silent or turn it off the car will be carried out in this chamber before we get started i have a few words i would like to pass on to both my members and to the audience at large and the people who are watching we have some very interesting and very important decisions to be made today and probably wednesday if necessary one of the things i will accept this better public testimony but the public testimony will be in a respectful manner if any member out there in  public thinks he or she can come here today and bully or use fall garrity in this chamber i will ask them to leave decorum will be followed i want respect because respect is earned but ways my members are here and they are here for the day maybe a day and a half listening to all of your testimony and trying to put everything in perspective so i would ask you to please give us that courtesy you have your right it's a free country you have free everyone here understands we're going to conduct this meeting and we're going to get the people's work done but i make myself clear i hope i do because i want this meeting to be completed and then when we all walk away we may have other department aides coming in to speak and if necessary as resource people so we will be calling them in right now we have will spence listed but others are on my list if necessary art invaluable committee staff thank you we have eleven proposals charter amendments on today's agenda and as you can see there's a lot of important work that needs to be done we have discussed on we have had discussions on most of these items prior to this meeting so i would ask you not members ask you not to rehash what has been discuss so that we can make decisions whether amended amendment should be brought forward or not after our discussions of at our last meeting i change department directors into one comprehensive amendment to be work from this doesn't mean we have done away with your in your proposals i just try to incorporate them and we will discuss that at a later point of the mean not want to have confusion because the public and the committee is welcome to i'm in whatever way they see fit i would like to also make it clear that filing that filing of any amendment if the committee has an amendment or form of county communication or county report this item must be included in the filing if there is a form of correspondent it does not need to be filed unless specifically requested is a specific request as me i recommended the items in this body size and if not to move forward that this be deferred so that it can be brought back up next term in and we revisit would be limited to two and a half minutes and one minute and half a minute to conclude when the yellow light turns on that's two and a half minutes when the late red light during is on that stream minutes and i will ask you to conclude to respect all bills having an opportunity to speak please state your name an organization that you may be representing we've established as you saw our district office communication we will rotate between locations great thank you ladies we will be checking in with you a little later the first person in the chamber signed up to testify is mark and he will be followed by jonathan star morning and thank you mr chair i wish to testify on five matters i'm not going to use three minutes on each one i mean knock off two that are kind of short but just to give you confidence in that first of like to speak to the team and shalev and which has to do with those of knitting planning commission seats for leaders of hawaiian cultural and environmental protection groups i support this proposal the planning commission plays a important role in our community yet there are no guidelines for how to best constitute that group for decision making adoption of this proposal would begin to better align the commission's make up with the eleven strategies that are contained in the county wide policy plan two of which call for protecting the national the natural environment and preserving local cultures and traditions currently a majority of commission members work in the real estate building and construction industries this coupled with the absence of those with special knowledge in the environment and local cultures creates a decision making body out of balance with our adopted policies priorities and goals and so i think this would be a first a good step toward making sure that we had a better balance in that group the next i'd like to speak to a ten dash nine which is council approval merits appointment or removal of director of finance in my view whether the director of finance is hired by a manager or a mayor i support the council having the power to remove to approve and remove the finance director so long as it is done by a vote of at least six council members the director of finance is a critical executive post that warrants an added level of oversight by this body now without i'd like to move on to the county manager proposal a ten sixteen on if you want to reset the clock i support putting your special committees recommendation on the november for the people to decide and these are the reasons why number one it would significantly reduce the presence of politics in management of county operations number two it would install a professional manager whose tenure is dependent on the civi results and not along not according to election cycles number three it would improve the director and deputy director selection process number four eliminate this is important it would eliminate the complete and simultaneous turnover of directors with each new merrill cycle thereby it would boost efficiency and create a situation the louds good people and we have good people as directors to build careers rather than have to rely on political fortunes next it would expand the pool of potential candidates for directors by eliminating what the administration has called a short shelf life for director positions it would improve accountability of management and it would address the unproductive relationship that now exists between the executive and legislative branches of government with respect to concern among some of you that there is insufficient time to educate the public on this proposal keep in mind that there have been numerous editorials viewpoints letters to the power paper on this topic there are been community forums and presentations on the subject several of which are available online viewable twenty four by seven in the home or in the library and there are nine contested council elections this fall where in at least seven of those braces candidate is openly advocating for adoption of the special committee's recommendations this will put the fat in the fire and because this is an issue of tremendous interest to the electorate election outcomes may turn on candidate positions on the question whether for or against which will heighten the public debate the electorate is smart and capable of making this decision we do it all the time every day in our lives we make complex calculations for instance take take the decision of who to vote for for president in making that determination we weigh social policy international concerns economic concerns safety concerns and we also know  baseline whether or not our local government is working for us and if many of us believe it is not working optimally we can do better and that we need a change in structure to move maui county forward in what is going to be a much more complex world in the future compared to that which existed in one nine hundred sixty eight when the current charter was adopted thank you thank you chris it is for the testifier i have one more comment on two items thank you i'd like to comment eight ten fourteen and seven i know you've combined those you just said this has to do with council prove of america's appointment of department directors i think these proposals speak volumes about our strong marriage system of government where an elected mayor not only serves as the county's chief executive but also as the county's chief operating officer after fifty years of strong marriage responsible for county operations you should not have to at this point ask for a job descriptions from the administration nor should you have to check every appointment to make sure the directors possess basic qualifications to do the work that they're hired to do so the root cause of the problem at hand is not a lack of council oversight over these appointments but the way we select our county chief operating officer that is the mare by popular vote with criteria that's based upon being eighteen years of age or older a citizen able to vote and have lived in the county for at least one year immediately preceding election to the post no political skills needed to get elected mayor are very different from management know how needed to be effective operationally so in the current structure we are actually asking our elected mayor to do something that the mare is not able to do requires management know how  skill furthermore the process of becoming the chief operating officer through the electoral process entails campaign financing which creates at a minimum the appearance of undue influence in operational decision making by those who donate to the winning candidate second these measures if enact it would likely serve to further erode the already fractious relationship between the legislative and executive branches of government i think it would be counterproductive third if and acted they would not address the forced turnover of departmental directors and deputies with each new mayoral administration which is an unfortunate part of the strong ma where each new mayor brings his or her team in resulting in a new set of directors who have to learn the job learn the issues learn the lay of the land get to know the people all detrimental to the efficient use of county resources and the work culture forth they don't address politicization of our directors inherent in a model that bases job tenure on election campaigns in fortunes this radically changes behavior in focus management on politics and not on the people's work fifth they are in conflict with the maui county manager proposal and because it's unlikely there will be more appointments made by the current administration through the end good morning chair victory no lies the chair couch chair why then honorable council members my name is jonathan starr i had the positive experience of serving on the special committee on governance i thank you for the council and trusted us and empowered us to come back with a recommendation that that process be honored and that the recommendation be put forward to the voters so that th people of maui have the opportunity to weigh in on this matter of governance is the most important thing over the past fifty years or so the  in in the position of governing the administration of the jurisdiction and there's a reason for that because for the most part it functions it functions in more harmoniously it creates a spirit and conditions for teamwork rather than conflict between the different sides of the roles are set out clear it's more like the way the military functions with a clear chain of command and set of bifurcated and today he said fight with each other i think that now it can really move forward to a situation there are seven hundred million dollar a year organization functions a lot more efficiently and as a team the mayor in the structure that we created would be a very important part of it and i sense the mayor becomes the voice and face and cheerleader and hopefully this is the answer uncle that pulls all the different sides together and talks to everyone that is really the intent it'll also lessen the power of special interests  lobbyists who some feel are quite strong and it will create i believe an opportunity for better governance one thing that the comm couldn't do i feel there should be a deputy and that can be done administratively or handled at a later date but there should be a deputy manager anyway  thank you very much i'm happy to be a resource and any time in the process i wish to speak on one other item for a good head mr barr i'm speaking about thirteen  cultural knowledge i served in that position on a number of major commissions and the past from the autonomous maoi water board hundred five or the planning commission i served on the planning commission and as chair  and i'm just finishing up my term on the state commission on water resource management and it is really important to have a very voice and the voice of the environment and the voice of t the environmental resources as well as a cultural law the cultural needs of our community to step up their game because when you're on a commission and you're the one person representing you know the environmental interests say you really have to work a lot harder and it creates an incentive to work harder i applied for a state water commission eleven times before i was finally appointed i applied for now a planning commission four times before i was appointed and was honored to serve as chair it really takes that kind of commitment and the time to work with staff really concerned about how things are changing we also support what ever the mayor is doing the very best from alicante so we cannot understand why there is so many changes we already have a lot of changes on molly county and some of the things that we don't agree because many freedoms has been taken away from us all the time as morning raised here for many years there was so many freedom before and now more and more things are taken away from us as we are concerned we are really trusting our mayor to do the best we can the biggest fear is not having a mayor or government manager the fear is the more you change the charter the more and more young middle aged and older people are refusing to come out and vote that is why our a population in mali is dropping because people are very uncomfortable of all these new charter changes so i think we should look at it and try to see how we can of people and as far as getting along i think every politician and every mayor they try to have a lot of commitment hard work and sacrifice to help all our citizens of molly county and to conserve our budget budget is very tight so i appreciate all of you and we thank you all as consul and the mayor and whatever you can do for a small to a county manager form of governance sixteen i believe as a former county employee and former managing director for the county of maui i'm interested in the committee's review and where we go from here they say the devil is in the details and that's definitely true of this proposal we all need to understand the consequences of such a major overhaul in order to make an informed decision i ask that you consider a few questions as you deliberate  if the department of personnel services and a recruiting firm draft the position description for a new county manager will the public have any input will the council have the power to review and approve the positions scription will the new county manager need a recruiting firm to find and screen new department heads and deputies will council approval of these appointments be required will i'm following a contract be open ended or will a set number of years be established with renewal a possibility will there be a deputy county manager what sort of action or ethical breach will be considered as cause for the council to remove the county manager how many votes will it take will the mayor have veto power what happens if the county manager is actually fired who runs the county then with the deputy county manager and the department heads leave with the person who appointed them is there a way to plan ahead for such a transition how much will a county manager repaid and who decides that will a county manager have executive staff that he or she appoints what happens to the department of management and all the civil service employees currently working there will the county manager be their department head as well as head of county wide operations or will another department head be appointed will the mayor have executive staff how many and for what purpose what happens to c d or community development block grants and the office of economic development who will draft the position descriptions and contracts for department heads and deputies all the county council have any power to review and approve and finally will the county manager be called the county manager or the managing director these are just a few questions that seem worthy of deliberation by this committee and the community before we are asked to vote on such an important issue thank you for your are good ones and we probably should be taking a good look at them but absent the answers to those questions i just think if you would be willing to share what is your general opinion at this point do you think that this issue is ready to go in i think that's why i gave the testimony is that i don't feel ready to vote i think it's a very intriguing question and one that's worthy of review definitely i just don't feel i know what the specific implementation is going to be and chair our next test fire is jim smith and he will be testifying on the five items after him it will be bill greenleaf item what specific number of the item you revised i certainly will we can correspond or are certainly room i'm going to start off with item number sixteen which is the governance  one of the problems i have in it is trying to decide where the problem is is the problem with you when the mayor took the word rehabilitate and demolished ok you got lied to and you bought the property and you sat on your hands so where's the oversight so where is there a legislative branch when you sit on your hands so i'm wondering what the question ok have you changed the structure of government i mean an item comes up by a member votes to a man a bill it comes up again he says  he changes his mind and this employee in now is a director and there's no reason the employee misrepresents what the language is in the plan and this member finds it a worthy of voting so where is the problem so before you go forward and change this beautiful charter this beautiful charter don't this thing is years in the making the answers are all in it the board of ethics has the authority as long as you stablished policy across the board what have you done so what you wan take the power and put it in yourself when you don't exercise your power so we have to i think put our feet on the ground and say you know there's more important things than the supremacy movement that's taking over m ethical background is so much to an existing charter you can't legislate morals ethics you've got a board of ethics we don't need all of this nonsense what we need is for this on the ballot i've been a resident for sixteen years and i've gotten active in community government and in that time i i've really learned a lot about what the council deals with by being here and i thank you i i know the amount of issues that she deal with this across the board is incredible and the and i've looked into some of the more complex energies myself like the energy a waste of energy and ongoing fines that we're receiving county from the e p a for sue each going into the ocean and i think like everybody in this room we're here for a reason we want to see government work at its very best and and when we have things that come up that are difficult to deal with we ask ourselves is there a better way what's what's the problem here and  this seems to me like a really good solution i researched it i've gone to the national association of of city and county managers miss morrison's questions many of them across my mind and they have at that association they have frequently asked questions section they have a national resource where government such as ours have dealt with the transition in and used they've pulled together their information for what solutions worked what solutions didn't work why what approaches needed more time what things needed to be implemented immediately so we have there's good resources out there for this pathway that we 're now considering i just want to read one thing i'm going to keep my testimony short today  so from the international managers association they describe what happens with what a manager is managers are the professional executives within local government who see the community in its entirety without being tied to one department one interest group or political perspective working in partnership with the elected officials they help translate policy into action and visionary ideas into real results they manage the day to day operations that keep services up and running while planning for the future they supervise department heads engage community stakeholders develop and implement budget and particular products and services so to me it's the buck stops here desk and as i've spent my sixteen years here in my time involved in governments governance i've seen that it's a challenge but tween the the the way the governance is laid out now the defined steps the relationship between the would you conclude please share the defined steps of relationships between a council the mayor department directors commissions court are complex there's things get lost in the shuffle so i strongly support this thank you thank you mr green the question is for the testifier see none good morning here council members my name's lynda barry and i'm here to testify in favor of him sixteen recently i heard hawaiian scholar john lineman say good governance creates  aloha good governance creates aloha what a powerful yet simple message that is and then this morning i was reading the paper and the mayor had his weekly message there in which he takes the council members to task for not doing the work of the county in this case it was to do with homelessness and i read that and i thought does this message from the mayor create aloha and my answer to that is no divisive i'd like to say to the mayor stop complaining about the council man up and get the job doing the work of the county done and yet we know i can't do that and that's not going to happen yet if we had a professional county manager that would be his job or her job and is if they did not perform to create aloha you would have the ability to let them go in find somebody that would the opponents to this amendment say that the system's not broken so why thinks it and i'd like to ask them if the system's not broken then why do we constantly see messages from the mayor in the paper taking the council to task for not doing their job i don't agree with the mayor's analysis but i do believe that the system is broken that it's not creating a law i think that today we have an opportunity to do something that can change that and i hope that all of you today when you're making all these decisions that you have on your plate i know that some of you are to do this but i hope that all appeal will keep in your heart the principle that good governance creates aloha thank electricity and so the ladies will be e mailing me if they have to testify or so we all know and you can come up complete the next testifier and thank you for that information and we now know that hon i right now great company at this eleven i support this proposal because i feel we must ensure that we have a balanced commission it can be very easily that we have non commercial interests get lost in the when there's money involved or potential for money making and i sadly this can be the case a lot of times and we need to consider the best for the land what's best for the culture that's best be followed by mike mo on the charter commission going through all of this i'm here to speak in favor of sixteen and i want to speak particularly about the process issue i know there's been some concerns raised about the fact that well this isn't really what we thought we were going to get coming out of the charter commission and i can only speak for myself but in saying that i will tell you this is exactly what i hoped was going to come out of the vote that the charter commission talked to send this information to the council my intent was that the council would in fact establish a special committee the special committee would take this issue on they would have deliberation they would do investigation they would do research they would reach out to members of the community they would then talk among themselves and they would come up with a recommendation that recommendation then would go back to the council and from my perspective i had always felt that whatever the recommendation would be it would go on the ballot and the reason i believe that it should go on the ballot is because this is an issue of real significance there are some issues in my mind that need to go to the community the communities vote and voice need to be heard this is one of those particular issues there are people who say the vote was so close on the committee that being the case it's even more important that it should go to the community that people can actually vote this allows members of the special committee to make their voices heard they can say this is why we're in favor of it other people can say this is why we're opposed to it it puts everything out there in front of the voters but the voters then have the right to make that decision one of the other things that happens when you send something to a committee and i've thought a long time about whether i should even raise this issue or not you send something to a committee because either you want the work to be done or you send it to a committee in hopes that it will go to committee never neverland and we all know what committee never neverland is it just goes on and on and on and nothing ever happens scene and thank you very much mixed up the fire police yes our next testifier is mike moran and he would like to speak to all items followed by mar established we do have opinions on all matters but the in the interest of brevity for many we will simply state yes or no as we see the number of potential testifiers in the complexity of the agenda where we believe necessary we will give very brief comment or explanation and we did them in order of the agenda so ten thirteen the county employee campaign contributions we understand the intent but we would say no to this one  ten sixteen they county manager yes place on the ballot give the citizens a choice please have respect for the guys who elected you if you had confidence in them to elect you please have confidence that they can make decisions as well k c a we observed all the special committee meetings testify at a few heard most of the cost of government commission meetings now it is up to the voters so yes please this on the ballot in november i'm moving on to ten fourteen obviously we were not aware that it was going to be combined with ten seven but where in favor of both so  mention briefly are words on as it was stated ten fourteen council approved director appointments are query is if six team were to become law how could fourteen become more we need a plan which i'm sure you'll do in your discussion but so we would say yes to this if the language was modified how came moving on to some of the short ones ten one remove all of corp council yes please give the put this on the ballot  ten three code of ethics the same yes on that one a ten five council service lawyers are voyeurs yes on that one ten seven council approval of director appointments if sixty and this is complicated but if sixteen is not approved then if fourteen is not approved then we would say yes to number seven if the others either the others are proof we would say no that's as clear as i could make it ten ten corp council involvement in elections yes this can be done as many federal employees do have such restrictions  one rather lengthy one ten eleven and that's the planning commission seat we would say yes to this for the one that we're familiar with the maui plane commission we testify very often at the m when commission and we see volunteer commissioners obviously appointed by their occupation or affiliations even though we see nothing in the charter with any requirement beyond proper island residents we say obviously has  one terms out after the five years the replacement is the appointment it is a match you see this is well as you approve them perhaps this very powerful commission should have requirements as other commissions and boards to and we believe beginning with these two qualifications is an excellent story yes to be clear we see past and present commissioners who are very ethical and make fair decisions so our issue is not with the individuals it is with the current system and we say yes to work ten eleven and finally ten fifteen very simply yes to this one thank you very much for your diligence thank you for that very comprehensive and to the bone are followed by  down to where i even see good morning i'm here primarily to testify surprise me about ten sixteen the current proposal for a change in the community county charter it's a baby step towards a full fledged change this incremental effort to increase efficiency and accountability is a compromise that all sides of the issue should be able to live with is neither sweeping change or sweeping things under the carpet give the voters the responsibility of making this decision is more likely to correct many of the problems with functions and procedures within and between departments and programs with the perceptions of  and that's only perceptions putting this change on the ballot no opening it up for healthy debate in the community should not be a problem for any person interested in honest and open government ten fourteen with giving the co approval for mayor all selections doesn't and also some doesn't address the pool of applicants and does nothing to assure that the best person available is even considered it's a move to forestall making a change for professionalism accountability and its presence on the ballot what only serves to confuse the electorate the work of special committee should not be disrespected this violation of sunshine law that went with the minority report and the cavalier manner in which this violation loud and included as appropriate it's an example of what is broken in the current system a lot of this would be addressed by the number of the questions that mr morrison posited and given that only shows is it a chicken or an egg do you work out every detail before you know you have a need for doing it that is where is going to be the huge amount of work going to both the county council and come and the county services think would like it is good morning chairman good morning council members my name is lisa selman my husband and i have just returned to maui after living in honolulu for eight years and we're so happy to be here it's like a breath of fresh air and i'm here testify on p ten sixteen i respectfully hope that it will be put on the ballot i do believe it's an important that the people of maui are allowed my county are allowed to hear the debate the issues back and forth and to be able to make the decision for themselves i can't tell you how frustrating it has been to be in honolulu and hear the dialogue on the rail and know that there's really not much the normal citizens can do about it so i'm looking for a new kind of i guess participation here in maui and i'm thank you very much for allowing me to testify thank you very much and i wanted to kind of press this body as holly it was for us to establish some policies and rules for the legislation in two thousand and six there was a convening of a lot of practitioners throughout the state of hawaii that brought together major policy makers and stakeholders in the protection of our oil eco system made it why practitioners and expertise international met methods of sustainability government policy makers including members of the legislature state agencies directors environmental groups and education only tears and annoying community organization discussed existing programs and their successes and failures in the community building in conclusion it was agreed that the statutes in ordinances and the framework for community consultation using a wind perspective in traditional methods such as the districts every ident has representation there to serve as an advisory capacity to policies that are are horrendous and needs to be addressed pertaining to the whole in methodology on things need to work in county ordinances and government council to take into high perspective of how and why it is important to assure that we have people that is adequate in understanding commission in particular it is really important because for me being in front of a planning commission many times it's very troubling to norm that there isn't people that is adequately that body that can address certain issues when it comes to sustainability when maybe a development might be encroaching you know the simplest thing is a sea wall being built high recommendation should be given  those kinds of things should be given from people that really understand the lay of the land yes ok mahalo thank you and good mary thank you for being here and speaking on the council and sticking with that so in reference to also brought up that point and come in and testify and bring points to the floor but you felt feel that there could be someone in the within that body to have these credentials i guess to better address situations that come up on behalf of clients and  three in the policies of the colony but where does that go it goes to the culture resources commission not everything goes to the culture resources commission when it comes a plenty but when you have certain issues that address three four three that goes directly to the moco representatives to be a part of the system to create a partnership we've created a partnership with the state department of law not to resources with the war we sit at the table with them on conflicting issues when it comes to our in an ocean environment now in front of the colony and we've been in front of the colony many times on how it is very important that we start looking into the community and that expertise and holly to be viable very important to have people  knowledge sitting on these committees especially the planning committee so thank you for the question thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you i think it's very important to understand what's going on out there and have people who are knowledgeable and that was very much an eye opening plus having the couple that i attended here on maui county really meet me and understand the importance of what you folks do and that should be brought to the table but thank you and you thank you very much for any other questions  aloha chair and aloha council my name is andrew beer fifteen year resident of south maui i am here to respectfully testify in support of ten sixteen put the county manager amendment on the ballot by now you have heard verbatim the pros and cons of a mayor versus manager system and many hybrids of it at this point in your council careers you have been well versed in public service and county planning whether through academic and or simply your real life experience on council you have been enlightened to different types of government structure and there are benefits and you surely have your own opinion and voice i humbly do not have your experience as a public servant and i'm certainly not an expert on all political structures but i do hold a degree in political science from a major university i can tell you that the study of a manager director structure is  inter grohl part of the urban politics model this model has been proven effective in contemporary municipalities with populations over one hundred thousand persons such as ours it is time to honor our representative political system and give that voice to the people let them be educated let them be opinionated but please just let them vote please put the issue items and he will be followed by good morning chair victory no members kevin mulligan testifying for government employees association were testifying on a couple of matters i apologize our testimony on was listed as a ten three it should have been a ten fifteen our concern here is that allowing the board of ethics to impose disciplinary action on employees is inappropriate and i think the corporation counsel in the last hearing that occurred on june first raised the same issue any discipline should be vested solely in the appointing authority and not in the board of ethics and if you look at the honolulu ethics commission they do have the authority to impose civil fines and they have the authority to recommend disciplinary action but they do not have the authority to impose disciplinary action and that should rest solely with the appointing authority with regard to p i a ten thirteen this is the item that would restrict county employees from political activity  we have serious concerns about infringement on the first amendment i believe that too was raised by the corporation council there are already sufficient restrictions on political activity by government employees while on the job even the hatch act which imposes serious restrictions on federal employees does not prohibit them from camping making donations or participating in federal campaigns into seventy three that period of time and i was appointed by mayor carollo at the time sort of to be a different voice on the commission most of the people at that time were members of the union business community very much like it is today and when one of the projects came up and it was why layer to the commission i was able to insert certain language into the final approval for that project and it's amusing this is an example of how an environmental voice might make a difference at that time we had in hawaii the large development in waikiki with the hotels were right on the ocean as you all seen out in kind of the hotels were being built right on the ocean and i insisted in the planning commission that the this should be a setback from the ocean of one hundred feet or larger amount eventually my voice was heard and the condition was put in there and that's why why has a whole different feel along the ocean has a walkway it's one of the most important parts of the amenities of that whole resort that's the kind of thing that an environmental person might be able to insert i wish i could say i was knowledgeable enough about ocean levels rising that that's why i did that was not the case but it was for the purpose of creating a more beautiful when vironment second aspect of that same thing our most important industry on this island as we all know we're dependent on its tourism in these two areas environment and hawaiian culture are the keys why hawaii and why ma we keep getting voted so highly in tourist rankings and to have a voice in the planning commission dedicated to protecting one culture and the environment i think is absolutely critical and i think it should be an important would caution you that make sure that the final language of this thing does not say it has to be in hawaii some to hawaiian heritage because that might be a challenge in the courts as being unconstitutional profiling  it can certainly say somebody who represents the hawaiian culture who's spoken to or who's knowledgeable all that could be in there but you may want not want to put in the language that has we want to obviously i would hope that somebody would be able why in heritage but that is not a critical element of it all let me want to a second item and that is the argument on governance of the amendment for governance i have several arguments i've been trying to think you know what it would be in your mind about this would the arguments against putting this on the ballot i'm in favor of put it on the ballot one argument might be we county government structure is working perfectly right now if you have any doubts at all this work in perth you would want to examine how can we make it better and one of the areas that i think you're frustrated with us very often you pass budget items that the administration does not do with money or poker was mentioned as a purchase was an example and other things are done and you have very little ability to go against what the mayor is doing right now reports are required charter now requires certain reports to be prepared for example the money director supposed to give you an annual report on the general plan and how it's functioning when it's being implemented set or you've never gotten that report and you have no control over that kind of an item i'm hoping that changing the structure by your having the ability to appoint a managing director will give you much more leverage over the types of reports the types of implementation that goes on in the county and keep the mayor a little bit away from that section of operating as an important role for the mayor in this amendment would not eliminate the mayor it would just change the responsibilities in the administration and create better balance between the council and the executive branch the second idea that you may have against it is just a bad idea the proposed changes are unworkable or any opiate the majority of communities and counties and communities have accepted the county magic as they implement government they must know something there's a long track record of them working well yes there are some counties where it may not have worked as well but the majority of the communities have done that another argument might be against it is the voters will be confused and will and most of my we voters would not know how to vote on this type of government structure if it was on the ballot i would only ask you to look at your own marson cherry mars and gave you a long list of items a long list of items that were questionable and i think those items can be taken up if this measure were to pass you have two years and i would hope that you would in into the charter change the year two thousand and eighteen as to when it would go into effect and make sure that that's in there you will have two years to make provisions in there to make amendments in some cases to look to it to the county code in other cases perhaps even a new charter me implement a number of things including the appointment of department directors how it's all done if you put the department director thing on the ballot right now it probably will have very little effect between now and two thousand and eighteen because the present directors are already there and the mayor is not changed between now and then so those directors would stay in but it's and i'm really speaking on two to seven and seven a number fourteen right now department directors i think i would like to see them pass and then you also pass this there's a interaction between the two that may cause problems i would urge you to pass the governance one on to the ballot i would urge you to hold back on the department of records at this time knowing that you could then make saying that if for instance if the ten sixteen gets on the ballot and it passes that you would need ten fourteen or ten seven obviously it says the mayor in ten fourteen or seven but if it got changed to say the mayor or the man and that would create confusion in the minds of the public how to vote on it it would be tough to interpret what that was and i think that i would hold it back if it the co manager of the managing director i didn't pass the governance met yes you would then have two years to examine all of those questions that cherry morris unwisely gave you to make the modifications to make sure it will implement because it would not go into effect until the election after two thousand and eighteen would be electing a new council and they would be appointing a county manager and then we could handle all the department directors at that time right now it will be no changes maybe one change here or there not worthy of going through the whole exercise of that amendment ok so it sounds like your support of the council approving the appointments of the department directors whether it's from the mayor or for the managing th my name is lawrence and i'm testifying on two different matters ten eleven and ten sixteen and i just wanted to remind you guys that your vote today is just to put it on the ballot from there allowing the people to decide what they want and you personally can say yes or no on your own ballot so i just kind of wanted to put that out there i wanted to reference mr dave written testimony that he submitted today it states that nominations to the boards and commissions are among the powers of the mayor and goes on to state that anyone can apply and be appointed alluding to the fact that it is already a fair selection process that anyone can participate in however if you look at the nominations that are sent down to you for all you rarely see any representation from these two very important groups in our community make up on our current commission nobody is a real estate person union visitor industry union union real estate union we need this type of direction from our charter so that equality is required  i also just wanted to say that we need balanced representation to ensure responsible development that it will help to preserve his integrity and to keep none of us want to see ma you look like who we have seen time and time again the intervenors usually come from the environmental community i think that if you give the environmental and hope to the whole community of voice at the table then you would actually be speeding up the process to address why is my feeling right now is it's bias right now because those two views are not being represented on the commission at all mr de leon also said in his written testimony and it states there is nothing overtly cultural about the planning commission process in hope line used is culture and history in whole by each line used by definition is cultural making decisions on line use with no knowledge of culture history or environmental impact is reckless and irresponsible and has brought to us many of the problems that we face today and then i'll go into a ten sixteen  i just believe that our community deserves to have directors with the right experience and qualifications best management practices teach us to promote within from a department and currently we're not doing that because of course every forty eight years there's a turn around this seems to me to be the right solution in the best interest of our communities so our urge our county council members to let the people decide what they want and to please put it on the ballot model th good morning committee members my name is dr paul kelly pone i'm the chair of the cost of government commission the testimony they'll be providing today similar to testimony that i provided to the special committee on governance a month ago in september of last year representatives from both the county council specifically chair white as well as members from the mayor's office came to our commission asking us to investigate this very topic about a change of form of governments from a strong  form of government to a council manager form of government we decided to take on that topic and as part of our charter mandate decided to focus on the economy efficiency and costs of a possible change from a stronger form of government to a council manager form of government although some of the other issues and values that were discussed in other venues were also considered in our own report in the focus of our understanding we looked at historical and current council manager forms of government across the country thousands of municipalities over a course of over twenty year period looking at whether a council manager form of government could be stated to be more efficient and less costly costly result in more professional management result in lower turnover costs result in lower executive costs or result in greater financial terms for those counties we looked at over two hundred pieces of written and oral testimony that was presented to our commission as well as a special commission on governance over twenty academic and practitioner articles looking at comparisons between those forms of government phone interviews with department heads and division heads within our county directories with people from the mayor's office including the mayor and magic director salary information from the office of personal services eleven other municipalities and the league of california city managers interviews with professionals from executive search organizations and credit surveyors charter and city ordinance analysis from eight other municipalities and testimony from the salary commission in particular are fin indicate that a council manager form of government fair is no better than a strong manager form of government in terms of efficiency and cost effectiveness we found that the turnover rates for chief administrative officer is would be no difference between a strong and a council manager form of government and in terms of department heads we do not have sufficient evidence to say one way or the other we found also that the financial standing of our county would not improve through a change to a council manager form of government a particular interest is a salary issue and in fact the way that it stands within this proposed charter amendment cosper executive salaries could be estimated to increase significantly the normal cost for a city manager of a comparable size to the cost of executive salaries within this county in the form of government that's proposed by a special committee does not eliminate the mayor's position that suggesting that those costs would be even higher the salary commission also suggested that just because we would change to a council manager form of government that they would not necessarily increase that salary because the duties for that office would not change the duties were going to have to ask you to conclude if you don't mind would be possible to testify because this transitions into testimony on p i a ten fourteen is what you're going to testify in fourteen then fine you may start thank you our recommendation there for based on this is similar to ten fourteen essentially allowing the  you ten fourteen places the ability for the county council to have more say into who is put into positions in the departments our recommendation was very similar to that and that this should have more say in deciding on who those department heads are in order to more adequately account for professionalism in those jobs and in those positions we see this council mandate as being one that very closely aligns with the values that we understood from those personal testimony from the public from the county council from departments in division heads as well as from the mayor's office if we care about professional management and professional management can exist in a strong marriage form of government just as much as it could council manager form of government that what we need is change in making sure that professionalism exists having the county council as part of that vetting process or reviewing in some way those applicants is a very positive step in that direction especially because many of the other advantages of a council manager form of government simply do not hold true according to the investigations that we did our report is currently available freely accessible and looks at a lot of the different types of evidence that we use and we focus very very hard on that evidence we care a lot about a proper process and a breath and depth of analysis and that's what we want they determine that the county manager form of government does not result in savings of delivery of public services nor there are savings in administrative salaries or turner because as suggested by the initiators of the proposed change to the charter therefore due to the high price take involved in such a substantial change in management structure and the suggested salary of said county manager i don't believe it is wise at this time to prioritise or even consider something of this magnitude this proposed change does not address the causes of our problems at their most basic level our problems lie in lack of implementation and enforcement of current laws as they are written workforce housing that was to be built as part of entitlements has yet to be built creating a growing homeless crisis the water use and development plan that was ordered in one thousand nine hundred eighty has not yet been completed and on the state level the commission water resource management has been slow to establish in stream flow standards causing the public to engage in litigation to obtain their legal rights government administration large corporate entities and we have made decisions that are in utter disregard of the constituency or the laws established by other governing bodies such as the e p a the cost of government commission noted that the change in management structure would potentially deep politicize aspects of executive import appointments and approve checks and balances putting the council in charge as the n ten fourteen of the appointment of executive staff and department heads would be sufficient for that the politicization they also suggest that there's a need to improve job descriptions i definitely think that something that should be done what we county government needs is accountability implementation enforcement and a change in attitude not new job titles we need a mayor who can demonstrate what governance with integrity looks like in the end whether or not this form of government would be more effective in solving our problems is speculative and as a matter of fact the report kind of shows they really did study a lot i watched their proceedings it too would be subject to personalities interpretations and politics once again i don't believe this proposed change is a priority of the energy and costs involved in the changes that would be required would be better spent and the rehabilitation of the upcountry water system so that for will no longer be over pumped creating a better organizational flow between departments and addressing the homeless my name is no woods and i'm testifying in favor of putting ten sixteen on the ballot it's been said it's too complicated that it's been a rush to judgment this matter has been studied and suggested a number of times over the decades it is neither too complicated nor is it a rush to judgment it's a very simple proposition that the committee has put before you posit that it's actually elegant in its simplicity it changes to thinks who and how the county managing director is selected and changes the responsibilities of the mayor so they are in the hands of the county manager director that's what it does we have the right we have the intelligence to decide the matter we need a professional management of county operations and most important you need to give us the right to vote should you fail to pass this out of committee and onto yourselves sitting as the council and give the voters the opportunity to decide this issue you will be guilty of the ultimate disrespect to your constituents thank you but it was with any questions but a testifier see non thinking miss woods so i will as all right thank you thank you very much already we still have seventeen more to testify so i'd like to continue so we gain and these get all our testimony out of the way by lunchtime so that we can dash eleven the planning commission i served as chair of to state commissions both the natural areas reserve system and the legacy lands commission for eight years and those commissions the natural as reserve commission was set up back in one thousand nine hundred seventy three had not been changed since then so it's got environmentalist's on it and it's got people representing the different islands nothing about cultural side  we went through strategic planning made the very very strong recommendation to deal in order to push the ledge about ensuring that hawaiian expertise would always be present on the commissions  as well as the other ones that are already designated that went into effect and so there is a cultural and local representation on the committee there the second i'll speak to is ten dash fourteen the department directors with with the understanding of what mayor said about the potential problems i would say  that this should be amended i would approve of this if we don't go ahead with ten sixteen but it should be and amended to involve the council in both the defining the job descriptions searching and selecting the chair of the department chair so that just gives a better review a more thorough review and it help separate out some of the politics of assignments here the third and most important here is the council manager ten sixteen i'm strongly in support of this i ha done extremely deep research on the us and in fact was quite surprised when the council or the cost of government commission report came out and was surprised that was the number of omissions that were in there the glowing report that you've heard here avoided comparing certain things one of the big ones is the cost that there is in the turnover of your senior management teams at every new may or election there there are a been national studies some very big ones and these have looked at the different jurisdictions and on average found a twelve percent increase in efficiency of the government or twelve were avoiding looking at the costs of all of the staffing fits in our executive offices here compared to our other counties in the state their cost their number of staff  far over what the other council tapped their the question of we're moving too fast on this is too big an issue we're moving too fast this is been an issue since the one nine hundred seventy s and it kept getting kicked down the road the classic well you know let's push it down the road and worry about it later let somebody else deal with it there it's been brought up the only thing that's finally forced it now is the pressure on the council to bring this forward finally even though the very very strong recommendation of the last charter commission there it is time this isn't rocket science this isn't a huge turnover it's a readjustment of the professionalism that we want to see here that professionalism will provide both the efficiency consistent c and management as well as having well trained professional level people to do it testifier thank you sir next to fire please yes our next testifier is kelly king she will be testifying on four items thank you honorable council members day putting that on the ballot i want to thank the special committee for its work and for the recommendation that came out despite some very heated arguments but i think all of the testimony from the meetings i attended it seemed like all the test predominantly in favor of a county manager model over the mayor all of the strong mayoral model we have today and i think we need to honor that recommendation to put that on the ballot folks will have a chance to discuss this issue and vote which way they think is the best but i want to reiterate some earlier testimony i gave to the council that all the successful organizations i have ever served on and there have been  different businesses and small businesses i've served on will be more than that nonprofits that i've served on all use this type of governance model where they have a governing board that hires and fires the chief executive and they work together that's what saves money and makes it more efficient my understanding is that our current just to speak to the previous testifiers point was that the current administration has about twenty five twenty eight a ssistance in staff under those assistance that would not be necessary under this new model so there's a a lot of savings there that the cost of governance committee did not did not include in that report and i think we have a  there has been opportunity for public input and there will be more opportunity for public input in the next two years should this pass and the details can be worked out there as has also been said i've been reading through the county charter and it's sadly lacking in position descriptions right now and that's why we're getting people who are really well bedded for these director positions most of them the only record the only qualification is five years of administrative assistant or administrative experience and it doesn't even say what that experience has to be an i also wanted to address the statement about voter attrition because in my experience voter attrition is not due to  changes that are being made is due to the lack of ability to be involved in positive change when things are always the same there's no reason to come out and vote and this is a strong argument for putting this on the ballot and letting the people decide  people want to come out and they want to be in this discussion and they want to be able to decide for themselves that will in gauge for voters not discourage them in my opinion thank you i'm going to go real quickly through a couple of the other two the other ones that i just wanted to see strong support for our a one which is a council initiate removal of the corporate council and i think the council has to be able to be part of the hiring and dismissal process for the court counsel or get your own court counsel because i don't see that position serving both the administration and the counsel well prohibiting the corporate counsel and the prosecuting ten i just wanted to speak in strong support of that as well i think those are really key positions that should not be involved in lobbying i do support people who are in the ministry of staff positions or employment positions to be able to get involved in the in the in the process of the elections and showing their support one way or the other because it is there are there any alien of all right ok the last one i would like to speak on this is really another important issue is p i a ten eleven i believe it is i wanted to speak about the designation designating planning commission seats for leaders of hawaiian cultural and environmental protection groups the county w an overarching value statement and provides a policy framework that's in the description of our policy why plan that was adopted in two thousand and ten and there's actually a mandate in this in this plan for this movement the vision starts out same county will be an innovative model of sustainable island living in a place where every individual can grow to each his or her potential the needs of each individual the needs of the whole community and the needs of our natural and cultural assets will be brought into balance and reflect the high value we place on both our natural environment and our people the core principles include one excellence in the stewardship of the natural environment and cultural resources to compassion for an understanding of others three respect for diversity for engagement and empowerment of maui county residents five honor for all cultural traditions and histories and to read all the rest of them but i just wanted to give  the public here and the and the council the flavor what of what mandate it as our vision and our shared values in this county why policy plan and that and that speaks directly to making sure that the planning commission is fair and balanced and has an environmental voice i want to end that testimony with one of my favorite quotes which is by a us senator gaylord nelson he was the founder of earth day and he said this is this is not even true or for any other place than hawaii this is so true for our state the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment not the other way around so we have to remember that our environment is our economy and vice versa and that if we don't take care of it researcher members of the community i'd like to take you on a time machine journey the county manager has been hired and we're in budget perpetrations and the budget has been developed with the county manager the finance department and you together working on each item instead of having to tear apart what's been done you will be putting it together together let the people decide together instead of apart let the people decide together all of you working in concert no name calling no recriminations you all know exactly what has been what's in the document because you worked on it together let the people decide the budget is the most important thing that you do i see the chair of the finance committee here think about the possibility of developing that budget throughout the year think about that process that would occur together let the people decide together that's what it's about in our democracy our country let the people decide it's your most important obligation we deserve this right please let the people decide it's ten sixteen this item it's very propitious it was my father's birthday it's also marge boners birthday today happy birthday to march thank you very much but the people decide together we can all make this place a better place for all of us your responsibilities are huge and you don't need to have arguments you've heard a lot of testifying today about letting the people letting the voters decide we have probably a very simple statement that represents forty one pages of charter modifications i'm not sure that a simple statement can capture all the modifications in their true essence that are present to the voters one of those modifications is turning the i t services division into a department first time i heard about that was when i read the charter changes post even though some people say the  report but a special committee was well vetted and they spent many months discussing the options i have not been approached and i would have expected to been approached by something that such a fundamental change i do not know the reasons because i couldn't find any explanation of the reasons for the changes in the report so i'm not really in a very good position here to address some of those reasons i have my concerns are usually there are a lot of  impacts from a change like this that appear not to be well considered and i'm really concerned that if we're asking the voters to make a decision on the simple statement that they're not always understand the consequences those of you that have an interest of the reasons also and up may be something you may want to check with mr hu she about is that the creation of the department requires a charter meant but i don't think you can do that by talkin it into something else that doesn't really mention believe to change the creation of a department needs to be an explicit charter amendment statement to voters vote this is not the way to do that and especially not without any discussion about the merits or do reasons for such change so i ask that you really consider the impact of all these hidden changes in the document that may not be apparent to the voters yes we should let the voters vote but they should know what they're voting on and what the impact is you know bricks and now it's being called is rosemary robbins and she will be followed by everybody this is exciting the people who are here the people that i know are watching miss rosemary can you introduce yourself pleasing a little closer to them might be ok the other half of prose mary is robinson rosemary robins contains you concerned citizen so and like i was first to take a look on today's agenda over onto page five if you  time with the county government here he had been a council member so apparently even though the dates aren't in here he was involved in that at the time so well there was actually because these items were brought up and deferred like i different set up so over on page five  item ph policy and intergovernmental affairs and item ten eleven and that's the one that has every cochran's name is being sponsored in this i am so excited as an educator in particular to see this it's going sure it's going to be read when you actually get into your deliberations but it's talking about that it will require for planning commission seats at least one member from each planning commission to have a background in kind ation a natural resources and one member to have a background in expertise in native hawaiian tradition oh and customary practice how exciting is this i mean we've got a water situation where nobody has to come in knowing a lot about water just have to have had some government experience our business experience so it's very exciting to me to see that also i went through everything that was in the binder on this they were many many people who had written testimony in there so thank you to those other concerned citizens and to let you know that is how i unlock training course is going to be offered and required to be taken by each new member to participate in council within one year of the members appointments so if he she doesn't have that yet it's going to be available to you in the richardson law school who conducts these educations periodic lee and we can get those by way televised conference saying so hooray for maui for being up on all of them so that was on page five the next day i would ask you to turn to page four three as amended to require council approval of the mayor's appointment and then it talks in here originally as this is stated about the director of finance but when i went and got the actual material out of the binder the water supply director and the prosecuting attorney so there are actually four positions that are being taken when this comes to have evolved to the stage that it's at and it's asking that these people who are going to be serving in those capacity this will have the background there's  an item in here called exhibit one that talks about the backgrounds that you have to have coming into this not that you're going to learn just on the job but you hitting the ground running and it talks about personal references  the academic represents histories representing the capacities they're going to be working with official transcripts of the appointees post secondary academic records so whatever word there master doctorate beyond a written transcript by those higher education institutions not just somebody writing down oh yeah i did this i got a degree in that  so there's going to be actual documentation that will be available for all of us to read on the seventh floor so we all have the same opportunity so i am again delighted about the fact that people have all of this together to have gotten to this stage and i saw a handout coming in this morning that i haven't seen yet but apparently these are still actions in process see if it gets on the ballot and i'm certainly recommending that these this collection gets on the ballot that not only the folks who are at home and not here this morning will have further opportunity to be educated by the goings on that will be in the paper that will be on the seventh floor that will be if dick mayor is going to be doing the education to the community that he had to do so people's being in the dark is maybe a reflection of the dark ages that weren't so dark when these original proponents came about we've we've grown hugely we need to grow with that so thank you very much and now i would recommend that you come over to page three people was mourning talking about the cost of the potential capacity or recommended new council governance model we're paying a fortune right now for attorneys to come in from elsewhere to be able to defend us but what the court has acknowledged we filed up in things like clean water clean air these are these are basics it's not like when you and i might have been playing well in the street years ago and now we have a park these are things that everybody needs so we need to take careful look at that it says in here whereas permitting attorneys within the office of council services to serve as legal advice is to the legal representatives of the council and its members will ensure that the council and its members have access to independent legal advice when there is an actual or potential conflict or disagreement between the executive the mayor and his spokes are folks in the legislative branches of government so right now that's not happening the council members don't have their own in addition to the folks that are in the legal profession that are representing the mayor and the folks on the mayor's step this would allow there to be a second capacity of that fully in favor of that memory keep in mind this is in addition to the attorneys within the department the corporate counsel meaning for the mayor and the folks with him or her so all of these i'm recommending i hope this is a help i heard a lot of independent heartfelt stuff this morning which is what happens so often but the larger scale on this and one of the previous justifiers this morning reached out to me when i was out in foyer and said the folks out there just don't understand what this is about so i hope when people get up and they give the larger scale of this that's a help i hope that they will be able to take advantage of breeding what's going to be in the media what's going to be in the seventh floor any of us that they run into out there feel free to ask if we don't know we'll tell you who to come to and if we do know it's because we've been able to participate in a more expensive level here so fire please yes sir next testifier is true not for tato she will be speaking on to buy items and she will be followed by mr timothy lara little michael thank you for being here this morning i know it's going to be a very long meeting from what i can see from testifier list out there so thanks for sitting tight many mr net for toto i am from home a quick law and i'm going to be speaking on agenda items so i'm going to consolidate my testimony to try to include both in not take the full six minutes first i'd like to speak on p i a ten eleven regarding cultural and environmental presence on the planning commission i strongly support this amendment and ask that you also support it i am disgusted by the previous comments made by a testifier a few days ago who i am not personally familiar with regarding the need for a cultural practitioner or one with cultural knowledge as well as a stronger environmental presence on our planning commission i do not agree with his statement regarding bias especially since our county wide policy plan outlines the necessity for protecting our natural environment and preserving our local cultures and traditions if you don't know about a thing how can you say that you've given it adequate and proper consideration i don't believe these practices should only occur at special events hotel properties are only for visitors to say that there would be a bias to have someone knowledgeable of male focus away from the blatant fact that there already appears to be a bias on the planning commission with the imbalance of developer real estate and private interests that have served and in some cases still serve in that group our county wide policy plan also outlines a need to protect the environment and are planning commission should reflect that lisa pouncing knowledge of the issues involved in that i ask you to remember too and if you have forgotten referred to this policy plan and are ma a general plan if you are unsure of what your coolie on and to all of us is is what is written in those documents just pretty words with no teeth to them or words to consider when looking at future planning regarding our home secondly speaking of future planning i also strongly support and ask that you place on the ballot the issue of a county manager system of governance p i a ten sixteen on your agenda to be the core of this issue is not whether it's right or wrong the issue is that some cannot admit that our current system is not working and has not been working for quite some time it's clear to many that a popularly elected mayor cannot adequately manage the complex workings of our county corporation because that's what it is a corporation with a budget whose service is governance to our county a business that requires a competent manager who can hire other competent managers to assist in various departments as directors i absolutely believe that our people should have the opportunity to decide this for themselves as a ballot item this year currently the mayor appoints the manager in a close process as his aid not as a manager to identify and acquire competent people to lead departments with a county manager there would be more accountability not just from that manager but from those he or she hires employees here within our departments would have an opportunity for advancement in a system where advancement is currently not possible unless there is a death illness or political connection involved we need to change that do we value  people who work for our government do we value efficient effective transparent and accountable governance or are we satisfied with what we've got up until this point it's not about whether or not we believe our current mayor is good or bad it's about looking at our greater community and next test fire is mr timothy lara and he is a lot of council members speaking about myself on both ten sixteen and ten eleven i'm in favor of the recommendation from the special committee to send a proposal a proposed resolution of the ballot for the general election this would allow the county to recruit and hire professional directors who have the security of knowing that their employment is based on their performance reviews not the political alignments the merits of this proposal is that what we're here to discuss today that time has come and passed and was heard through numerous public meetings hundreds of people came out to testify and speak on behalf of those and give their input what we're here to do today is to determine whether or not this council will listen to that special committee and those people spend the time and give their input and allow this to go forth to the general public to vote on here and at those public meetings over ninety percent of the testimony has been in favor of letting this go forth so i honestly feel like i'm kind of wasting my breath right now i hope there's not anybody left on the council that's not planning on sitting this forward given that so many people have spoken in favor of letting the people decide previous t at the time moving on the ten eleven and also in favor of ten eleven while sitting down and waiting to testify at the planning commission on behalf of an environmental nonprofit that i serve on i googled the planning commission members to see who it was that i was testifying in front of were engineers developers union reps and realtors all relevant trades for people serving on the planning commission however it seemed that however it seemed the it was lacking balance seemingly these trades would all be pro belum and there was no one on the commission to consider the environmental and cultural impacts of the proposed projects i believe having cultural and vironment representatives on the commission would actually make for a smoother planning process as the proposed projects could hear about culture on environmental concerns early in the process and be able to make relevant changes when i went through the fellowship in two thousand twelve the premise of the program was that we could hear both sides of numerous issues that we would then have a balanced understanding of the issues and could make informed decisions having one member with backgrounds from environmental and cultural does not create balance on the planning commission but at least allows for a contrast in view to be heard for them furthermore i think it's vitally important that our decision makers should have at the very least a broad overview of foreign law i strongly agree with the proposal should go forward to the ballot for the people decide thank you but if you wish for any questions for morning everyone my name is kind of she and i am testifying on pih ten and eleven i fully support the proposal to have hawaiian called an environmental preservation representation on the maui planning commissions since our plan the commissions are charged with making important and precedent setting decisions regarding land use and shoreline management it seems the prudent and wise decision is to have some members on the commission who are well educated in these areas and may offer logical scientific and intimate historical and cultural knowledge with the sobering facts of climate change and sea level rise well documented fletcher it would be prudent to have a commissioner who is an expert in coastal zone management and environmental concerns i thank the council for considering the safety and well being of our residents into the future this seems like a wise and proactive step and i congratulate the county for considering such a practical and forward thinking proposal i applaud the county for taking a proactive step to give a voice on our planning commission to the ocean and the ira i congratulate the county for realizing the value of having individuals on the planning commission who have intimate historical and cultural knowledge that becomes invaluable when making a decision about what is in the best interest of our public trust resources these the citizens will have long lasting impacts and we should fully support the ability of the planning commission to examine each proposal so that the bess practicable alternative clearly in the public interest will become known are public trust resources other priceless than heritance we care take for the future generations imola and thank you very much  to point out that i would prefer not to be contradicted on my testimony before i give it my testimony would leak off the floor and i don't appreciate it and wish to have him be treated with respect in the future thank you but as mentioned in previous occasions this proposal and this is a government county manager this proposal is being unduly rushed without proper due process and deliberation of the proposals ramifications this is a major concern raised by the cost the government commission and the minority members of the special committee in their review of this proposal that was a rush to judgment that this was a rush to judgment leading to unintended consequences one of those consequences luckily came to light before the council acted on this proposal on june sixth the state attorney general ruled that the county manager proposal and fish in itself as a vision by this proposal is not exempt from state civil service law chapters seventy six and seventy seven while the eighty's opinion was directed at a similar quiet proposal in a june amend the civil service law to exempt the position of county manager i would not advise betting to put the form on such a bill passing it's interesting as an interesting exercise would be to try to imagine watching h man county manager would also come under the civil service rules the role of the salary commission in setting salaries how the county manager and c e o would interact with his corporate board the county matter as it passes and if it passes to the voters and they approve it this rush job is sort of like a tack a tap dance recital in a minefield what other a moments of local law clear statement that i did be treated previously i believe that both groups have a right to seek and win nomination to the plan of commissions just as anybody else does the nominations to boards and commissions are among the powers of the m malak county has an open process that allows anyone to apply for appointment of course those individuals must also when the confirmation it's council so this is a political process in the person groups who want to gain appointments they need like say like the realtors do like the chamber of commerce like the unions like the hotel association and other groups i need to work the system this is a this is it is proper th and persons with and persons with each each area of the commission's cover and possible unique skills and knowledge like historians art architects engineers and economist and someone who had dealt with the appointment process for twelve years i can tell you finding someone to serve on the mall planning commissions can be difficult the more criteria you place in the process making the making of makes filling the all the more difficult regarding hawaiian cultural practices we have a whole commission the culture resources commission dedicated to that function the the plan of commissions however are where the rights of property owners to use their property as they see fit and the public's right to protect public resources intersect there is nothing overtly cultural about that process if the commissions need help with cultural matter they can request it from the cultural resources commissioner mr cupples organization he was speaking of were a cultural a win cultural biased or any racial cultural or religious bias of any sort and it's likely it's a biased and is likely to be a violation of federal law good morning mr chairman mr chair council members i'm going to testify on ten sixteen and it's it's kind of interesting because i feel like you guys are boxed you know it's basically what this has been painted as as is are you going to let the voters vote or not you know and that's what this is kind of been as politicians how can you say no to that how can you say no to it because it tomorrow morning in the papers going to be like so and so voted against letting the you know the people have their voice so you guys are kind of box so in a way as i speak to this i just want to acknowledge that that that's kind of you know sort of where you have to come from for the record i've read the  entire committee's report i've read the casa government's report all three hundred fifty one pages of it thirty five but all the way i exit it's everything like that i didn't read it verbatim verbatim but i basically went through the entire thing i read the minority report i've been to mr hyde's website the it was i've done my research on this and the thing that's really interesting is most people are talking about whether or not you know do you want to have a county manager or do you want to have a mayor and there's conflicting testimony but basically it says that one's apples and one's oranges and which one do you prefer if you prefer apples or deep for oranges and really there's no nothing that says it's going to be more efficient there's nothing that says it's going to cost less it's just a matter of whether you prefer apples or you performances so in that though i wanted to kind of go to the actual mechanism of how we got here so we created this commission or this committee special committee on governance and to me it's kind of like saying ok i'm going to go to a trauma therapists if you go to a trauma therapist what do you think that their place is going to find they're going to find trauma and if you if you can create a committee to look into whether or not we should have a county manager what are they going to find we should have a county manager of course but it was split five six very contentious minority report was very very explicit in how they deferred you know they just didn't agree so this isn't like some big consensus so i said ok what are you guys really voting on right now you guys are voting on a very specific piece a language that's going to go to the vote right this is what's going to go to the voters how did we get to that how did we come up with this specific language so what they did they created a temporary investigative group and i thought like ok these are the guys that are going to be going to come up with the language as to what should go on the ballot really super super important it's probably going to be super detailed it's probably going to be well thought out it's going to be professional because that's what they want they want professionalism it's three pages it's three pages that's what you guys did and here's what the researchers here's their resources that come out of there which i hate to ask you about your three minutes are up could you sum it up in one sentence i will sum it up right here the resources that they came up with this specific language is a former county executive for santa clara a blog post a website and a master's thesis not even a doctorate pieces that's how they came up with this language i'd say we need  good morning chair victory knowing council members morning good morning i'm aloha samit and i just wanted to say that i support the proposed charter amendment to i don't p a ten eleven i'm a representative of the council and i've been there for six years already but i do believe in smart development so by having a hawaiian cultural environmental seat is needed because it would help to protect my always history and rich culture along with ensuring these things are left for our children to enjoy now vote for that person and that person is accountable to the to the public what we're talking about doing is taking away the people's right to vote for this executive  and turn that position into purely appointed position which is basically accountable only to the council and a lot of people have brought up the fact that it would be a professional manager well i don't think that the office the chief executive of the county should be limited to professional managers there are people with a variety of skill sets that can do an excellent job as chief executive not only people with maj min degrees and corporate backgrounds  furthermore the picture that is being painted of the council manager government is very rosy i would even say idealized but in reality it really isn't quite as idyllic as it was being presented  council manager systems tend to lack accountability because there is no real way to make the buck stop its past and past and past and that is what has happened throughout the mainland  system because there was just more accountability there was just there was just more democratic  aloha i'm randy wagner and i've lived on maui for twenty eight years my children have been raised here i have grandchildren great grandchild and i care really deeply about now i am a community activist and also professionally i'm an architect and i've worked doing architecture for twenty four years here i find that the system is completely broken as far as dealing with my profession right now when i leave here i'm going to have to go over to main plaza and try to find somebody to answer a question that i've been trying to have answered for four months i don't get phone calls returned i don't get e mails returned and it's just complete disfunction so the reason that i support the county manager is and i'm not saying we shouldn't have a mayor i think we should still have a mayor but i believe that we need someone who is professionally trained to manage a system and who will choose professional leaders for those subdivisions of that system so that we can have teamwork so we can have communication so that it isn't just like trying to find something in a rabbit warren because the people that i work with in my profession are business people who are trying to actually accomplish things that are good for the community and the community doesn't get tax revenue and better towns to live in and have more options of services when decisions can't be made so for that reason i just really i think i would like a ceremonial mayor however i do believe that that mayor should possibly have a role to play in the decisions that are made and just not the only role like right now there's such dysfunction between the mayor and the council that the pulse of the mayor has are not received and are not like the initiatives for the homeless situation those are dead even though he's bringing them i feel like i somehow i mean i see the center federal government to that the divisiveness makes deadlock and so my vision that the manager who could organize and be neutral and could help expedite the council agendas and proposals from the mayor to i just don't want to see the absolute blanket separation that there is now where nothing can be coordinated ok i mean i'm not at all a professional in terms of government but that's just my being an end user i need a better system and then for them it's clear you for being here that's what we're doing today we're listening thank you and one of the grantham he would like to speak to all items and he is followed by members my name is dan grantham and i'm going to try to keep this quick because my car's over due to us regarding the ten sixteen i think that we wan let's keep this simple but this is about two things it's about running a large corporation and it's about politics and those two should not be it's totally dependent on each other we might be doing a mayor a future mayor a favor where you know he runs for she runs for election and all her friends that help come you know home what about that job oh well you know i'm not the person responsible for that now you know you will have to send your qualifications in and your work history and you know maybe you should give some ideas about what you want to do and yeah and that that that works we've heard a number of people say oh this is going to cost a bunch of money well you would be surprised how much money it costs to when you have lawsuits over misdirection and i think this is a good way to try addressing that factor is to have professional people there with a lot of experience with a lot of access to help anyway if you went to the dentist would you want to see the company's cousin you know or would you want to see somebody you've been trained you know in new how to do this that maybe they're a wonderful person but you need the training you need the skills this  is about doing the job properly this is about troubleshooting this is about fixing things this is about making things work this is not about you know this is what i have to do to be elected again another factor involved here is the you know every time there is an election and a new person comes in oh we've got to change everybody so all of the plans all  continuity it's gone you know we start over again now is that a good way to run a business i mean face it this is a business you know you get paid taxes and you deliver services and you want to have happy customers and happy customers keep the business going ok i'm going to go on to  was one of the other ones i want to talk about is ten eleven planning commission i don't know some of you may remember i used to videotape meetings here i used to specifically videotape lot of planning commission meetings because they were not covered by our coup some of those meetings went on for eight hours that's not counting the lunch break  some of them i mean you have your own late night meetings too but one of the things that struck me was that the lack of expertise empathy and just ability to cope with questions around the environment and cultural questions it was just not there you know sometimes you would have a planning commission member who had some skills some knowledge sometimes there was a testifier that you know they could ask questions of but it's not it's  not a president factor it's not and it's really important i mean what is hawaii without the environment and the culture and she's we could be something out of a package you know that i'm sure that there are people with that package would be happy to sell it to us but it's not  explore it and it's you know provides an arena for discussion for everybody to come out and bring their arguments before the election it's a great time to do that so you are not passing this you are just putting it out to the people which is where all these questions really belong anyway and your job is to facilitate that i think you know you guys spend a lot of time listening to people trying to find out what people really want and that's that's a first facilitating the implementation of public opinion well see there was one other thing that i'm going to talk to you just for a minute there's been a there's a couple things in here involving that the sort of ethics code of ethics  let me just make a suggestion there is a position at the p u c called the consumer advocate i would like to suggest that you have and there's also the stuff it about the court counsel in here but one thing i've noticed is there is not a people's advocate there is not somebody there is not an alms but many here to speak up from you know neutral position of this good for the people you know we have all kinds of issues that pertain to all kinds of things but there there is nobody in a position of authority and knowledge to addressed in any way to be a lawyer for the people and i think that's something that's really really really important i don't want to pick on  ethics commission but i have seen some mistakes there and i have seen very sad mistakes happen there and they just really are not at that level of training to take on those kind of jobs but i think they do serve a useful advisory position and pointing out hey you know our rules say this and you should follow the rules i think that's really important all you have to do is to be able to read the rules and understand them so with that i'm going to go try to move my car heard thank you mr grant the question good morning as chairman of the committee i will be speaking on two items but also two for brevity i will try and combine them into one three minute presentation if i might if you can't thank you michel but in madrid yours mr chairman and members of the committee my name is tom speaking on behalf of go maui thank you for your work on the charter amendments i'll be commenting on two proposed charter minutes in my overall testimony county governments and the department director selection and approval process the cost of government commission has said the change will not save any money governance committee members who did not accept the majority report are being characterized in letters to the editor as those who were defeated in one move we are asked to increase the cost  size of government while placing an additional bureaucratic barrier unaccountable to the public between our government and the government in fact the proposed charter changes on department director selection qualifications and council approval do more to reform our government then the experiment placed before you today in previous meetings on the proposed charter meant to alter our form of government some have testif let the people decide and noted that this was the basis of our right to self government let me add a different view not mine but that of one of our founding fathers james madison writing in the  federalist papers number ten who said quote if a faction consists of less than a majority relief is supplied by the republican principle which enables the majority to feed its views by regular vote it may clogged ministration it may convulse society but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence on the forms of the constitution or i would add under a rushed contrived  tight time frame such as the recent election in great britain the proposed charter member to change our former government in mali county is a serious proposal which may have unintended political and financial consequences a decent respect for the opinions of our citizens requires more discussion and more thorough investigation and public meetings to be held in every council manik district let the people decide yes letting the people discuss and debate and learn more from each other is a necessary first step that is lacking in this process a small impassioned minority no matter how well intentioned and virtuous speaking in a small meeting room is not full participation by our citizens in this critical government's decision amendment on county governments we ask that you do not support it and avoid what could be viewed later as a historic and unnecessary mistake thank you again for the opportunity to testify and for all the time you put in on this issue thank you questions for the testifier yes mr coach thank you mr cherry you mention you're going to testify on another subject i try to incorporate that into my testimony and support will be allowed in the three minutes on another  is nick drafts followed by susan to thank you all for the hard work that you do to so much time and patience required i can't imagine let me begin my call me names please oh i'm sorry nick drats thank you so let me begin my comments quoting a very wise and famous person who said great truths are simpler than you think i'm commenting on ten fourteen my comments here they encourage you to  put this issue to vote and these are my reasons why a lot of people want this position established to manage the county resources long term  stewardship and accountability in that position my sense is that that position should be established according to standard corporate protocol whereby the residents of maui as voiced by the county council function  as a board of directors the establishment of standard performance evaluations should be agreed upon and formalized for this position quickly i see the position primarily the job description being primarily defined as and showing that the combined interests and long term well being of the residents of manly are maximized based on the input of residents and expert expertise in the council i think that position should also include accountability and transparency that they are maximized the position of course should be appropriate comments compensated and serve at the pleasure of a majority vote by the city council  motivation for my point of view here is that at this point he's unable to sustain itself with regard to food and water within a relatively outside a relatively narrow scope of circumstances and in the event of a disruption of that delicate balance that we now enjoy the wellbeing of our residents are potentially in jeopardy not to mention the many hundreds of millions of dollars that we send off the island for food so i'm also commenting on the urgency of this position to address this need as i see it the island now as as far land u colonial style plantation system there are not ninety thousand acres or so my understanding is of land that's controlled by a and b and other financial interests and my understanding is that just twenty seven thousand of those acres are designated as agricultural so in summary i wish to just simply say that the importance of ensuring that the combined interests the long term wellbeing of the residents of the county your mail your maximized i see this is the central function of the job position and by viewing it in that way i think that it might circumvent some of the byzantine interests financial cultural economic and political so just against you in mind you conclude please just simply to begin with the end in mind and recognize our overall goal for the citizens of know it thank you very much now mr i want to clarify something you regarding p i a ten eleven need to protect the environment here and we need people on the planning commission that seriously care about the natural daily we really are in trouble so we need to address that every time we plant any building of anything it's not a development industry at the planning commission it's about the i know to me step people in the planning commission her knowledge about and sensitive to these things every board and commission should reflect diversity in thought knowledge that will give rise to good decision making i don't think we have that on the planning commission as of now so or in the past and the development of more and more on the island is just needs to be addressed before they just start building we need infrastructure bottom up ok the other item i'd like to speak to is p i a ten sixteen i believe we need to keep the mayor in charge in with this power but we also need a managing director expertise in that area of directing and managing in the county position to support the mayor as best as possible but he needs to earth she needs to have some experience the length of service of manning managing director and his and her higher director should be based on job performance  but i'll add that so that's all i have to say i thank you very much for allowing me to testify today thank you thank you any questions for the testifier ciena thank you you did very well for your first thank you very well through these deliberations to pare things down and not put more than say five things on the ballot for people to consider i'm confused and i know what we're talking about here with all these different items to be considered but they all deserve your consideration but i don't think they all deserve to necessarily be on the ballot i do think that office of council services should be able to provide you folks with legal advice and i think that's kind of simple  i don't think that the charter should contain special qualifications for planning commissioners the commissioners themselves should should not be appointed based on special qualifications or affiliations i believe the commission should function something like a jury they should not be coming into their roles with a pre disposed agenda but the commissioners are there to very carefully consider the public's input on all issues and apply the law fairly as a stab by this body this is where policy is made this is where law is made the planning commission's role is to make sure they implement that correctly and fairly but not to be making it up there but if you were to say we want to have certain things considered on the commission then i would say one planning commissioner should an economist one planning commissioner should be a housing specialist one planning commissioner should be a traffic expert another planning commissioner should be a hydrologist another planning commissioner should be a vacation rental expert another planning commissioner should represent the hotel's another planning commission or should represent farmers i could go on and on i'm not really saying that it should the planning commission should represent that because they are a proxy for us as as in general but they are there to listen to all the people with those various expertise and to consider those those things in their deliberations so again i have stated this before i don't think that we should have those those criteria in the charter but what i do think is that it's appropriate to train the planning commission in these concerns we should have planning commissioners who understand culture who understand the environmental concerns who understand hydrology who understand economics and so forth those training should take place and i think you can do that in code and not in the charter chair moving on to the second item in the form of governance so word i never heard before two weeks ago but now because of brecht's it we have a country in turmoil we have a stock market in freefall we have the future of many people uncertain a change in the form of government is an important and complicated issue with broad reaching implications just as it was saying we're going to leave the e u you know it was quite disturbing to find out that after the after the vote the number one thing that was on that was searched on google was what is the e u and what are the implications of leaving the e u what he did and i saw many people interviewed and they were regretting their vote it's a little scary to me to think that if we put something on the on the ballot for people to vote on the form of government's governance and they don't consider all of the ramifications where they we might regret their vote in the future i won't repeat what former county manager sharing morrison said but i have to agree that she raised many questions that need to be answered and i have to say i have the greatest respect for  sitting over there but i'm not ready to accept all the changes that ed offered in the county charter that he felt were necessary to effectuate a county manager as requested by the commission on governance i think that each of those changes needs to be considered and fully discussed before you would move forward with with the broader issue i don't think that we should be considering those after we have made that decision i watched all the meetings of the cost of government commission and they what what they took up i was very impressed with their academic approach that they took to this issue i found their report to be very thorough well researched and quite frankly i agreed with their conclusion i'm not sure that that i necessarily agree that we have the best form of government's now but the conclusion that was drawn by by the the cost of government commission raised the questions that i want answered before we make changes the bottom line is changing the charter as significantly as would be necessary to facilitate the change in governments is something that needs much more vetting before we would be ready to put this out the vote please let us avoid the regret that those in the u k are feeling regarding their breasts thank you thank i just wanted that clarification so the public's not confuse right and some council members are not going to go whoa what does that mean ok thank you what i player for kishi and i just want to make sure that everyone understood questions for the testifier sheen and thank you how many more we thought were at the end we're not yes that's correct we do have four more people signed up to testify ok so let's clear up therefore and if we can get it done by no later than twelve thirty they will go for lunch from twelve thirty to one thirty or whatever time we get through to one thirty ok go ahead please the next person signed up to testify is joseph  the morning everyone my name is joseph a queen and i'll be talking on a ten sixteen i'm opposing this because it is obvious that there are too many questions that need to be answered born and raised here in mali county i find no fault in the system that we have now there are issues that we can adjust instead of changing the governance system  and i really like to bring this back to the community and try to get those on answered questions answered before we put this on the ballot and ask the question later lazy and i am also a union representative i o w and i oppose against this as well only because i feel that the public needs more education on this and to me i feel that it's being rushed at this moment i do respect everyone's input on everything that's going on that i've heard this morning but i do oppose against  and we need more education for our public people out there because from what i understand nobody knows that i know of what's going on so i have to educate them as well so that's why i'm here today and that's all i have to and she will be testifying on four items i'd like to to ask that you give me some three minutes to address as chair of vice chair of the committee committee to study governance because there's been a lot of information that's been stated by the public today that isn't accurate it doesn't reflect what actually happened in the committee just to just a few things but i think they're glaring and need to be corrected well now you can go to testify i mean we all know who you were and what you did on the committee so go right ahead please well the rest of my testimony that would be by individual testimony and i don't want to that be confused one with the other because the committee  members i leave it to you to make that decision with me do you i don't have a matter which way or the other i just if your testimony is your testimony imagine we all know you the vice chair everybody in this room plus i think everybody in public  first of all i will say in the save my brief comments first and that is that i support ten thirteen and ten ethics questions well i understand there may be some question about whether this is legal and lawful i ask you this if year job depends on the mayor's approval and he ask you for a campaign contribution does that create a dilemma for an employee and if a policy was in place that simply said employees are encouraged not to participate in campaigns or make campaign contributions that's just my take on that on the issue of the planning commission i think that that's a good idea it provides another resource an opportunity and i would support that regarding mr chair regarding ten sixteen you opened the meeting and i was a little startled by the warning that you gave the audience about maintaining decorum and what it brought to mind was something that happened when the mayor appeared at our committee meeting and we had sent some specific questions for very specific questions about the operation of the the mayor's office and he came downstairs and spoke with us and at the end he simply said this is too stupid to be able to select a county manager and that went on for probably five minutes and along those lines the chair did not gavel him did not ask him to stop i asked him to stop because i think it's insulting to every single one of you to be have the mayor say that you are too stupid to make a selection of a county manager i was offended i we needed a good laugh it's almost lunch time so thank you very much moving on with the next subject matter but ok next up jake the by no artie report you are you know i've filed an office of information practices what this report is is if you wanted to go fishing for red herring you could catch choke herring with this report full of distortions full of half truths it's really unfortunate and it's really rich that the author of this who didn't sign it but now we know who the author is come up here today and talked about all the legalities but ignored the basic the basic law open meeting the right for the public to say what's going on i will tell you that the stockholders that community are the stockholders of this corporation this corporation they are entitled to have a say and the question before you is simply shall the stockholders choose to have professional management or take their chances every four years and i think the community can figure that out i hear the union people say we don't know anything about this where have you ban we have been in the paper we have been live on television you can see our videos of our meetings we are running on demand what more can we do i think really the issue about the time a rush to judgment a cake not baked is simply that we arrived in the in the majority and their opinion of the minority we arrived at the decision that they didn't like and if we study it and tell they want us to study it and till we reach a different conclusion but i don't think that's going to happen so i urge you to put this on the ballot last thing cost of government committee report how do you study something and kept parrot if you don't know what it costs to operate this government now how do you compare act so you're out there selecting from countries perhaps cities across the country but you aren't looking at what the cost of government is now and the cost for maui's administrative mayor and administrative it's higher than it is for honolulu or any of the other islands in fact the staff in honolulu is smaller than the mayor's staff could do because i defended every saying thank you and i thank you for any questions for me schieffer yes mr white i'd like to hear what the her top three misrepresentation back to the committee the staff was responsible for elaborating the staff was responsible for writing the language it didn't came back to us and a very lengthy memo which was discussed at l so that was not an accurate representation of the work that was done the second thing was this was that rush to judgment in and if february one of the members of the my who voted in the minority call for the question wanted to vote on it right then while i have enough information i want to vote on it that was in february we had been meeting i guess we had me met three or maybe three three or maybe times so there was no rush to judgment if anything the minority wanted to rush to judgment and i think the third thing is we came into this with open minds we had a lot of material to study at least and we study get well and there comes a point where you have to fish or cut bait and if it  obvious it was a natural progression and we were ready to decide and frankly chair till the bitter end i did not know how the vote was going to go so it wasn't for if not thank you very much anymore testifiers i knew that was coming ok go ahead yes chair the next person signed up to testify is stephen west  morning chair council members thank you for the opportunity to speak i'll try to be brief you name please stephen west inc your are you representing i'm representing international longshore warehouse union thank you  sir we have actually taken a position both on the division level and a statewide level that we are against this is well the county manager form of government on the agenda item ten sixteen there are a number for maui county there's a number of charter this may conflict obviously with the salary commission and their role on civil service commission and their role there are a number of legal questions we have and really what we're you know we're obviously against this but if you're going to move forward with it my recommendation to this council would be that you need to vent it more because we could end up in court and spending more of the taxpayers dollars so on i'll keep it short or opposed to it thank you very much for your time thank you much to us questions for the testifier seeing none thank you next testifier please yes chair the final person signed up to testify is clyde county testifying on p i ten sixteen very concerned it's not clear to us how the proposal would actually work in terms of the role of laid out for  government that has a human being's individuals involved i believe that some of the problems that people are concerned about would merely be shifted to another area we elected a virus and in two thousand and ten they licked it they decided they wanted a change again an elected miracle molly more than any other county has exhibited this view that if they are not satisfied with their mayor they would then turn around and have that person be a one term mare very concerned that what this potentially could potentially happen if you move  potentially twenty five twenty four to twenty five thousand people in mali county could decide to take away every residence ability to vote on the top elect elected official from now on  ever until so maybe the change back i think i know it's imperfect i know this challenges but for me i would like there to be the highest form of democracy possible if that said if there's anyone wishing to testify they have not ok then i'll give one more chance to anyone who's in the gallery who has not been an opportunity to speak their mind i see one hand went off  the dirs and i'm here as an individual now sitting in the gallery and on hearing a lot about how the planning commission is  i know them some more than others but i know them you know and i'm sitting there and i'm going i'm not a bad person and we are i'm going to ask everyone be back by one forty five i'm going to give you an hour and fifteen minutes to get refreshed and be back at one forty five so this meeting will stand in recess to one forty five p