from now we'd like to proceed with public testimony this will bring thank you mr chair for individuals who will be testifying in the chamber please sign up at the desk located in the eighth floor lobby just outside the chamber door if you will be testifying from one of the remote testimony locations except for higher office is closed today please sign up at the district office testimony is limited to three minutes two and a half minutes the light at the test fire stand will turn yellow and at three minutes the light will blink read if you are talking at the three minute time limit i will ask you to kindly stop when you begin your testimony please state your name and the name of any organization you are representing we have established a cut connection to the molokai district office and the in my district office and to be fair we will rotate between all of the offices office is there anyone wishing to testify to thank you we will check in again momentarily chair there are two people signed up to testify in the chamber three people signed up our first testifier is kelly king kelly will be followed by marc hyde aloha committee thank you for the chance to testify i've been sort of involved in this issue of when for for you but i thought it was really important to come and talk to the committee today and share share my thoughts on it to one person who doesn't think this is a good idea so beyond who you see in this room there's a huge majority of people at least from my perspective think that changes need to happen and happen soon  so i wanted to also express that when i first got involved there was a meeting of the minds of a few people was supposed to be ten to fifteen people that one of our residents homes in and there were some people concerned that  actually ended up being attended by over forty five people so that just shows you the level of concern that people have about this and i also want to say that since my sperm myself since becoming active in our community a few decades ago i experienced some challenges in roadblocks when dealing with county departments myself but there always used to be a sense of you know human human concern and a measure of cooperation and a group of us parents were able to work to get the first public playground equipment erected in a public private partnership america's all this biodiesel plant was built in our county landfill with the support of the maui county landfill diversion office when i first served as my always board of education representative in the late ninety's i worked with county on issues like the school bus service which was a local service and traffic lights near schools and even as chair of the nonprofit who mama learning center i felt like there was access to and support from both the council and administration today however there is an obvious lack of transparency and professionalism in our county governance and the relationship between the county council and the mayor has devolved into a finger pointing politicizing any fish and tragedy i apologize for the harsh words but i just think as a business person and our former policymaker and a nonprofit supporter in this community i feel like there's an urgent need for change and we have to stop mincing words feels like nothing important gets done in this county except by litigation protest or petition and one big one example all name is that that's basically what it took to keep the current mayor from decimating the county recycling program one of the our areas where maui county truly has been a leader now this committee has an opportunity and i think some political will to make a real change i urge th special committee on governance to support a model that will bring more professionalism and transparency to maui county governments and i believe that developing an administrative system with a hired qualified professional who would be accountable to performance benchmarks should be a top priority for  it sounds like you're trying to strive for a better teamwork type of situation but do you have any specifics of your own thoughts and preferences would lead to an end how a new system would be structured yes i do thank you for the question we're all in business and we've been in our we've had several different design has been our current one is twenty years old it's very important to have professional managers and people who who meet job descriptions and well all the department heads that we've seen in the past decade or so have been you know people from the community nice people caring people they haven't necessarily been qualified for the positions that they're in and there's no form of accountability for that you have to wait four years and see that things don't happen and then hope that somebody better runs for mayor so you know the most important aspect i think is to have job descriptions for department heads job description for county manager who hires those department heads and then hold that manager accountable to my preference would be like the county council have the county council hire that person hold them accountable it does it shouldn't take two years to get somebody replaced if they're not doing a good job but but in the beginning i mean there's nobody there's no when you look at the candidates for mayor there's no way to hold those candidates to any qualifications other than residency and maybe age so a county manager or professional county manager would not even be able to be hired in this they they qualified with the background and experience that was necessary to run the county king i have a question for you do you believe that the county council should be the body to select the managing director i do and i think that the county council is much more accountable because first of all the elections every two years  the county council is made of a body of nine people who are in the community i see council members way more often than i see you know the administration at different events and workshops and  fundraisers and things like that and i see and i just feel like personally i feel like they're much more accessible you know i think i used to feel like the the county ministration is accessible but i don't feel that way anymore hasn't hasn't really been in the last decade  thank you for coming do you think that it would be possible to simply strengthen the current managing director i guess position and require that to have more specific criteria and be approved by the council would that make a difference i don't think so because the managing director has to work with under the current current system has to work under the well at the will of the mayor the mayor is the person who hires that person and directs them the recent articles about our current calling manager not withstanding i don't think that that position has a lot of authority or will have a lot of authority under the current system even by even by making it an approval by the council yet they're not and there's not somebody in charge of that position day to day to make sure that they're going to be doing a good job and i think because it is such a political position that it's not going to be a very popular thing for somebody who gets elected as mayor in appoints a managing director to then turn that managing director over because it shows that you didn't hire somebody who is qualified in the first place so that that would be my my profession as a good afternoon i feel a little bit like a guest who's overstayed his welcome to apologize for that but i do have a few more reflections to share with you first of all i would encourage you to think big and not focus on job descriptions necessarily as the solution to the problem i don't think that is the solution i think it is something that needs to happen clearly i also don't think the suggestion to create nine different bodies to to  nine different people to then appoint people to the councils the right solution but we do have a problem and i have no doubt that if significant change in structure does not occur this county will not realize the dream in the benefits of the county wide policy plan and the maui island plan that were crafted with great attention from the public and the government you know just out of the gate the plan is not being followed it's like the gates are open the race is often the horses stumble the plan was not even approved with milestones and now milestones were developed by the romans two thousand years ago so that you could figure when you're on the road from rome to bari you know where you are even though the county code says the plan must have milestones are not in the plan so i would just encourage you to think big and i have a couple of quotes from our plan that i think are and since for a tional from the executive summary of the maui island plan these words lead it off quote let there be no small plan in quote and it goes on to say quote it is impossible to see the future but we can envision how we want it to be and we can commit to doing all that is possible to see that our dreams and our desires come true in quote and in the leading quote to the implementation plan is quote vision without action is a daydream in quote and finally from the county wide policy plan quote no task is too small is too big i'm sorry when done together by all so we have a government structure i think you saw evidence in front of you when the marriage testified of criticism of the council the council has issues with the mare in that kind of environment we're just simply not going to move forward and in the political environment accountability is something that really does not help because it can hurt you not help you and so we need to move to an accountable model and i believe that definitely includes a professional manager who was hired by the council but i also believe that we need to bring the government the branches of government together in this room where the mayor sits with a council house a vote i think even a hyper vote to break ties are believe the mare can be the chair of the council if the council so chooses and bring them together to make a better place thank you very much that afternoon chair talk attorney and commission members and it was refreshing to hear mayor to ours acknowledge two weeks ago the shortcomings both big and small of the current governance structure i found it especially interesting that one of the primary point she made was the major studder in the function of county government that occurs each time there is a change in the mayor's office it was her contention that some kind of extended overlap of the outgoing department directors and deputies with their incoming counterpart was a solution a must respectfully challenge that contention the only way to achieve an extended overlap is to provide the funding to do so neither the departing nor the incoming directors and deputies are likely to work for any period of time for free and any budget that is submitted with additional funding to pay both the departing and the incoming directors and deputies for a specific period of time would summarily have that line item struck by the county council on the first day of budget discussion i'd like to remind you that a change to a council manager may or form of government as described in the materials that have been provided to you by council staff eliminates the issue of turnover in the majority of the department directors and deputies that currently is the norm in maui county a county manager will be responsible for tightening up the director and deputy required qualifications to the specific department positions being filled and ensure that only people with those qualifications are eligible for consideration additionally once those positions are filled with qualified people the only responsibility they will have is doing the job for which they were hired without political duties every four years and even better byproduct is that whenever a position is vacated it opens up an opportunity for promotion within the department which cannot help but make for better productivity and improve morale within the department those of us who support this change are absolutely baffled as to how anyone can fail to grasp how much more efficiently and productively government can function when the structure support long term continuity and start of a revolving door have a couple questions on your testimony when i talk about the manager changing the m q s the minimum qualifications are already in the charter and in order to change the charter from what i understand you need the colony to vote on e so if the manager king he would be able to change the m q from what i understand  it would have to be revoted on united to change it in the charter that's in my mind the purpose of this committee is to set forth the changes that are needed to the church to produce the structure we want and then one other question i know mr daly on had quoted reference and i'm not remembering about which it was but saying that the average turnover they be allowed to stand just the nude manager clumsy and works with the existing folks if he can and then i guess fire them if he finds their work an acceptable my grasp of it would be run much like any o they hire the new person and they make their own assessment once they're hired as to the quality of the people working under them there might be a change or two but you know more  continuity you know the continuity would be there i mean i'm not expecting that just because the county manager resigns for whatever reason or better opportunity elsewhere that will not affect any of the other department directors and deputies thank you very much miss which to me of the testimony there's no one else signed up in the chamber to testify oh yes there is i it after talking to tomorrow and a few other people about it i think i think it's necessary and i think that the county of mali should take a more progressive approach moving forward so that we can we can stop the de lay  often times trying to get stuff done takes time and and oftentimes that's because of election elections get in the way and appointing new people for department heads in that transition period kind of delays  things are progressing and moving forward and just in my own experience recently with some of the department heads i was pretty upset in the way that communication was handled and also looking into what their experience was so i think a city a city manager would be a great option for molly given that these people would have experience and i think that's something that that we should bring to to the county of maui and i think that with a more progressive approach we as a community can get a lot of stuff done and i am i'm in support of it and  questions thank you very much for coming before us today something that kind of has been going back and forth in my mind and i've heard other discussion about it is how do we kind of localize this process if we do go to a change to a council manager mayor type of system because i think a lot of folks have this idea that it's going to be someone know without any kind of immersion and toward our lifestyle and culture but you know i think a lot of us feel sensibilities and how we do things here having given any thought to that is that something you're you would like to comment on an absolutely like an essence for that absolutely i think that we have a new generation of leadership that are very educated very business savvy that have great relationships with other people in our community and i think with that combined you will have that localized option per se like i said we have great  a couple of organizations that are nationwide or even international in scope such as i may and national survey equally which do training and have you know kind of ethics standards and a lot of the municipalities are counties that are this type of program demand that both the council members and the manager get that training and become part of their their program and i do think that that's that type of thing would be something that if more of our committee rising community and elected appointed become part of that that might actually raise the bar and help make it of you know over time easier for for the rising stars of our community opportunity to future leaders especially from maui is a win win for not only that person but for our community as well has some very talented people and i think we need to give those people an opportunity there is great leadership coming out of the school systems now and instead of you know a lot of people are leaving the island to look for opportunities when we can have them here and just they can bring this experience in education tomorrow as well as those relationships in the community on follow through and do that there is a very distinct difference between politics like camping and actual management or do you think that they could be similar i personally would like to see it separated because oftentimes when you campaign them their money becomes an issue on who funding who and and and i'd rather see the money be taken out of politics and we actually thought for the choose people based on their experience in their relationships and the way they carry themselves in the community supports me i like to see money be taken out of politics and not have a city manager have to campaign to be elected i think that people within this room and the county council members are educated enough to make an informed decision to this position or would you open it up to people from outside if they met the qualifications and and have the right to have the right fit to be be in this position i'm only absolutely i think we should be open minded i mean if if the people involved in choosing who would be the city manager feel that this other person who has substantial experience in the continent and could bring that here then by all means but i personally do believe and i stand true that i do think we have people here and like i said they've already established relationships so that something that could be a positive move  well i kind of went out when the issue was local people born and raised here because somehow despite the fact to ask you if when you say local do you mean local art do you mean everybody who sounds now i will define what i think of local i don't think local is born and i think locally as somebody that has been living here maybe five ten years plus has a connection to the people may not have cocoa but are very mali and i don't thank you is there anyone else in the chamber wishing to testify chair and members of the committee i heard this i had the opportunity to do a presentation yesterday to this river cafe and i heard the argument about the culture thing it keeps coming up all the time and my answer to that was what is the culture of road roads what is the culture of garbage what is a culture of waste water what is the culture of the fires that burned buildings what is the culture of all the services that the county delivers these are services and the services that the county delivers here are the same services that are delivered everywhere else in the united states so this culture argument that keeps coming up and by the way the university of hawaii does not have a master's program in public administration so i think would be a good idea to contact the regents and tell them that they should get one expression we since this state is so dependent upon both federal government assistance as well as lots of public agencies and one of the highest concentrations of what i call for impact organizations but are commonly known as not for profit organizations that i've ever been to so a master's in public administration i think would be a great service to this state cuz the only way anybody's going to get a masters in public education is to leave the state so that's all i have to say about that but think about that culture argument you know i mean the culture will be maintained by the mare and by the council but the manager will be delivering services and services don't have a well i mean what's the culture of garbage what's the culture of waste water how those what's the culture of the fires that burned buildings what's the culture of you know water they don't have cultures they're just services that have to be delivered that the county is responsible for what's the culture of a permit you know i mean let's talk about the reality of what we're dealing with  when you look at this county organization it's a service organization if you look at the things that the county does it deliver services in order to deliver services you have to have good management and people at the top who know what they're doing who have experience and skills in delivering those services currently some of the people do not have those experiences unfortunately ok thank you thank you thank you thank you anyone else wishing to testify no so it's kind of our opportunity to speak to other things tomorrow scientists was wondering if there was any formal response to their routine questions that laurie had asked to the current administration and if not i wanted to possibly resubmit them in writing as well as not saying that i don't trust mr hyde but you know i would like if we could get a copy of the annual report by the department oh they're actors for twenty thirteen fourteen and fifteen so we maker come to our own conclusions on them as well as formally ask if there is any tracking in implementing of the twenty pages of action items for the general plan in light of the state legislature trying to change the l u c to reflect the general plans in community plan if our general funding community plans don't have any tracking in chair i asked the mayor when he testified i asked him if he would if he had received christ jones and asked him if he would answer them after the meeting john with there were also several questions that were asked of the mayor when he came here when the time we came before us and he had asked that they be submitted in writing and i know why i had  certainly as far as all of the reports i personally would not want to have to see all of those reports put on some i want to know have they come out have those reports and where are they available they don't necessarily want the staff to have to go you know put them all online but i would want to know which departments do their reports and which departments don't and then what happens when they don't so i have a question related to that resolution and that's if and i think this is the appropriate place to raise the question if there is a decision for a charter amendment and it says that we would we should draft the language for that charter amendment my concern is the this a resolution came for current council i just happened to be at that b d and the attorney corp council i did everything possible to discourage the establishment at this committee so in view of the mayor's position on this issue and in view of the fact that corporate council works for the mayor how we got to get he and draft if we had to draft a charter and how would we get out which you'd be with the current council of be able to be unbiased when they work directly for the mayor's office who has made it very clear that the charter makes it pretty clear that there you know our job is difficult you know the two hats and who is my client and we every year we go through training and then we do the dances that my client has no no no no i don't know but you know the the issue is that in council in drafting our we get an assignment and it's if i can work with the council services and we work together  we can draft language but that's not a problem you're you're either going to see it or you don't write there's going to be a deadline or there's not everything we've been talking about efficiency right so you'll know i mean it's  the thing is that if if you come to the point that you want to product then it's going to be up to the the scribes and the clerics to get something to you i don't i don't think i mean produce what we can produce for you i mean our job is to service you you know you can see my job as pretty much being a judge and a clerk but more of a clerk i remain neutral i try to just allow the process to happen and i i look at the evidence and i play a mental game i look at the evidence and i and i weigh it and i play devil's advocate  you know but my job is really to service you so i'm not going to be you know when the time to draft punch out you know by you know so i don't i don't think jonathan i have a little experience here i that i sat next to mr truro and planning commission number of the years i chaired for five years and before that pretty much the same situation were with ed because she julia and in that time i personally asked both of them to do things that i knew they didn't particularly would have liked to do on their own but they served so well and so excellently and helping us get it done in the most effective and efficient way doing teaching us how to do it in such a way that it would work and you know no one would end up with repercussions you know because it wasn't written well and so i am willing to to attest professionalism and and actually excellent seven ten and i'm really sure that will get nothing nothing but the best all that's encouraging because of the one thing that we talked about from the very beginning is transparency in this issue so the question needed to be asked and i ask it and i'm and as you may recall we didn't have time to get to our final item at the last meeting and laurie today will be facilitating that so i'd like to turn to item two no forms of county governance you are in chair ok since we were not able to review all the research done by counsel services the last time we were together i would like to take just a little bit of time to provide a quick overview you may have already reviewed this along with all the other documents but i don't think it would be it would hurt to review this specific one and i'm talking about the memo with the subject forms of county governance structure and performance that was dated january twenty second because it responds to your questions on how a county manager form of government could be structured and how a county manager might improve the performance of maui county's government county's government ok a couple of points please keep in mind that most importantly you're charged with answering the question in bold on that first page of that  should the county of maui's chief executive remain an elected position or become a hired or appointed position the key words in this sentence are chief executive this means chief executive officer we have already had some discussion that you can have a county manager who is hired who would be in charge of the executive branch of government and still have an elected mayor with other responsibilities we talked about that before also there are many structures to choose from for instance if you hire a county manager you do not have to have a mare at all as you reviewed all the research uncovered a lot of key considerations for you to think about so let's take a look at that memorandum with structure and performance in parentheses this objective research does seem to support a few conclusions such as the following so please turn your attention to the bullet bullet points in that first page and summary it states in summary on the very first page voter turnout for municipal elections tends to decrease with the municipalities chief executive is not an elected position effectiveness in municipal government is based on the performance of professional administrators regardless of whether the chief executive is elected or appointed through political though politically influential interests are powerful in both a strong mare and county manager governments the absence of elections allows the county manager  freedom to foster innovation concentrate on management instead of political activities and invest in long term community wide solutions ok now impeach two are the variables to be considered when contemplating the structure of county manager of the county manager position they include appointments criteria and procedure like what are the education and professional requirements of the county manager who will make those appointments or hire the term of office is it definite and indefinite determination criteria and procedure authority to appoint department heads and other personnel authority to manage departments at thirty percent to propose and manage the budget those are the criteria within that structure then on peach four you'll find information taken from an article published just last year by professor jared carr entitled what have we learned about the performance of council manager government dr carr's research uncovered the following with regards to what he calls the ten propositions about the county manager form of government a county manager limits the influence of politically powerful interest his evaluation of that was that it's probably not true he indicated that there was no difference between the two forms of government and the response of nist to powerful constituencies next point a county manager is more likely to adopt comprehensive policies his evaluation of his research stated that it was generally true strong mare is more likely to adopt policies directing visible benefits to particular segments of the community he also stated that that was generally true voter turnout for municipal elections is lower for county management government's evaluation true he stated that the presence of a strong mare election on the ballot produces a higher voter turnout county manager governments are more likely to engage constituents in policy decisions his evaluation of that was probably not true it states that the percentage of residents actually engaged with government does not appear related to the form of government that exists the county manager spends more time on management than a strong mare evaluation generally true county manager governments have less intragovernmental conflict guess what generally true county manager governments are more likely to adopt innovative policies and practices the evaluation was generally true county manager governments produce higher quality services evaluation probably not true the strongest indicator for high quality services is the presence of professional administrators whether led by a county manager or a stronger county manager governments are more effective in executing basic municipal functions the evaluation there is probably not true again studies do not show a correlation between effectiveness and the form of government then on page eight you have a chart given giving you a comparison of forms of government in the state of washington and you also have and i'm not going to go over all the memorandums but you also have the memorandum with the subject line forms of county governance other counties and cities the staff had compiled information on the counties and cities that have changed their form of government and the reasons why  there's also section on cities that were awarded the i c mail ward but there was no correlation that was determined to their form of government and in addition the staff compiled information on successful long standing county manager forms of government which included city of thousand oaks california at madge is request fairfax county virginia jonathan's request and the city of austin texas ok all right so at this point i would like to start our discussion by asking you to share your thoughts regarding your last assignment please address the question should the county of chief executive remain an elected position or become an appointed p share your supporting evidence and indicate how it would improve the operations and effectiveness of county government now once everyone's opinion is heard you can then take the time to ask questions for clarity so please judge your questions down so you don't forget them and when citing your evidence please cite the document and page number that you're referring or that you're referencing so that we can find it easily so i decided that the fairest way to do this would be to go alphabetical order by last name with the vice chair and the chair going last day so let's begin  i think it speaks to a lot of same points i was trying to make in my statement you guys all have my written statement and i think that because i'm better with the written word than i am poking words so my basically conclusion is what's the rush we can have this conversation i'm kind of an agreement with merit of ours and a lot of you have a lot of the people that influenced me a lot of the influence here came from the actual spoken testimony as opposed to service out of that silly every day there's issues but there's no emergencies and as we've been married to ours point out there's a variety of mechanisms to to promote efficiency functions there that would lead you to think that it is other avenues for addressing efficiency than necessarily tearing the whole government apart and starting over again that's not to dismiss the concept and i don't think it's a concept  need to be taken off the table in any shape or form i don't disagree with the this conversation by all but i think we have we have other issues here too ideally as mr hyde presents weekly or have a value of open government i'm having a hard time seeing this county manager creating his policies independent of the county council and then bringing him to the county council without having ever had a chance to talk bureaucracies tenure all way down underneath that so from the division head down to the manager that's not going to get to chance to replace these people there was a line in the under the one discussing about the city  moving without really great cause it doesn't happen so the good part about that is is we always have people in positions of this relates to the continuity the store manager knows how to run the stores probably been doing it for face but so you have that you have these management positions that are there the course the downside is the they do have the ownership over because when you do get new management you do get you get a problem with services from our county and they're going anywhere so we have about duty there i do have a problem with the whole idea of culture to the paul brought up i think it's going to be really important where does this person come from and whether you understand whether this person understands a y or not and i'm having a hard time understanding how we're going to get the skill sets we need with while competing with private sector picking the wrong  we can government council can arbitrarily remove a county manager check and balance i want to get too far into that mr crockett made the point that that was one of the main reasons that the sixty seven charter commission deliberately chose not to do a county manager one of the fundamental points as also a fundamental attribute of american government that the thing that happens on the mainland where these other counties have county managers is they also have other governments around them so they have like count city mits in the governments in town with and elected school boards and elected water districts so there's other politicians and other forms of political power in the community not just the county government in our case turnout support the contention that progressive governments reduce comparative comparatively low voter turnout another quote structures intended to distance policymakers from politics instead insulate officials traditional traditional forms of political countability and one more quote if one were to design a system of local government to intentionally produce consistently  is appointed by the council has meant that particular attention is given to the composition of the council going to local charters or under review another core city council elected by representative of a responsible to the citizens of a city is the fundamental democratic element of the county manager plan the charter must provide for a council which is truly representative of the community and our county council's current structure does not meet this test the current structure results in to become a council members running for reelection unopposed and four out of five elections  resulted in a majority of adage in a major advantages to incumbents and disproportionate representation three seats represent representing seven percent of the population but controlling thirty thirty three percent of the council voting power the voting public only shows that it does not understand that a large voting system does not consistently does not understand of our large voting system and fails to vote for for all mine council members of all nine counts season every election so this is not an argument to change the council this time it's an argument too that we fall the heat but the model shorter which is we have to pay attention to the council if we're going to make them be too arbitrary of order thank you ok thank you for the short version so you believe to summarize you believe that the that although there's a lot of great ideas i heard presented with having a county manager my number one i have a grave concern over the legislative branch to select in the executive branch and make stated earlier we do not have many of those smaller government bodies and place in our county to do that balance of power and i believe it's imperative that we a question i asked her as if she saw any advantage either way and i based on what i heard from everyone away sign the reports there was an overwhelming clear conclusion that a manager will solve all our problems it seems what the common problem is is accountability and that there is none in place my question is is it possible to rewrite the charges that we can have more accountability with the structure that we have in place can we implement a lot of the things that we see that are good with the managerial position which is what it sounds like is the problem with our current system without changing the entire structure of how things are govern in a sense or just put some checks and balances where the mayor has to be accountable he has to do a report if he doesn't do a report after two years consols the power to remove it i mean that's just a really extreme but i'm just saying put checks and balances where each branch can check each other and be more accountable and a whole thing that they're supposed to do are i don't know you know i'm just coming up with ideas but it just seems like best the common problem is no reports no goal setting no evaluations  this working is not working if we put a manager in place it's i c m me man said four hundred thousand where is that money going to come from an average it takes seven years he said for it to balance out financially that's another long haul we've already been in a recession for a while so i'm just looking at is there more cost effective ways to implement the to not i say make hybrid but just take what we see as good with the managers and implemented in the mission which seemed to be and sound accountability is what i heard it at every meeting from everybody that was speaking and from what i was reading here  ok i just i just spoke to james and we need to remember to stay focused and that you know modifying the charter without making the decision of whether we want a strong there or a county manager for that's what the is charged with yeah so you have to make that decision first so you're saying to summarize strong there i'm saying i am not comfortable with the legislat branch of selecting the executive ok so when you ask years so the question should the county of nowadays and i don't want to put words in your mouth should the county of maui's chief executive remain an elected position or become an appointed let me start by saying i have not made up my mind yet or made a decision yet what i will say is that what we're here for the reasons why we're here to begin with is there something  working the system is not working or it's not performing as it should that can be because of personalities that can be because of flaws in the structure looking at this you know i think looking at this new form of government theoretically it makes sense to me it seems like an efficient way to administer the county's business or in terms of structure and accountability i think dave did a good job of pointing out a lot of the risks and i think there are a lot of risks involved that i think there's ways to but i can't answer that question today i think there's still some more information that i want to look into and try to understand how we we do or how i am able to come up with this but the theory that there is some accountability that's something that keeps coming out i think the skill set of the person running the organization is an issue that keeps coming up and i don't think we have that today and we've talked about that in terms of requirements and such that we have to change but right now i'm still i have i'm a decision so if we were to if i were to ask you what additional information would you like for us to bring up or have researched or provide for you i just need to i don't know specifically ok i mean i'm still looking ok thank you kate oka well i agree there's a there's a real problem and i think that that was pretty obvious in listening to the various testifiers but what struck me today at least was when kelly king said it used to work but it doesn't work now but nothing's changed really except for personalities so i'm not sure that a change of structure is going to make a difference i looked at what all the different ones were saying and in almost every case the checks and balances are stronger with the elected mayor of the strong mayor with the strong manager you lose some of those checks and balances i was a little not happy with the idea that the voting goes down if you're not really electing a mayor and we need to have more voting not less we lose some of the separation of powers and this was in almost every one of the documents so i have not you know i didn't have a list by document i think that that's some of the problems i'm kind of with some of the oh some of the problems can be solved in various ways but i know that we're looking only at the question  loses some power when dealing with other agencies government when they're trying to lobby with the state or with the federal they don't have the same the same power as they do a strong mayor and we can't afford that that's that's one of my so at this point i'm still wavering a little bit but i'm leaning to no keep it as a strong leader thank you market leaders aspiring inspire and managers get it done right so in looking through all the documents provided generously where the council services i started to do  my conclusion was similar to paulo where you know if it was in writing in a document that would tell us which one is better it would be so easy but what i got out of it was you know a good idea will fail if the people aren't behind it in a bad idea will succeed if people make it work so i think that's what we have right now and i don't think that the shrub trees broken but it's not working for us president  the way i've fallen that they were seeing a con ability is more like punishment than a solution and it's not we can vote the person out but is that a solution for us the people because after we voted upon  then we got a call after we will get our call out we've got to march after we and so on and so forth so i don't think voting somebody that's not doing what we want or working is a solution for us it might  punish punishable accountability but it's not a solution and then  and she said to hold these departments economy by the budget all still not a solution i think because say somebody there isn't pick up your rubbish eleven times a month and you need to withhold their money because they're not doing what they're supposed to do it's more of a punishment to us with the stink rubbish on the sheet in a solution so if you know people think that checks and balances are what we have right now and that's accountability then to me that's not our problem i think you know i think really our problem is continuity of competent manage and that could work in either structure of strong marriage structure or a council manager shrug as long as the people put in the police are competent and there is a continuity  another thing that of ours mention where the goals in the budget side i looked at the goals i couldn't even find the goals for my section they were there and then they were deleted but i told i was told that's not the legal virgin on the budget or whatever you is the only one i have experience with but i did speak to some people in planning and some people in public works and you know i was not impressed looking at the budget goals over the years i didn't see like any kind of progress in goals the a lot of the time it was seeing more if it was different it was like wildly different make you could tell where the administration had changed and the measures weren't were pretty weak measures i think there was a big disconnect in i don't know who writes the goals and who they expect to meet the goals and if the to talk to each other know i know i never knew what our goals for me as a commie employee was until i actually went and looked their mom you know and said oh that's what our goals are like they're really make sense but that's what our goals are i don't know who writes them i don't know who approves them i think that they're not outcome be so you know that being  said the research that we were able to look at that was done my consular service was very helpful but the thing that you need to remember is mt molly colony is unique in all the world so you know those are just  background as to the shock she can make or break our case i feel like an i think that you know what i like about the council manager structure is  more than the directors or deputy they're theirs and they can play the system or like he said wait them out and sometimes me be supervisors these are the chain of command to squash feedback or concerns basically sometimes it feels like you know during campaign season there's all these promises i mean i remember one candidate promising like early childhood education to all and then once you get elected you kind of forget like selective amnesia or something so i like the idea of you know hiring someone to get the job done continuity of directors so that you know when you hold middle management o'connell you have to set up a shocker of ok how many times you become a leader how many times that they not do a report or how many times the they not do performance evaluations and what i've seen in all the different administration changes is you can call them like base close to finally holding someone accountable and then like the election and then the new years and then like oh well we got to give this guy a fresh start you know and and somewhere behind the scenes look at the campaign spending reports in i needed heavily to that administration or something you know i'm not pointing fingers or anything but i think you know if we will counsel managers structure we need to have anybody appoint whatever held to to shape this i c m e standards that you know no campaigning no campaign delineations to any appointed position because it's not just taking the money out of politics it's taking the politics out of providing basic services and i think that we're not doing that and it's a disservice to the people so if i had to c t v i would choose council manager but it would need to be fit exactly to our needs and i think that's kind of easier than sticking to what we have and then trying to tweak that he's  trying our council manager structure with keeping what works and then changing what those in because we're tasked with coming up with the wording in them and me but i'm open to discussion and and for the folks that  don't know where they feel right now i think you know maybe after hearing each person's pros and cons and then discussing it one more round maybe you know that's what i thought discussion was for like if you're not really sure like i'm not really sure i want council monitor but if you're forcing me to see like how you're forcing people to see out i'll see a council manager thank you thank you say you can change your mind later hard professional experience administrative county manager from a county would be a benefit to the citizens of the county the manager would be a non political and non biased professional a world seasoned credentialed executive with proven administrative background that is sourced by a professional that is sourced by a profession that is sourced by a professional non biased recruiting firm successful candidates would then be vetted by both sides of government and selected by a majority of votes based on the candidates experience and capabilities in education when selected the successful candidate reports to a small group of officials representing both the administrative and  government both an elected mayor as as the chief executive officer and a small select group of members of the county council and getting to the bottom so in essence the maori county to improve for maori county to prove i'm sorry so in essence from our county to improve transparency accountability efficiency and effect  an appointed manager and a county called so and a mare he didn't answer the question changes in job description would need to be made to our existing elected official to allow for the continuing balance of power and to allow for this professional administrator to be effective so i guess correct me if i'm wrong so he by reading that could we conclude that he's discussing is what i term a council mayor manager system where there would be all three the council and mayor being elected the manager being appointed and i believe that is what he specifically calls  you know we're not really his arrest ninety one contested case where we have to stick to what's on the record or presented to us as documentary evidence and you know a lot of my own research relates to this starting i've done some of it in the documents or provided some of it outside of it you know going through the i c i'm a staff the i b m research papers which are great national change or not because what i see as being before us is whether we feel that it should be presented to the electorate for the for the voters to decide whether they want to make this change and we would create the framework or recommend a framework under which then the voters would decide and i know for the last bit of clarity that something that i really feel i need and perhaps other members of this committee need is to take this out to the communities in a way that people can understand the issue and then we can hear their men are what they have to say and  own feeling is that i'd like to see us move toward the possibility of opening the door for the electorate to potentially choose a are good people and well meaning and hard working and try hard and we don't have bad government per se i do feel there are times when we are saddled with  mediocrity and if we were looking at it from the stance of a corporate manager and i have built and run fairly large corporations and had some education in that i you know had twenty pages about me in a magazine one time so i've kind of been there i know that it really requires management and feedback  metrics at every point in the process the department heads and government in general we have no no goals we have no way to see if the are chiva bill we have no way of grading performance on an annual basis there is no way to make a rational decision other than on personality whether a director should stay or be replaced we feel like maui county has increased in complexity where seven hundred million dollar organization with  public health safety life decisions regarding life and death at stake and it deserves the best professional management that can be attained and i think that what we have is hit and miss department directors are people that a lot of time elected officials meet on the campaign trail and are base their appointment is based on whether they helped and worked hard through that process there is no real deeper system for making sure that they have experience qualifications and the ability to  lead in and i just think that where at a point where amateur management is not sufficient there is also the issue of teamwork we don't have a system that really provides teamwork throughout the levels of government or the council and the mayor and administration over the past several administrations has been many times when there's been a very you lack of communication and candor and ability to work together we need to find a way mayor manager system would would improve that situation with transitions every four years or most every eight years there are disaster everything stops for months while new department heads and deputy department heads who are amateurs get stuck in a position and have to figure it out and the projects that are in the work stop i've personally experienced situations in a number of departments where the new people came into place and the computers are gone or the hard drives are gone there's no paperwork no files anywhere and they've got to try to meet the people who are going to be working underneath them and try to figure out what's going on that is not professionalism that's not something that any corporation would allow to occur on a regular basis especially not with every department at once which is the case so even for that reason alone this is something that causes millions of dollars of damage and  threats to safety and health and welfare every time there's an administration changeover and it's just a fact of life that we accept with a young and hundred percent politicized government we're always faced with a question that i term who not walk where virtually every decision that gets made or request is put through the filter of who is asking for it who's trying to get the entitlement not what is it  about you know when you take that in a context of planning or in a context of of approvals that may not be the best mechanism we should be having a level of professionality and ethics where decisions are made what are the facts of the case and what are the issues not who is making the application departments overall management review these there's no way these are going to get implemented under our current system  manager and department heads need to have specific qualifications and i feel that that is best done through a professional management i feel that we're lucky i see i may and national civic league another organizations have the framework all set out and it's available for us to use and i know that a lot of the issue is finding the right manager  and later that person being able to find the department heads i know how corp does it they use a professional search and judy and in this case that entity should report to a blue ribbon citizens panel to create a short list which would then go to the council so the council is not in a position where they're just looking for a name out of the blue or show or from some person they know but rather they have a list of qualified candidates and then it all happens in the public light i really think that we can provide something that if the voters choose if the council agrees and the voters choose could bring much much better functionality save a lot of money and make maui the best possible place it can in coming generations and i do feel we should take this discussion out to the community and thank you very much for allowing me to ramble thanks jonathan so say you're saying that by changing the form of government to a county manager form of government that that would help to create more efficiencies and effectiveness within the county yes and i also feel we should keep this role but not an administrative  e and an f y i though once we make that decision on whether we go there or kelly manager we can then identify the variables within that whatever structure and then determine the  down determine the impact it would have on the operations and effectiveness of the county based on the research and then decide on the variables that you would want to incorporate at that point and then take it feedback from the public and take it take your road on that is a intra grown and maybe central part of our our system can still be there we can still have an elected mayor yeah and it can be a strong mayor that is i'm you know i i would support should the county of maui's chief executive office remain an elected position ok how her eye could also sway towards establishing a county manager so just let me give you a little bit about my little story and i don't copy paste anything there is much more work for us to do a whole lot of work for us to do in order to substantiate my decisions and i'd like to hear from my community as well as others so to allow us to meet with the community could sway me to differ in my response today are we allowed to change our decision after we've collaborated everything with everyone well are we judging what you shared today are you are you able to change your mind as change your thoughts with regards to what you're sharing today yes yes ok i just wanted to be clear on that because that wasn't clear to me but you know in light of the fact that meritorious had given a very powerful testimony when she was last year who better to believe than one that has walked the walk and the talk so heard her testimony has weighed heavily on my mind as to what's meaningful to me and although i appreciate represent a community that's that's very powerful themselves you know i'm sure that when we when we meet our respective communities that issues are going to come up that we've never heard before and so i want to be sure that when we collaborate again that we will have that opportunity to be a little more firm on our decision so for today i'll go with the county's chief executive office remain an elected position and i don't i'm sorry i don't know how of a lengthy story to substantiate my my decision but you folks have covered it all so on my experience with having served as an elected official with a county manager or a chief administrative officer that i find it a very efficient way for government to operate what has trouble to me through these discussions is a misunderstanding of what the responsibility of that county our city manager is and and then i see that reoccurring bad examples and those bad examples are you know bell california and now this city is flint michigan flint michigan has is in an emergency situation their government has failed and they have an appointed city manager appointed by the state and bell california the people who were rotten in that barrel were three council members and then and some collusion with the city manager and the chief of police this this was a very rotten barrel one out of four hundred ninety seven cities the majority of which have city managers the question you know is how did we come to this well why did how did we come to this first of all the general the  last charter commission just ran out of time and suggested that this be looked at so it isn't something new i think it's been highlighted by the escalation  between the council and the mayor which hasn't made good for the public  i think the issue of this ad the elected i think in the perfect world you would have in my mind in this county you would have an elected appointed city manager and a council that was trusted because i've heard comments here about nine members of the council can't be trusted but one mayor can and i hear about accountability i hear about accountability being really important and i agree it is really important that just isn't happening i was so disappointed if the mayor is so angry that he couldn't come here and talk like charmaine talk to us now granted and tony made the point afterwards which i give you credit for she's had some time to calm down it's ok and that's a that's that's got to be put into the equation but the issue is when i look at what a city movement city manager what the qualifications are i'm one of the things we're provided the job description for the mayor of the city of grass valley and then i look at the counties description for their the chief administrative officer or whatever keith reagan's position is called ok it says five years of business experience for there in the private or public sector then you look over here and you say wow would we be better off with someone who could do all of these tasks rather than someone who was the campaign  are that would be number one i think the second thing is if you think about policy and my experience with how county manager comes to policy and the argument out you know it's got to be transparent whatever policy that comes to the council is a verifiably of policies i from a to z pick the council banks the decision about policy it's not the city manager that makes the policy they go way work with staff let's say it's a planning issue they work with staff to develop alternatives and then the council has their own alternatives they may they they discuss they they have opportunities to have a diversity of opinions on a policy issue and they determine the pilots the manager does not determine the polls i think the biggest argument that charmaine made was how difficult the transition acts from yanked out of office do people are installed they have to be up to speed in order to be accountable for the budget because the budget is do it march council new mayor gets sworn in in january very little time lots and lots to do if you had the continuity of the budget director the state all the department heads stay the  transition is very helpful to the mayor because if the mayor hasn't served before they have the benefit of depth of knowledge they can't say to a car but to a planning to record what is this issue the planning director says i don't know i just got the or do so there is a continuity and that continuity serves the public a very well and ultimately the public is the client here the public is the top of the organizational chart and so to put in prefer a professional manager benefits the public because of that continuity should get what they want and appointed bana church and that process could be vetted by i have to tell you the seven year rule at least in my county i went back and looked most of the managers a clothing the the county manager served more than twenty years and they retired and usually there was a search but a lot of times the deputy city manager was appointed so that continuity again was still there that historical continuity that that needs to be the institutional memory is there and i think that's really really it's the thing that keeps reverberating in my head is and they if you read the i c c m a code of ethics there are things in that ethics in those ethics that are not being observed here and should be observed here i don't think it's appropriate it's at department heads deputy directors whatever are expected to contribute politically i think that puts it in a pay to play and that is very troubling to me that shouldn't happen but that's a side issue that has led to a lot of the problems here so at this point i've listened very carefully to what to what you all have said and i share the concern that you have about doing the right thing and and making that that leap but i don't thing the resolution allows us to develop a hybrid and if that's the case then i would be courage  those of you who are have not made up your mind to give serious consideration to what professionalism would brain to my county government and by the way one last thing the staff has done a wonderful job their documents have been really terrific and i think unbiased and they really it really speaks to their professionalism and i appreciate that  ok i'll take about two minutes and then will take about a fifteen minute recess of it seems that there's some inefficiencies in government and some frustrations with government period and i think it's on all levels but today we're talking about changing the way we deliver government in mali county it's a significant change in our study suggests that there's no guaranteed best way to say that performance is based on the particular administrator and studies i'm not sure strong correlation between effectiveness of course functions and the form of the governance so in brief i don't see any reason to to change our charter commission should take a really good look at this because i don't think we are actually really this is such a huge change that the next time the charter commission meets this should be probably their only charge is to just look at this issue because this issue in and of itself would my guess would would require probably a hundred changes to not only to the charter but to the ordinances and to the h r s but i think what what should be looked at is to remove barriers that break down communication within the county between the mayor and and the council and i'm speaking specifically to sections thr council speaking directly to members of the administration i think number two we should look at strengthening the managing directors qualifications and or requiring continuing education for the managing director there were three i think we could use existing powers within the charter by the council specifically section sixty two two sections nine dish five one and section sections to the department head sections who do not carry out their duties for the charter like direct in section that thirteen the actual ten then finally i think sunshine laws and ethics code should be made more realistic conversation and open you know they talk about openness and honesty but i think it makes it a lot harder to do the work of the people when you cannot talk to these ridiculous so  nice if you get rid of these cameras to so that's about it why don't we take a short break about three ten well i appreciate all the comments and i think the question is that we face right now and i must say i slightly disagree with laurie and i think the question is was whether establishing a county manager for a government for the county  improve management an operation of county government and i think it's it's the question that we need to answer next that's the next thing we need to do because one of our members  is definitely a question we need we need to resolve and but i feel like we're missing a very important step in this process i always feel that when where as to we are is to communicate with a community and make ourselves available to the public in you know kind of in a retail fashion meaning going out to the communities and helping educate the community about the issue and hearing what people have to say and this is best done by going out and holding us areas of public meetings and i feel that that should be our next step and it's an important step and that that may help us also coalesce our own thoughts evolve our thinking about it so my suggestion is we you know what to do straw polling at our next meeting that's fine but as far as locking into position i really think we need to go to the public and the public come to us before we take a official informal action because i think that's why this is been relegated to a community group such as us and not just been handled by  say that i think that that we could go out to the public and we could have people show up and give us their opinions i don't know whether that would change anybody's individual opinion here maybe maybe not but the bottom line is that the council's going to make the decision what they do with what we give them and then if the council wants to take that out to the public i think that's their role back and forth but at this point i think it's going to go to council and that's where the council ought to take the input from the pop like there and the other discussion chair who i'd like to comment i think  you know we all know that the council has a policy making body and i think we should refrain from name calling or implicating anyone if we could just stop that's not what we're here  before we were setting our minds to the topic but we've already kind of blew by that point from no longer really thinking that we need to be doing it i could see maybe one big meeting someplace you know in the white everybody wants to come to that and have it open through the  to the top and system for the other islands but to me flying all over the place that is i don't see it's an educational group we were asked to educate the council on foreign and i was we put that together we've reach a kind of a conclusion already so  i don't see any big need for all the meetings that you're the point of personal privilege somewhat on what we're going on i think somebody with some i got the impression that the current managing director is not qualify for his position from the comments were made earlier mr reagan has an m b a he used to be used to be the finance director of the county is quite capable of the position he's in doesn't look tall enough to be in the n b a well you know ok i'm sorry i couldn't resist any other comments to my you know just having read this charter i feel and you know just speaking from my own experience in two thousand and twelve the public would it to safety to fire and that hasn't happened yet so i mean it's kind of scary if you have the people vote on changing the whole shuck share of government we can remove one section into another department in four years five when it whenever it occurs if it occurs so i mean i think you know i i would like to see it  to be continually discussed whether or not it happened in two thousand and sixteen twenty thousand or twenty twenty i think majority of us in this room aren't really planning on moving anywhere and i think regardless of who ever is elected the merits always going to be possible to improve policy not policy but the shop or management so i think you know even though we're six month committee all this reference material those being provided to us i think it's it's an ongoing being in and we should continually having had the opportunity to read it you know continue to be involved and not just see like oh six months paul and topping out or whatever so i think i mean it to me it's like if you're going to live here let's really live here and not just sleep here and  carry as far as going out to the community you have to have something to present when you go out and so i think that's part of it do we you know do we have something to present with charter commission we went out to the community and then i would say they correct me if i'm wrong half of the places we went we really had very few people turn out that weren't the same want to come to regular meetings but you can't just go out say what do you think they're going you know we have to have something to present to for going thank you so so if it's ok i would like to recommend that we call for the question on the twenty fifth resolution we would be disbanded but i would think that it would be a dirty rotten shame for the work that we did just in that where i would strongly encourage because some of the things that i think there have since consensus on like better description of qualifications for department heads that would require a charter  so are we charged in this resolution with writing that charter amendment no and that's where we run up against charges really clear  but if we don't follow our charge to the t if instead of we just in the ng because we don't have six votes saying we want a county form the county manager form of government i don't see i don't want to the going to fire us cut our pay if we want to make a recommendation that says we think you should consider this this and this i think we can do that and we can do it as individuals we can do it as a group well that was why i asked the question in the beginning as cannot be here on the twenty fifth for the purpose of voting you can call in and if we could of some of that care how here we would have asked her to call in but my she don't know if i have to have authority somebody yes yeah i do feel that if we're going to have a vote that has bearing on the outcome of our task then that should be agenda  everyone should have the ability to know that it's not coming you know i don't like is just to say i don't make the question i just got to say  because it's just asking if it would prove the management not if it's the you know any you have ability of one person in charge is always going to be easier to execute operations that it's automatic given so do we need to if we take a vote in the next meeting do we need to it gen dies our recommendation that we want to make recommendations or just want to make sure that we don't run into we're talking about government and we're talking about democracy and we're talking about the people's rather interact with the government as as well the government to be able to provide services not just a factory putting out  my standard speech with this is if you are this is a continuum and one side you appear democracy and i decide you are pure of fish and see think french french revolution adolf hitler and they were trying to find we're trying to move the valve in the middle maui the special committee on county governance is established to a consider whether establishing a county manager form of government for the can for the county of maui would improve management operation so that part is to decide whether something should be considered then be make written recommendations to the council on whether the charter should be amended to establish a count manager form of government and their so how the form should be structured and see if a county manager form of government is a special committees recommendation prepare and propose charter amendment and then time to finish it and and the other procedural stuff so it seems i what i would like to hear from are our legal of yeah i was just talking to laurie about that because i mean the way it is written it it on a if you if  you came to the conclusion yes when he said yes that wouldn't be determinative of your answer to be if he said it's more efficient but be was it's it's on whether the charter should be amended well if and even if you grew agree that sufficient you might not agree that you want to do it by amending the charter that means it wouldn't get done so i mean i i mean i'm kind of a worker anyway anybody could read that in argue with me but i mean that this is my analysis but that's the what i saw is that i mean that depending on how a conclude you know concluded then then i decisions stops the question becomes moot if you if you're not going to go change the charter then c would be moot because you wouldn't go and charge the charter because you already voted not to where in there they're going back to our discussion about making recommendations where in there does that allow that to happen doesn't so we're just going to play fast and loose to do it anyhow  b if we have to go to plan b or the recommendation you know what you understand are you following me i'm say supposedly no i don't well ok suppose the answer to that recommendations so consider is what you've done and then the next step is be make recommendations so you are charged with making a recommendation and it's weather so it's a weather yes or weather no and so that would be where your recommendation comes in and anything in writing and see only kicks in if the recommendation is to change the form of government to county manager reiterate my previous statement although it could be because the question could be called i think in light of trying to err on the side of openness members who might not be present should be aware that that question might be might be called at that meeting i would hate to have to miss a meeting for some  can can we make sure that they have a call in the number yes we can call them number or something  chair would like to make one more attempt at this and i know i'm not don't seem to be in the majority but i do feel that there should be more some more accessible public process and if there is one you know what a good chance that our next meeting will  result and a vote which would lead to fend ality but when regards to whether any action is taken or not i would once again like to suggest that maybe that meeting be scheduled for an evening if at all possible so that a community could come and say their piece when the meeting  scheduled for one o'clock on the twenty fifth