RECESS: At 5 : 11 p.m. the Chair called for recess. RECONVENE: At 7: 27 p.m. the meeting reconvened with all members present at Naalehu Elementary School Cafeteria. PUBLIC The Chair welcomed persons in attendance to the HEARING: meeting and introduced the Commission members,, requesting Attorney Stuart Oda to present the Rules of Procedure. Mr. Dale Anderson of Pahala was called upon as the first speaker for the evening. MR. ANDERSON: I represent no organization or group other than myself and others I have talked to -in the Pahala community who happen to share some of my opinions as to the County Charter. I 'd like to speak first to the matter of rep- resentation. It is my feeling that we would be better represented in the bounty council if we adopted a one-man, one-vote principal. I 'm sure in other hearings you have heard a good deal_ab_out this and I would like to support that thought. My feeling being that we could do better without at-large representation with a re- districting, if necessary, to make the necessary population adjustments so that we would be represented by our own district representatives in the county council. It would seem to me that this is far and away the fairest and most equitable and most efficient system of representation among communities in an island of government such as ours. I realize that this poses some problems due to the fact that we operate in a time cycle not in accordance with the ten year census. I 'm sure that the technicalities of this - 4 - can be worked out to the satisfaction to have the necessary representation. The second thing I would like to speak on is the desirability of a ceiling on spending in the county govern- ment. We live in a time of inflation. It is obvious that as population increases, as the demand for services increase, as costs rise, as technology changes we require, undoubtedly, greater expenditures in our county government. Just as every other facet of our governing bodies do. However, I 'think it would be most beneficial if we were to place a ceiling upon this amount of moneys that can be appropriated for whatever expenditures. Again , this would have to be the technicalities of how this is worked out-would have to be studied. But the advantage is, as I see it, in placing ceilings on spending is forcing our government to place priorities on the expenditures that are made, where, perhaps those priorities do not exist today. For instance, it would seem somewhat inapp- ropriate to me that we would build a racetrack in one community when another community doesn 't have a fire station or 24-hour police service. A ceiling on expenditures would necessarily force the people spending these tax funds to place priorities on what is to be spent.and where._Of= course we- need a base to establish how much increase could be allowed over a period of time. But, again, those are technicalities that I am sure our wise and good people can come to grips with. The third item that I would address is the matter of when we vote on any changes that you folks propose to be made in the County Charter.;-It is my understanding that to hold a special election in this county comes to a sum of some $60,000 give or take a few. The charter itself mandates that the charter be reviewed every ten years. It does not mandate, however, exactly when any revisions must be voted on. I believe it states that it can be at a general election. At the next general election or at a special election. I would propose that while what-we discuss as changes are important, they are certainly not earthshattering and do not require a special election. What you good folks decide to put before the public to be voted on could just as well wait until the 1980 general election as to spend $60,000 for a special election in 1979. Thank you, that is all. MR. OMONAKA: With regard to the concept of one-man, one-vote, do you have any idea as to how many council members we should have? MR. ANDERSON: I personally favor nine. I would see the island being divided into 9 districts of approxi- mately equal population. MR. OMONAKA: What happens if the boundaries are not within the so-called communities that have rather close relations to one another? - 5 - MR. ANDERSON: As there would be, I recognize that. Wasn ' t there a time in this county when Puna and Ka' u were in one district? This kind of arrangement has been seen before here and I recognize that would be necessary, yes. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Anderson. Under the present system where the county council is elected we have whatwe call a partial type of district representation where you can run at- large. You do not feel that would meet your requirement how councilmen should be representing? MR. ANDERSON: I have heard arguments both ways. Very compelling arguments both ways. I have even heard the argument that some people do not want any district represen- tation at all , they prefer to see all at-large representation. There is a wide gamut of choices here. I personally feel , and others that I have talked to in Pahala feel that for our district and for Kona' s district or Honokaa, or whatever, to express our thoughts best in-a county councilman we would be best served by our representative who serves no one else and elected by the electorate of our district only. MR. ISHIDA: Have you attempted to devise a districting plan or any system as to how this island could be districted? MR. ANDERSON: No, sir, I have not. Beyond the fact that I recognize the necessity for rather large geographical areas involved with one district and a very small geographical area involved with another. But I see no particular disadvantage in it. MR. ISHIDA: I see. There has been one proposal presented to the commission that we should maybe use the present representative districts. In other words, where we have currently five representatives in the state 'legislature from the Big Island we should keep that representation and the re- maining four run at-large. I know you currently don ' t have any recommendation as to how this districting should be made but I take it you feel some type of districting should be done. Do you have any views on that proposal? MR. ANDERSON: No, I 'm sorry, I would have to think about that further. MR. ISHIDA: On the issue of ceiling on spending. Do you have any standard which the commission could consider as some kind of standard which we should use to determine what the ceiling if any should be proposed for the county? MR. ANDERSON: Recognizing the pressures of inflation we all live under today, I would think the basis to any workable plan would be a recognition of a certain increase, inflationary increase. Whether it is just the gross national income. .there are any number of bases that can tell us that and I leave it to the experts to pick the one that would be best suited to our needs. But certainly we must recognize that the cost of running any government goes up just like the cost of - 6 - running any business. That would have to be recognized. MR. ISHIDA: I think the Commissioners share your concern. I think the problem that we are faced with is how do we determine what ceiling to use. We don ' t want to just use our judgment and say this should be it. Maybe it is wrong. The only thing we can go on is by the input we have as to what guidelines should be followed. This is where maybe you can help us. I think we can take into cons-ideation `the' fact that every year maybe there should be a slight increase to take care of inflation but where do we start? Do you have any suggestions? MR. ANDERSON: I suppose it could be done historically. That is, suppose that the average expenditures over a previous period were considered--five years, ten years whatever--and then involve in that certain inflationary trends. Population, obviously, if we increase population 50% that has got to be recognized. But I would think it could be based on a historical expenditure about some determined period which I don ' t have in mind. MR. ISHIDA: The third item that you mentioned is special voting. I believe your concern is that cost that would be undertaken to have a special election as far as this special ratification for these proposals. One of the things that we have been faced with is that since the next scheduled election is in 1980, once the proposals have been made we should have a special election this year so that the redistricting or reapportionment can go into effect in the 1980 election. Do you consider this to be vital , critical? Or do you think it is not, it can just wait and go on? MR. ANDERSON: I do. I believe it can go on. We deal in terms of decades with this charter and one more year, as I see it, isn ' t that critical. MR. ISHIDA: You understand that if we do what we are proposing that the councilmen will be elected for four years beginning 1980.. So in effect really as far as the councilmen are concerned it will not be felt until 1984. And this is the thing. I know the cost is a major item itself. We have been informed it may go up as high _as $100,000. Between $60 ,000 and $100,000 could be the cost for the election. In view of the fact of this reapportioning being apparently one of the major issues as far as the amendment to this revision of the County Charteris concerned, do you still consider that a matter that should not be taken at a special time? Or that it can await until the next general election in 19803 MR. ANDERSON: Yes, sir, I do. I 'm rather sure that my good friends in Kona would not agbee with me on that but from my standpoint I think it could wait, yes. Mr. Chairman, may I interject one more subject? Which came to me as we speak about this. It seems to me that - 7 - so many of the things that you people decide in the charter, or some of them, anyway, 'are related in one way or another to the trends in population. A viable plan would be to wait until 1981 when we would have the results from the census of the prior year to work with. MR. ISHIDA: There has been a proposal made that this commission consider placing within the charter the creation of a reapportionment commission which would initially meet in 1981 and every eight years thereafter. In other words , the intent of that as I gather it is that the apportionment would be made prior to the general election. That might solve your concerns. Which is something I think this commission will probably be taking into consideration. Whether they will or not , I don ' t know. MR. OMONAKA': ' Mr. Anderson , regarding your ceiling on spending. In running a government we could face a severe recession. The income can drop a certain rate or we could get into a disaster situation and we are going to need more money to help people in the disaster. What would happen if your proposal were carried? MR. ANDERSON: I think that has been a concern I have heard voiced before, Akira. I would have to assume that if we faced a disaster of the magnitude that you refer to_ it would require some kind of special administration to appoint. Granted a ceiling as I am proposing might put a pinch in that kind _o-f an emergency. That kind of an emergency would put a terrible pinch in everything. Not just our government. I think I would still prefer to see the ceiling. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Anderson , one question. On this representation and redistricting of districts--you don 't want anybody to run at-large, right? Okay. Have you ever thought about staggered terms for councilmen? MR. ANDERSON: I think I would like to see that. From a standpoint of just general continuity - as the_federal_ government changes its representatives, it would seem to make sense to me that as happened in our last election, of course, where we just about cleaned house in one fell _swoop. Some people would feel that that is exactly what we wanted to happen. Others wouldn ' t. But, logically, I would think from the contin- uity of good government it would make sense to stagger the terms so that we have new faces and old faces together. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You will consider a four year term for councilmen? MR. ANDERSON: Yes , I think that I would favor four year terms staggered. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Staggered. Thank you, very much, Mr. Anderson. - 8 - Next, we would like to call on Mr. Jim Dahlberg. Mr. Dahlberg. . . MR. DAHLBERG: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the commission and fellow citizens and residents of Ka' u. I 'd like to apologize first for my dress. We have had some heavy rains up in the Wood Valley area and our cattle like to eat that good C. Brewer cane. Our fence was washed out in one area and we had to fix that this afternoon. My _name is Jim Dahlberg. My residence is in Keauhou, Ka'u. I don ' t represent any organization this evening, just myself as a resident of the Ka'u district. First of all , I would like to thank you for coming to Ka'u. I hope that in the coming months, up until the special election , should you decide on the special election, you will come more' tonot only to this district but to all districts on the BigIsland. Possibly holding meetings in the areas of Pahala and also Hawaiian Ocean View, the three precincts we have in the Ka'u district. I am somewhat concerned with the number of citizens or residents of Ka' u that are in attendance tonight. We had a very educational session on the charter one week ago tonight and we had about four times as many people. By the discussion that took place, and the fact that it was the talk of the town the next day was encouraging to me because I thought that we would have more people here tonight to take positions such as Dale Anderson has taken. He was one of those in attendance at the meeting last week. This really concerns me because I feel that the charter, as you probably do, is the most important document that we have on the county level . You have all been given some proposed amendments, all of which I feel are worthy of seriously considering but I hopedt:that the public would be educated on them so that they can take a position on the various amendments and thus give you a good feeling for how the grass roots feels about these proposed amendments. I would like to, for the record, make it clear that the comments given by Steve Yamashiro to you at one of your sessions in the councilroom were possibly his and others on the council but I was never made aware of them. And at this time I do not want to concur with any or all parts of his testimony. And there have been a number of comments by my colleagues to the same effect that we feel he testified on behalf of himself. As I said earlier, I would really like to emphasize the need for as many public hearings as, you can afford within the time frame that you will be working., I , as an elected official , would not like to take a stand on any of the amendments until at least one go-around as it were of the island with regard to those amendments that have come before you from the various individuals and/or groups that you have heard thus far. - 9 One item that I feel imperative to bring up this evening because I haven ' t heard much about it--not necessarily my position--but I 'm concerned about this and I haven ' t heard that much input and I would urge you to go back to those groups such as the chambers, the unions and other groups thathave testified before you and ask them for their input on this one subject. That is, the amount of bonded indebtedness. I feel much like in our households it should be tied to the amount of revenue instead of the 15% or the proposed 5% that I have heard, or 10% of assessed valuation. Because it is really our ability to pay that I think should be foremost. In closing, I would just like to emphasize again that some of my constituents feel that they are being rushed a bit. Others, I feel , in discussing with the panel members orin trying to obtain panel members for the rap session last Tuesday, just don ' t know enough about the amendments. So I feel that it is my job as an elected official , my job as a citizen, your job as commission members to do whatever you can to stimulate and get the public to get interested. I 'm sure you realize as commissioners in your hearings and in seeing the number of people that have come to testify tonight, as I have, as an elected official that more times than not the people don ' t care or don ' t want to get involved. I think it is our job to, especially on such an important document like this to get the grass roots out and to partake. I don ' t know if after you have come up with your proposed amendments it would be prudent to consider debates where the pros and cons are given much like the League of Women Voters did for the Con Con. Whether it ' s within your realm of responsibility to either encourage this and/or sponsor this type of healthy debate. I just feel that we need to point out the importance of this document to the public. I think that your questions tonight with regard to the first speaker showed that you feel as I do on this topic and that you are really searching out how the layman feels, or lay- woman feels, about the various . amendments. I think this is good and I would just continue to urge you to please seek this from our constituents. With that , I 'd like to thank you again for coming to Kau and hope that this will be the first of many meetings that you will be able to have in the district. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Dahlberg, during your rap session last week what were some of the concerns that the people have presented to -you as far as being an elected official and pertaining to the charter here? Did they talk about any- thing .on representation and anything of that sort? MR. DAHLBERG: Yes, the first item that we discussed , last week , was the item of representation. We talked about five from the five representative districts and four at- large. Five from the five representative districts and two at- large. Nine council members from nine representative districts and it was, I would say, a general concensus of the people ._ . ' .. . there that night that they are in favor of some form of district representation. - 10 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Did you come to a concensus or conclusion as to what would be the best thought on this? MR. DAHLBERG: No, it was merely a rap session where people ask questions. Purely educational. We didn ' t come to any conclusions. That is a good thought. Possibly, the next one we hold we might come to an agreement among the members in attendance. Not that that would speak for all the people of Ka'u but certainly for those in attendance. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Dahlberg, regarding repre- sentation, have you come to a decision? MR. DAHLBERG: No, I have not. I would say that I feel some form of district representation is in order. But I have not come. . .and that is why tonight even though I am tempted to take positions on the various amendments, I don ' t think that it is fair for an elected official to take those stands until I have attended as many of the public hearings as possible. As you all know I have sat in on most of your get- togethers. Sometimes through the whole session. Sometimes a part of the session. We have heard from groups and I would like to hear from lay people such as Dale Anderson and others. You know, island wide. ATTORNEY ODA: Mr. Dahlberg, you say you favor district representation. Some form of district representation. Under the present charter, six council persons are elected for specific districts but at-large. Is that the form of district representation you are talking about? Or are you talking about the council person being elected only from let ' s say the district of Ka ' u, period? Is that what you are talking about? MR. DAHLBERG: I would consider that as one of the forms of district representation along with what you might call the pure district representation where he not only resides in his district, or she resides in the district, but he is elected only by that geographical district. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Do you favor at-large repre- sentation? MR. DAHLBERG: I am not prepared to take a stand on the type of district representation that I feel to be appropriate because I haven ' t heard enough from what I would consider the grass roots of the Big Island. I think it ' s important to bring out one point that was pointed out at our rap session last Tuesday, and that is that I somehow feel as an elected official that the people of the Big Island haven ' t made use of the compromise that was agreed upon with the ' 68 commission. That is that the council person live in the district but he wound be elected island wide. I think sometimes districts forget that you have nine council persons and that you should make use of this. That you elected Councilman Tajiri, Domingo, Sameshima, Yamashiro, Lai , etcetera, and etcetera. ; You can talk to all nine of them because you elected them. I think that this is unfortunate that this hasn ' t been used as much as it probably should be used. We are responsive to our district in that we live here and work here but that we are elected at-large causes us to keep a broad overview of the entire island and also be responsive to those other districts. - 11 - MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Dahlberg. The general philosophy as far as the Charter Review Commission is con- cerned is that what we have heard from many people is that the County of Hawaii ' s Charter-,is a good document and basic- ally since it is good, the responsibility as far asthis commission is concerned is to determine whether any changes or any amendments should be made. I think the difficulty we have been having as far as the commission is concerned we are trying to get as much input as is possible from the citizens and from everybody who is connected with the county to guide us. To tell us what areas or what provisions should be changed or amended. My personal feeling is this, if we have such a good document and if there is no input being told to the commission then the document should stand as is. The thing is if there is no input, then there is nothing for us to decide, to even review. Consequently, if nobody gives us any positions for us to make revisions on then there is nothing for us to do. Because if we do it then we are passing our own judgment which I think is wrong. This is why we are going around to the districts to get this input. . If we go through all these public hearings and nobody tells .UsIthink you should do this or do that, I think we would find ourselves in a very difficult position. I do not, personally, wish to be placed in that position. Because if nobody tells me at this type of hearing what we should consider, what areas should be looked into, then I am going to take the presumption that since we do have a good document it should stand. I will vote for no changes. And that to me it would be useless for us to go out again. To me it is for us to determine-to get all the input and all the recommendations as to what areas we shall make changes. If after review of all this input then we would come up and make the proposed changes , then I think there is nothing we can go wrong on. I hate to see us wind up doing nothing. I think your position as far as getting the layman ' s views is good. There is no question but that I think it is also our responsibility to get views from public officials too. Not only elected officials like yourself, but I 'm talking about all of the administration. All of the county employees. Everybody. I think we should get the views from them because, one, they are the ones who will be working under the charter directly and are directly affected by it by day-to-day work. I think these people should tell us if they think one area is inconsistent with another and that we: should try to reconcile it. Unless we are told then we are going to have to go under the assumption that the document is a good one and that it can be operated under. I don ' t think it is up to us, the commission , to get among ourselves and revise or amend or make proposals as far as the charter is concerned and then send it out to the - 12 - public and say, do you think this is all right. I don ' t think that is quite right. Consequently, I feel that everybody should come in and give his input now so that when we do our in-depth discussion we really have something to discuss. I think this is really what we would like to do. You have indicated that you have a concern as far as the bonded indebtedness area. I think that is a concern of others , too. Do you have anything that we should take into consideration when we review this area? MR. DAHLBERG: Just that it should be tied to--L don ' t have it formalized as yet--the ability to repay based upon revenue. Just like it is in our households. When you go before a financial institution, they let you borrow according to a four-to-one ratio in the case of a mortgage. Let me possibly clear up a potential misunder- standing. I will have my personal--and that is why I didn ' t mean to take a shot at Steve as you might thought I was doing-- I will have my opinion or thoughts with regard to the various amendments at the end of the public hearings. I will submit them in writing before you come out with what you consider your set of proposed amendments to the charter. I just feel that as an elected official , I owe it to my constituents to get their input. Quite frankly, that is why I was concerned about getting the public in my district, or making available the opportunity for the public to become educated about the various amendments. Last Tuesday we went through just about every major amendment. The water commission comingunder the mayor. The police commission staying the same, etc. , etc. , and some of the others that we have addressed already this evening. MR. ISHIDA: : Mr. Dahlberg. Our public hearings as scheduled ends on May -22 and in the ._first meeting thereafter we are going to be discussing in-depth as to whether any revisions should in fact be made. You understand, you being an elected official, I think it is fair for me to say that you have worked under the charter for two years now, three years, and you know what areas where you think maybe it should be changed. If we don ' t have this input, how can we really consider it? MR. DAHLBERG: I told you you are going to get my input ,:prior to your making the amendments but I don ' t think it is appropriate for me MR. ISHIDA° I 'm not telling you when we should have it, but the thing. . . . MR. DAHLBERG: Obviously some of my colleagues have decided to give their input in the very beginning and I think that that is their right. I would rather wait until we have the public input on the grass roots level such as you are commencing with this evening. On some issues I am up to here and I am ready to give an opinion but I don 't feel that - 13 - it is appropriate at this time. And that is another thing I feel that some people are getting the feeling that they are being rushed. I think that we should take more time. A lesson I learned from observing the Constitutional Convention. You' ll get my input in addition to what I have given you this evening prior to you folks making your decisions with regards to the various amendments that you might come forth with. MR. ISHIDA: I don ' t speak for the commission as a whole but, personally, if you have any thoughts or any feelings, any input, I would appreciate it if you would give it to us right away. In this way we have more information in seeking our questions at other public hearings. This is why we scheduled a lot of input before we went to public hearings. To understand the charter and what areas the things fall into. Many times I think to your experience you know that something doesn ' t come out unless you ask questions. Unless we know the areas where there may be great controversy we may be under a misapprehension that it may be all right. To me, if anybody has any strong positions I would like to know now so that we can least have this in mind as we go around the public hearings. MRS IWAMOTO: Mr. Dahlberg, you mentioned that the citizens have discussed the department of water supply. Could you�;�.mention what their concerns are? MR. DAHLBERG: We merely tossed out the question of whether the water commission should stay semi-autonomous or come under the mayor. We also discussed whether you would want the police commission as it is now or in some other form. There was one proposal put forth that it should come under the prosecuting attorney. It was more an educational session rather than people taking positions pro or con because almost all the people that attended didn ' t know the first thing about the charter. Many had never seen the document. Some were even misinformed about what the existing conditions are. Some people think they only elect their councilman, as it is now, that we have pure district representation. It has happened to me ten times if it has happened once over the last two years where people say, oh, well , I don ' t vote for you, you are from Ka'u. It is just amazing how many people are misinformed on that one particular point. MR. CADINHA: Jim, I have a question in regards to your feelings .on bonded indebtedness. Apparently you have thought that is-sue through pretty well and you have a definite feeling about that. MR. DAHLBERG: No, I haven ' t thought it through or have an opinion about it. I merely brought it up tonight and that is the only issue that I discussed in my presentation because I haven ' t heard much about it and I would like to encourage you folks to go back to those groups that haven ' t taken a position on it and/or individuals and ask them what they think about it. Or to hopefully stir others to think about this. - 14 - I think the aspect of tying it in with the ability to pay is something that should be studied. I haven't taken a position on it. When I made my presentation, I was merely stating that this is one aspect that I haven ' t heard too much about. To answer Commissioner Ishida' s question, I would agree that just about everything that has come before you is worthy of good debate and I have been pleased that you have had a wide range of groups come before you and give their positions. MR. CADINHA: So then you are saying you are not sure we should have a bonded indebtedness ceiling or what this ceiling should be. MR. DAHLBERG: I 'm not sure. MR. CADINHA: You have no feeling as an elected official serving for two years as a County Councilman for the Island of Hawaii? MR. DAHLBERG: I have my feelings and I am going to take exception to the questioning if you continue to try to get my opinion. I am not prepared to give that tonight. That is my right as an individual and I think that is my respect to my constituents island wide, as it stands now and to my constituents here in K&iu. I want to hear what they have to say. I truly feel that I represent the people and that the government is for the people and by the people and not by special interest groups that are close to any elected official. And that is the whole way that I am attacking this review of the charter. MR. CADINHA: Then with regard to any part of the charter, you are not prepared to answer any questions about that at all? MR. DAHLBERG: I 'm prepared to discuss things with you. I 'm not prepared to take a stand or give my opinion. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Dahlberg. I don ' t mean to put you on the spot but maybe you are not familiar with our timetable. From tonight there will be eight weeks and we will be finalizing. MR. DAHLBERG: I am thoroughly familiar with the number of hearings you are going to have. The time period of which you have set forth to have those hearings. And then the time period in which you come forth with the proposed amendments , if any. MR. TRULSON: We are not trying to put you on the spot, but that is why we are trying to get as much information as we can. You state that you have met with your constituents in this community and we were trying to find out as much as we can about what they think. We don 't have that much time. You say you want to meet with your constituents and actually by May 22 if we go through on our time schedule - 15 - is when you are going to have to tell us what you feel . Not just your opinion perhaps as a public official but your personal feeling as a citizen as well. I 'm not talking about tonight but I am saying this is our timetable. MR. DAHLBERG: I appreciate your concerns for getting my opinions as an official. I just hope that you wouldmhave the patience to wait until the end of your hearings because I wantb.to hear what the grass roots have said. I have taken the time to attend some of your hearings in the County Councilroom and I think that shows my interest in hearing what unions and business and individuals `that`have' . testified before you that represented various groups or organizations have said. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Dahlberg, you feel that if you are given more time then the grass roots here in Ka'u will have more information pertaining to the charter and then you people can talk ,,about it more intelligently and you would be able to make more decisions. In other words, you want more time on this so you can come before us again and listen to all the public hearings and then formulate what you want as far as the charter is concerned in revisions and etcetera? MR. DAHLBERG: I hope that other districts have the educational sessions , or session , that we have had and hopefully more. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: One thing appalling is the fact that you have met with your constituents and you have talked about this with your grass roots 'i.evel.b . t`he thing that really bothers me is the fact that these people are, not present at a public hearing. There is no input from themJand right now we seem to be at a point where we cannot get really input from you representing that group stating that, okay, these are the things that they talked about and the things that we want to be talking about and review and possibly amend in the charter. Right now, what you are saying is that you did have a meeting with your constituents but you people just probably talked about certain aspects of the charter but then made no definite decision as to come to a public hearing and state that these are the things that we do want to talk about or we do want to take a stand on. Is that correct? MR. DAHLBERG: The main reason for the get- together was to discuss the pros and cons of the various proposed amendments and thus encourage people to come to a , public hearing and take a stand, whether pro or con. As purely an educational session and I can ' t represent a group that hasn 't given me the authority to represent them. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: I 'm from Ka' u, too, and I am kind of appalled, as a matter of fact, that people are not that interested in coming out to a public hearing and voicing their feelings and their proposals pertaining to the charter. MR. DAHLBERG: I totally concur with you, Mr. Chairman. We are experiencing the same thing with the - 16 - General Plan -amendments. We are having hearings all over the island , with the next one, tomorrow night in Ka' u and so far we 've had lousy attendance except for the one in Kona 'and the one in Puna. CHAIRMAN SAKiTA: Thank you, very much, Mr. Dahlberg. Next we would like to call on Mr. Floyd Pulham. Mr. Pulham represents the Naalehu Community Association. MR. PULHAM: I was asked to represent the Community Club here this evening. However, that organization will have a meeting later this week and I hope to convince them to send you in writing their opinions on this. But I did agree to come here this evening and tell you what we have been talking about. As many of you know, I spent the better part of last summer in Honolulu doing this same thing with the state constitution. So I am very familiar with your problems. I can commiserate with you fully about trying to get people out at hearings and I would like very much to help you in any way that I can because of that. First of all , I would like to answer a question that was raised earlier because there was mention made to the bonded indebtedness of the county. That is fixed by the state constitution so that would be a starting point. I realize that possibly you could make it more stringent under the County Charter if you wanted to but be aware that it is written into the state constitution. So you will have to start there and work down. I , too, was at that meeting in Pahala the other night and I , too, will _apologize that there aren 't more people here. But, as I said., I couldn ' t get them out from my areas either so I don ' t know. I would like to support, first of all , starting with some of the things that have been mentioned. The limit on county spending. I know you talked about that. You were wondering how you were going to go about it. I don ' t have a final solution either but I think that were you to limit the real property taxations which is where the bulk of the county money comes from. We are talking about operating money, the bonds being already fixed by the constitution. If the limits that they could be raised in any one year--and it is my under- standing that you have a proposal before you limiting it to approximately 1% on the taxation itself and 2% of the assessed valuation and could not go up more than that in any one year-- it would seem to me that that would be a very good place to start. I haven ' t checked on the figures because I don ' t have them. This would appear to be a prudent way to do it but above all , in light of what others have told you, what Mr. Anderson has said earlier, we have to find a method of limiting government spending. If we don ' t we will be faced with the California - 17 - situation which you have heard before and all this sort of thing. But it is a fact of life today. Government spending has to be limited and the only way _ouu are going to do it is if you do it by law. Good government needs these fixed guidelines that we are talking about within which to operate because no business can stand to just float. Not really knowing how much money it is going to have. This is where we get into problems. But I fully believe that you are going to have to accompany this by mandating in the charter that we use zero base budgeting,- on the county level. I take it that you know what I am talking about when I say zero base budgeting. You start from zero every year rather than saying, okay, you can have 10% over what you had last year. Because the minute you say that, this person , or any person is going to take that 10% and then probably try to get two or three more. It ' s human nature. So you have got to start from zero and go up. We can ' t continue to add 10% or 15% or 20% a,:,year to each department the way we have been doing. There is no way. And unless , again, that you tell people you are going to start from zero and justify every item. in your budget, they are not going to do it. It is much easier to do it the other way around. I would move on to representative_-districts. I think to get continuity that if we went by representative districts and elected half of them every two years, this would split the thing pretty well . You might have to fine tune that but at the moment that would be my suggestion. There are a number of reasons for that you have probably heard already. But, first of all , it would make a councilman closer to his constituents and despite what Councilman Dahlberg has said it has been my opinion that rather than all nine councilmen representing each and everybody, even in Ka'u, this just simply gives you nine people to pass the buck instead of one. It ' s harder to pin down one out of the nine or any one of them than it is if you have someone responsible for and to you. It is just thatI-plain. Maybe more important, the campaign spending has gone to ridiculous lengths because you have to campaign around the entire island even though you say you are a council- man from Ka'u. Does that make much sense? To spend $20 , 000 or $30,000. -Not really. So it would certainly give more people an opportunity to get involved. They wouldn ' t have to go out and try to scare up this big money. The person would be there and more representative. Closer to the people. I think it is an idea. That its time is here. I think in that same area there is something that you are going to have to look closely -at. At present, to the best of my knowledge at least, there is no provision in the County Charter for replacing a councilman who is disabled for some reason or other. I don 't particularly care how this is worked out. It seems to me like that a basic document which this is has to provide for continuity in government and this goes_ - even to the councilmen because you should have a right to - 18 - representation. I think that if he completely dies, it is taken care of in there. But if he is just gone for six months like we have going on right now, the people don 't have rep- resentation. They don 't have a vote and this is wrong. You can work that out if a person is capable he can appoint _someone like "a 'proxy. His successor, in other words , until he is capable of resuming his office. If he is incapacitated I see no reason why the county chairman of the party to which he belongs can ' t appoint a replacement. As I say, I am not really hung up on how you do it but I know as a citizen that if some- thing happened to my particular councilman, and he couldn ' t be there for six months, I would certainly like to have someone there representing myself and the rest of the community. So I think we have to take care of this. The next two items I will present myself and not the Community Club because we haven ' t discussed it. The first one that I would like to suggest is that you limit terms of elected county officials in this charter to- not more than 8 years-consecutive years-in any one office. I 'm talking about all elected officials, not just the councilmen. My reasoning behind that is obvious to at least:. That it provides for better government. It provides for more participation.;by;:more people. It does not limit anyone from serving. He can serve in another office. If the people really want this person back after he has sits out a term and works for a living he can come back and run again and get elected. I 'm very much against professional politicians and I think this is one method of assuring the people that at least there is a change in their gouernment. ..._.;That they can bring about change. The second item which I personally would like to propose to you and I guess I haven ' t met any of you person- ally before. . .if I have, then I forgot it. I `apologize.- Except Mr. Sakata. This is no reflection on this panel what- soever. Again , being,:a student of government, I think that I need propose that this Charter Review Commission be an elected body. For a number of reasons. Again, it has nothing to do with personalities because ten years from now we are going to have different people. We are going to have a different appointing authority. The point is that is exactly what you have. You have a political entity appointing people to review the document which that particular entity functions under. In other words, ten years down the road from now some- body could stack the deck so to speak and there is no way that the people can do anything about it because it is written into the charter presently that they are appointed members. So I think that if we are really interested in good government that we need to do something about this sort of thing. It will be up to you to see if you have the courage to do it or not. But I really believe that this is where our government starts. It is with the people after all . -So if the Charter Review Commission is elected as the Consti- tutional Convention members were. . .You might not agree with - 19 - their work. Many people didn ' t. But the point is that you elected them to go down there and do a job and they did it. I think that people find things a little easier to accept then. In that same area, I feel that if you worked this out so that the commission is elected at one particular general election and the results of their work is submitted at the following general election which is two years later, it would give you a lot more time for input. It would give a person time to really become familiar with the subject _matter. Public hearings could be interspersed over that amount of time. You would have time for public hearings on the results of your work as well as input into it. You wouldn ' t have to go at it at such a hurried pace. It would then be set up so that it came at a specific general election and it would remove some of the questions that you are having now--should we spend $60, 000 or $100,000? Are we going to benefit this group or hurt that group by having a special election? And that is exactly what people are saying. Right or wrong. So if you have this specified in the document and people agree that that is what should be done then that would take care of it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Pulham, you talk about vacancy of a councilman and we have heard much about this and we.'';have even had our legal counsel check into this word "vacancy" because we are not too clear on this word or what it really means. There is a section in the County Charter that definitely speaks about vacancy in office. In Article III , Section 3-5 . It does say exactly what happens when there is a vacancy in the county council . But the point in consideration here is the one in Kona. We have a councilman in Kona who is not really up to parto represent that area right now. We have been talking about this from input from the Chamber of Commerce of Kona. We have been talking about it with the Kona Women ' s Group and we really have a hang up on this. What does vacancy really mean? If a person cannot operate and fill his office because he is sick and there is no medical record to state that he is incompetent in doing his work, does that constitute vacancy or not? So we are really hung up on this but we really feel that there is a section in the County Charter that really specifies what takes place when there is a vacancy in office. So as far as what you said that there is no specific mention of that in the charter but there is and we would like to inform you that we are looking at this from the standpoint of what is in the charter as far as vacancy is concerned when the councilman is sick or ill and cannot represent his area. MR. PULHAM: Are youinterpreting that section then as saying it covers illness and incapacity? The one that is presently in the charter? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: So this is what we are saying: what does it mean by "vacancy. " We are not too clear on this yet so we are really looking at this from this point. MR. PULHAM: Yes, I think you need to clarify it, right. I think that was my point. - 20 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Another thing, you talk about the Charter Commission being elected. On this , you feel that commissioners should be compensated then? You say, elected body--and they get elected and go into this Charter Commission situation. Do you think they should be compensated? MR. PULHAM: I think that--aren ' t you allowed reasonable compensation? Nothing at all? No per diem? No travel allowance? Nothing? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: According to the charter, no, we cannot be compensated at all. MR. PULHAM: Well , yes , I would agree that they have to be. If you ask someone to do a job then you expect to pay them to do that job. By this, I don ' t mean an outrageous salary or anything of the kind. But, certainly they have to have per diem and expenses, this sort of thing if you expect them to do the job. MRS. KOBAYASHI : Your proposal was for an elected Charter Commission that would work for a period of two years. If it were compensated, say, at the rate that the contract and benefits f-or.=the government workers were compensated , you are talking about a fantastic amount of money. Do you realize that? MR. PULHAM: I realize that and that is exactly what I didn ' t say. I said the meetings could be inter- spersed over two years. By this , we are talking about compen- sation per time actually worked. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I think the previous Charter Commissions were paid. I think $1,000 or something like that. But the last ' 68 charter denies any payment to the commission. MR. PULHAM: I disagree with that if that is the case. I think that it has to be reasonable and it has to be justified, yes , but you people should not be expected, whether you are elected or appointed, as your case, to work for nothing or to take it out of your pocket. That is wrong. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I believe that however you would state it, I feel , that you would run into a problem with a special election. You are asking for an election on the Charter Commission and an election on the charter two years later. MR. PULHAM: My suggestion was that you hold it at one general election and that the results come out two years later at the next general election. It would not require a special election at any time, no. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Pulham, in the State Consti- tutional Convention, how many of the people that were there drafting and redrafting the constitution were either full-time politicians or connected very closely with resisting the change? Is there any kind-of feedback? - 21 - MR. PULHAM: I could have hit it on the head until you threw that last one in there. There were two elected, excuse me, three, Kekua Kaapu, Bob Taira and; one more, yes, Donald Ching. What came out later, I think was. . . if I have to hazard a guess , I would say 50% of those people were--from the Honolulu area at least--were staff members of elected officials. In other words, from Mr. Suwa' s office, or Mr. Ching' s office, or whoever, you take your pick and go down the list and then go back and look at the records and see who they work for over in the legislature. About 50%, I would think. MR. CADINHA: According to this, do you still feel that if it were to be an elected body it would be less. . e e e MR. PULHAM: You can never say that it will or it won ' t be. I would suggest that it wouldn ' t be from the standpoint that this didn ' t happen on the Big Island, what we are talking about. It was an Oahu thing. We are a small enough community yet that we pretty well know who people are and who they represent, this sort of thing. I don ' t think so, no. But at any rate, if you voted for them then you would be responsible for their conduct regardless of who they are. You voted them into office, or I did, or whatever. This is the point. MR. CADINHA: I have one more question regarding zero base budgeting. Are you connecting this with the spending limit? MR. PULHAM: I think you have to. I think that, well , they don ' t go -together in the same package or in the same sentence. What I am saying is that the one compliments the other. I think that if I had my choice between the two, I would pick just zero base budgeting because I think you probably will accomplish it anyway. I think the trend is toward having some kind of spending limits such as we ended up with on the state level , as you know. Sure, there were some people screaming but now, if you look in the paper, the chairman of the finance committee and everybody else is agreeing now that it was a good thing. I think it is something, as I say, its time is here. I think you' re going to have to wrestle with it. If you don' t, we are going to end up with it as an initiative proposal. MRS. KOBAYASHI : Mr. Pulham, regarding your representation of district, two per district. Yours- is the first proposal of ten councilmen that we have had. It sounds reasonable but the only problem that I can see is, what happens when you have a tie vote? The, present council is nine so at least you have a five and four. MR. PULHAM: This is something that political scientists have been kicking around for years and I don ' t know that it ever actually happens. You could very easily have the , county chairman not vote and you wouldn ' t have a tie because there would be nine other members so you wouldn 't have to worry about it unless one was gone, would you? MRS. KOBAYASHI: But then you would have a . , chairman who, well , I don ' t know, how would he. . . - 22 - MR. PULHAM: He might be a little bit more of a diplomat. A little bit more inclined to be an administrator than what we have been having in the past® MRS. KOBAYASHI : Suppose he represents a district, then? He wouldn ' t be voting. MR. PULHAM: Politics is the art of persuasion. MR. TRULSON : Mr. Pulham, regarding your proposal on redistricting of having two councilmen from each district. Is that one-man , one-vote? is that equal represent- ation? MR. PULHAM: No, I think you are a little-- we said, we are doubling it so you would have; four in Hilo, the 2nd district has an A and a B portion. They have ,two representatives, they would have four councilmen: Did I mis,= inform you? There are five representatives but there are only four districts. MR. TRULSON: I thought you meant two from each district. MR. PULHAM: No. MR. TRULSON: In the election of the commission, you mentionedi, the Charter Commission. Are you proposing that all commissions be elected? MR. PULHAM: No. MR. TRULSON: There is one stipulation that except as otherwise provided, not more than a bare majority the members shall belong to the same political party. So far, the county is predominantly Democratic.. What if all Democrats get in? We would have to change the charter provision there, also. MR. PULHAM: You would have to have a non-partisan provision. A non-partisan status such as the Constitutional Convention is required to be is the only way you can get around that. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Pulham, on the zero base budgeting, one of the questions that has been coming up all the time that zero base`. budgeting was raised is what effect, if any, would that have on collective bargaining? Can those two things be reconciled?` MR. PULHAM: On the zero base budgeting? I don ' t see why not. Because we simply start--to me--and as I admitted earlier, I am not a whiz in the financial area either the state or the county--but if you start from zero and you know you have a fixed cost of collective bargaining, right, you know what it is going to cost. So I don ' t see where this - 23 - MR. ISHIDA: I think the problem is many people say under collective bargaining they really don ' t know what the fixed cost is. MR. PULHAM: I don ' t think that I am saying or that anybody else is, that you are not going to have a raise in the budget. That inflation is not going be--whether it be wages or whatever--is not going to be a factor. It is. What we are saying is that that particular department head justifies that money he is spending from zero and not from-- f it cost him $100;000 last year he starts at a $100, 000 and goes forward. This is the only thing. If he has ten positions in his department then let him justify them. We know they are going to cost more this year than they did last year. MR. ISHIDA: The problem of the disabled councilman, do you have any suggestions or plan as to what we could use to determine when a councilman would meet that standard whereby a temporary replacement would be appointed? Or do we just leave it up to the disabled councilman. . . MR. PULHAM: I can see what you are wrestling with because you don ' t want to set a standard where you say someone is able to say, arbitrarily, that someone is disabled. I think that if you simply said as determined by two-thirds majority of the remaining councilmen would make that deter- mination. So ,tliat ,. -in other words, I 'm saying if they say he has missed ten meetings in a row there has got to be something wrong with him. You know, let ' s find, out. MR. ISHIDA: Do you have any personal knowledge .of any other charter in another county or state government that has a provision like this? MR. PULHAM: I do not. MR. ISHIDA: When we come to elected Charter Commissions, I think that one of the issues might be the problem of costs. We would like to keep the costs in the county down. Do you have any figure in mind as to what the cost would be under your proposal? The additional cost to the county if we do have an elected Charter Commission? MR. PULHAM: I would have to say, I don ' t. I think that you might be in a position to determine how many meetings you feel it would take over this two year period of time to adequately do the job and given a per diem of $30 or $40 per day, whatever you think is adequate and come up with a figure on that as the cost of it. But I don ' t see that as being particularly prohibitive. It certainly would be less costly than a special election which we talked about earlier. It wouldnIt be nearly as much. MR. ISHIDA: Another point. In the present Honolulu Charter there is the provision for a creation of a reapportionment commission that is supposed to meet in 1981 . - 24 - It seems that with this Charter Review Commission one of the major issues is reapportionment. Do you feel that instead of having the Charter Review Commission take that issue that we should have, possibly, a separate body solely for the purpose of apportionment? MR. PULHAM: I think that being that they have already wrestled with it and being there is a state reapportionment commission, if we use the representative districts which will then be reapportioned under the one-man, one-vote principal so that we meet that criteria, we would really have no need for a county level reapportionment commission, would we? - MR. ISHIDA: I may be wrong but someone just informed me, a couple of days ago, that the state constitution provides, which I haven ' t confirmed, myself, is that the reapportionment is to be based upon registered voters. Do you know if- that is correct? MR. PULHAM: No, the constitution does not say that, I know that. The reapportionment commission has to use the federal census. They are faced with a horrendous task , really, of trying to sort it out and see just how many people there are. But they have to draw from all these particular sources but the primary one is the federal census that is used. You would really get into trouble if you went with the voter registration or the votes cast in the one-man , one-vote situation. You would be so far off. That might be a more fair way to` do it. The people that actually participate get counted and those who don 't--you might wake some of them up. MR. CADINHA: Mr. Pulham, have you given any regard to the various commissions. . .the water commission in its semi-autonomous state. . . . MR. PULHAM: It would be my opinion that it should not exist. There should be no one involved in regulating' or in the spending of public moneys that is not accountable to the people and that is exactly what you have. You have a group that spends money that is not accountable to anybody because once they are appointed they are, as you say, semi-autonomous. They might as well be autonomous. No, they should come under the mayor so that he can be held responsible for them and if you want to put them under the council , that is fine. Ever-y_ono should: come back to the people to be accounted_ for -one way or the other. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, very much , Mr. Pulham. We, have next , Elizabeth Stone to testify. MS. STONE : I have two questions. First, when is the deadline for comments on this charter? When is the deadline for comments to be received on the charter? - 25 - CHAIRMAN SAKATA: May 29th. MS. STONE: How can you get a copy of this charter? It is very difficult for a person to comment on something when there is no copy available. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You can get those at the County Office Building in the County Clerk ' s Office. MS. STONE: Could I make a request for the people who don ' t have cars, or money for food or gas, that somehow you would get copies to the public libraries and every public library as soon as possible by delivery or by mail. . . ? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: We do have them at the public libraries. MS. STONE: Are you salary paid or are you just donating your time? 'Cause I get angrier at salary paid by tax payers to people who make decisions incorrectly than I do at those who are donating their time. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: This commission is not compensated, at all . MS. STONE: Not compensated by taxes? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Just mileage and sometimes we wonder if it is enough to cover the cost of gas, now. MS. STONE : You ' ll have to excuse me. . .So the deadline for comments for people to write is May 29th, and we' ll need more than one, maybe a half dozen copies , I don ' t know. At least more than one be made available at the public libraries for the people. . . . . And just based on my limited knowledge of what I gathered from this here (copy charter) . . .I want to agree with the people who ask for at-large, no, no at-large representation. Are these comments that were already made on this charter? (Communications 40 & 41 with Agenda for the day) CHAIRMAN SAKATA: What is that? MS. STONE : Itbsays, ah, well , it ' s April 17, 1979, that ' s today. Then inside thereis a April 10, 1979 , Chairman of the Charter Commission. . .are these comments that have already been made? This is what I picked up, right here, it ' s your agenda for today and then in the back it has comments by United Public Workers and then there are. . .are these comments that have already been made on your charter? On our charter, I should say "ours" because we are all supposed to have a voice in our government. . . - 26 - I want to agree with the Kona Coast Chamber of Commerce position what there be no councilmen elected at- large and in that way we each can represent, each district can represent, elect their own representative. . . .and a ceiling on spending, I agree with that. . .and I agree with Mr. Anderson ' s proposal on the special elections. .that there be no special elections so that the elections can be included in the regular election. . .and. . I should take no stand until I study it more. I agree with Mr. Dahlberg, the need for many public hearings and I wanted to ask about the board of water supply being semi-autonomous. Does that mean that it is not a part of the government or is it? By semi-autonomous , does that mean that it is CHAIRMAN SAKATA: You want an explanation on that, the water supply and what semi-autonomous is? MS. STONE: Could you explain that a little better? Or is this not the place for that? CHAIRMAN SAKATA: We will ask our legal counsel to explain that to you. ATTORNEY ODA: The department of water supply as it is right now is semi-autonomous. That means that it is still a part of the county government, however, it is not fully under the control of the mayor' s office. In other words, it has its own independent commission that makes decisions for the water department and the mayor does not have the kind of control over that department that he does with the other departments in the county. But it is still a part of the county government. MS. STONE: I see. . .I just. . .I see thatthe mayor wants to have the commission eliminated and he wanted to be able to appoint. . .is that correct?" He wanted to be able to have more control over the departments by appointing? . . .abolishing the commission. . .is that correct? ATTORNEY ODA: Are you referring to the department heads? MS. STONE : It says the mayor. . .on page 4of this Charter Commission. . . it says that the mayor ;in his address to .the Charter: Commission :propose d a- major revision-such as his having direct control of certain departments and the abolishment of commissions with the exception of the police commission and the civil. e .!with the exception of the police commission. I agree that. . . CHAIRMAN SAKATA: That is the UPW statement that you are reading from, aren ' t you? United Public Workers? MS. STONE: Their statement that the mayor has proposed that he have more control over the different departments. . .over the different departments and abolishing the commissions. . .I mean, I s 'pose you don ' t really understand this proposal? - 27 - r MR. TRULSON: As I recall that proposal by the mayor, he was stating that to run the county as a business where the chairman of the board or the president of the corporation would have the ability to choose who was going to run each de- partment. I believe this is what you are referring to. That was one of the alternatives that the mayor talked to us about in one of his presentations. Instead of having commissions elect people who will work under the mayor, that the mayor select his own person who will work under him. MS. STONE: I 'd like to agree with the mayor' s proposal that the commission members and the department heads either be voted in by people at election time at the same time as the government officials are elected in or be appointed by the government officials who are elected in. So that, as Mr. Pulham said, if the time comes that it is very hard for a mayor or a governor to say I am for agriculture or I am for this or that and then have no power over all the people who control the various areas. So I 'd like to agree with the mayor' s proposal that the elected. . .either the commission members be elected at the time of the election or appointed by the people who are elected. . .so that. .like Floyd said. .at the end of the year that for some reason there is a little bit of a shady thing in the government. . .if somebody wants to come back or even if within one year if the mayor is in office and he is not fulfilling his duties and obligations and he is not living up to his promises that he gave the people or the peo. . that they can be impeached out of office. . .and he can ' t just say well , it ' s not in my hands, I didn ' t vote those people in. . . I have no control over those people and they' re the ones who control that area. . .so I 'd like to. . .and even in. . .well, this I 'm not sure of. . .but it seems likeif the board of water supply then. . .it controls our water and the water is governed bythe environment and that ' s our water supply. . .and of course on Oahu there is no water left. . .but it seems like even the board of water supply shouldn ' t be a private thing because the water supply is for everybody. . .so I would also support that the board of water supply be under the mayor. . .If I run for political office. . .I don ' t know if I will. . .but I might. .and if I do, I would have the proposal that we should give our campaign dollars to the churches so they can be deducted from our taxes and then we won 't be supporting governments that we have no voice in. . .and if you happen to go to a church and support a church then you be sure to put your voice in on an individual level. But that ' s just my own little personal Thank you for the opportunity to speak. . . 'course I don ' t know whether it ' s ever heard or not. . . but. . .thank you. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 9: 14 p.m. until Tuesday, April 24, 1979 at Shipman Gym, Keaau. 15th Session at 4: 30 p.m.--Public Hearing at 7 :00 p.m. oan Carnett RECORDING SECRETARY - 28 -