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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCHC 1979-04-24 PH HAWAII COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION MINUTES 15th Session and Public Hearing Shipman Gym, Keaau April 24, 1979 The fifteenth session of the Hawaii County Charter Commission was called to order at 4: 30 p.m. in the Shipman Gym, Keaau, Hawaii , by Mr. Kimiaki Sakata, Chairman. The roll recorded the following: Present: Mr. Richard Ishida Mrs. Amy Iwamoto Mrs. Gloria Kobayashi Mr. Akira Omonaka Mr. Kimiaki Sakata Mr. Herman Sensano Mr. Joseph Trulson Mr. Basilio Yagong Mr. Matsuo Yanaga Absent. Mr. Harlan Cadinha and Mr. Spencer Kalani Schutte Excused: Also Attorney Stuart Oda Present: Recording Secretary Joan Carnett APPROVAL The Chair called for approval of minutes OF MINUTES: dated April 10 , 1979. Motion was made by Mr. Trulson to approve the minutes as sub- mitted. Seconded by Mr. Yagong and unanimously carried. RULES OF For the record, the Chair requested legal PROCEDURE counsel , Attorney Stuart Oda to relay to the APPROVAL BY commission what occurred during the hearing COUNCIL: before the county council as they approved the Rules of Procedure for the Charter Commission. ATTORNEY ODA: I was asked to be present, by Steve Yamashiro, to answer any questions that might come up. Because of statements being made by one of the speakers, Mrs© Sherrard,i was asked to respond to it and in the process of it several people asked me questions , including Mr. Dahlberg. Rather than asking me questions, Mr. Dahlberg made a statement to the effect, I 'm not quoting him word for word, but he did say that he was very disappointed with the fact that the people were not being given adequate notice of some of these matters. He wasn ' t very specific. Then he said that the rules were attempting to be rushed through the council without time to reflect on it and in his opinion he felt that it was getting to be like the Con Con and he didn ' t think it was right. He didn ' t ask me what I thought about it, he just said it was like the Con Con. I just wanted the rules passed, so I didn ' t argue with the man. Then Mr. Garcia took the microphone and Mr. Garcia was particularly upset about the provision in the rules saying that a person must register before he is allowed to speak and there was some debate on that. Mr. Sameshima also made a few comments. Mr. Garcia also stated that if the county council should ever hear of this commission ever denying any person the right to speak, "you shall hear from this council ! " Neither did I want to engage in a debate with Mr. Garcia, so I just let it pass. Basically, there were a few other questions but very mundane type of things. Eventually, Mr. Dahlberg reiterated, repeated in essence, what he originally stated and he said based on those reasons he would vote to disapprove the rules. So he in fact voted to not approve the rules that afternoon. MR. TRULSON: What was the vote? ATTORNEY ODA: I don ' t know how many people were there. There was a quorum, of course, but he was the only one who voted nay. MRS. KOBAYASHI : It is possible to get a copy of their minutes of that meeting so that we can be sure to see in black and white what comments were made regarding the commission? ATTORNEY ODA: Oh, yes, I 'm sure that we can. MRS. IWAMOTO: Were the councilmen aware of the notice that was put in the paper of the public hearing on the Rules of Procedure? Were they aware that there was a notice in the paper? There was a notice in the paper regarding the approval of the Rules of Procedure. ATTORNEY ODA: I 'm not sure. There wasn ' t too much discussion on it. There might have been some. I have to admit that we did try to rush it through because through an oversight we forgot to put it on the previous week ' s agenda for this body to have the hearing. When I learned of it. .by the time the second week came along to have this commission approve the rules, we din 't have much time. There has to be - 2 - • at least a minimum of a ten day period for the rules to become effective after everybody signs it. When I called the county clerk ' s office, they told me that we had to have it typed on special paper, on two sides , and only one agency has that paper. It had to come from the treasury division of the finance-department. I had to get it in by 10 o' clock on a Wednesday morning and at 8 o' clock I was on the phone sending my secretary to get the special paper to type it on and she rushed back and I told her to drop everything and type it up and get it over to the county clerk ' s office. She dropped everything and typed it up. We took it to the county council and Steve Yamashiro said he would try to put it on the agenda that Wednesday but because of the Sunshine Law he couldn ' t get it on the agenda. So he moved it to Saturday and the Saturday was April 7. In the meantime, between Wednesday and Saturday, we rushed around getting the signatures of the Mayor, Mr. Sakata--he had to come down special just to sign the rules on Thursday. The Mayor signed on Friday. The corporation counsel ' s office signed it on Friday and the final signature was on Saturday by the county council . Rudy Legaspi had to sign it also as being filed in his office on Saturday. That left the ten day period before the 17th which we made by the skin of our nose. I don ' t know, I never really took offense to Jim Dahlberg ' s statement. As I think back , he was just shooting off his mouth, I think , for the members of the press and for some of the public who were there. I don ' t think he meant it literally that we were like the Con Con. MR. TRULSON: I had one member of one radio station ask why we haven 't sent the stations our schedule for public hearings and they would put it on the air. Getting back to what was said about Mr. Dahlberg talking about us not giving enough notice to the public--is there any reason we should not give the schedule to the radio stations? I would like to make the motion that we do so. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I second it. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: It has been moved and seconded and unanimously carried that we send a calendar of our public hearings to the radio stations for their use. You have heard from Mr. Oda. MR. ISHIDA: In light of Mr. Oda' s report, I don ' t think a motion is in order. MRS. KOBAYASHI : I think we should still look at the minutes. MR. ISHIDA: My understanding was that it was a very strong statement. - 3 - ATTORNEY ODA: It was strong. It was strong but I don 't know. . . MR. SENSANO: Mr. Chairman. Am I to under- stand that because of this sort of tight scheduling of presenting the rules to the council that now the council and the people who spoke are under the impression that all our work has been of the same nature all the way through, from the beginning? Is that the way I understand it? ATTORNEY ODA: Unfortunately. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: As of now, up to now, we haven ' t made any decisions, whatsoever, as far as the charter is concerned. What we have been doing up to now is simply getting people to testify and giving us their input so that we know where their concerns are in what areas of the charter. So, anytime we go to a public hearing, like last week, if they give us the runaround and they aren ' t going to take a stand and we really don ' t know what their concerns are and so it will be awfully difficult for us to deliberate on anything because there is no decision made. I think like what Commissioner Ishida said that if there is no input from the public then actually what the public is saying is that the charter is fine. Then there is no need to make any changes, whatsoever. MR. SENSANO: I wonder if these people realize that in a few instances we have allowed people to speak who were not prepared to make a statement. Fuke, for example, is one case, where Fuke came in and said, I 'm not prepared, can I come back. . .we gave him the opportunity. The UPW was the same thing. We have even invited different groups to come in. MRS. KOBAYASHI : The HGEA. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Even when we talk about the council members, we know that they were informed through a letter that they could come and testify before the commission. Now, nobody took that advantage. Not one councilman came before this commission to testify as to what they want changed in the charter or any recisions they wanted to make. None of them. Each of them were given that privilege, that opportunity. MR. TRULSON: Didn ' t Mr. Garcia, when he appeared on behalf of Mr. Yamashiro and read Mr. Yamashiro' s statement, didn ' t he have some opinions? I believe he was the only one. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Yes, he was. Right. Mr. Garcia definitely told this commission that rather than have nine councilmen, seven would be ample. - 4 - MR. SENSANO: Wasn ' t he told at the time he appeared that we would like to invite the other councilmen? In fact, he was asked whether the councilmen received our invitation. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: They were informed. MR. SENSANO: Maybe the council is pressing for the commissioners to resign. I don ' t know. . . MAY 1 After discussion, the Chair called for a';:' MEETING: motion to combine the business of the 16th Session with the Public Hearing time of 7:00 p.m. Motion was made by Mr. Omonaka. Seconded by Mrs. Iwamoto andhun- animously carried. RECESS: At 5 :06 p.m. the Chair called for recess . RECONVENE : At 7:00 p.m. the meeting reconvened with all members present. PUBLIC At 7: 15 p.m. the Chair made note that there HEARING: was no one from the community in attendance to testify before the commission. ADJOURNMENT: Because of the fact that the public failed to present itself at the hearing, the meeting was adjourned at 7: 30 p.m. until Tuesday, May 1 , 1979 in the Hawaii County Councilroom, Hilo, Hawaii at 7:00 p.m. d V . Joan Carnett RECORDING SECRETARY - 5 -