Court Opinion

ID: 9791692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:16:14.581475+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:37.877025
License: Public Domain

OPINION OF THE COURT BY
MARUMOTO, J.
In a complaint filed in tlie first circuit court against tlie mayor of the city and county of Honolulu, its managing director, director of finance, and the director of *4parks and recreation, the city council sought a judgment mandating the defendants to comply with Resolution No. 436 (1969), and enjoining them from acting in any manner contrary to the resolution.
Resolution No. 436 requires the director of finance to offer the Queen’s Surf property at public auction as a restaurant and night club concession for ten years from January 1, 1970. The Queen’s Surf property is a part of Kapiolani Park in Waikiki, and is city and county property within the jurisdiction and control of the department of parks and recreation.
The circuit court denied the relief sought, and dismissed the complaint. The case is here on the council’s appeal from that dismissal.
The appeal presents a question as to whether Resolution No. 436 establishes a policy which the director of finance is required to follow under section 5-403 (k) of the city and county charter, which reads as follows:
“Section 5-403. Powers, Duties and Functions. The director of finance shall be the chief accounting officer of the city and shall: * * * (k) Rent or lease city property except property controlled by the board of water supply, and award concessions, pursuant to . policies established by the council.”
There are two aspects to the question. The first aspect is whether Resolution No. 436 establishes a policy; and the second is, if it establishes a policy, whether the policy so established is the kind of policy which the director of finance is required to follow.
The attorney for the council has argued to this court that, although the word “policy” is commonly used to refer to decisions of broad and general applicability, such common usage is technically incorrect; that policy is any determination which involves an exercise of judgment; that Resolution No. 436 embodies the judgment of the *5council that the location mentioned in it should be let out for a restaurant and night club concession; and that, consequently, the resolution establishes a policy.
The argument is not without some semantic plausibility. However, we think that, in the context of section 5-403 (k),. policy means a determination much broader than an ad hoc command to take specific action with regard to a particular piece of property, and has reference to requirements set up by the council to serve and protect the public interest which are generally applicable to the leasing or renting Of any city and county property, or' the awarding of concessions thereon. Be that as it may, even if we accept the argument, it touches only upon the first aspect of the question, and not upon the second.
The second aspect of the question should be considered in the light of the basic scheme of the charter. In this connection, the following statement of Holmes, J.,. in Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 (1918), which we recently referred to in In re Application of Eklund, 51 Haw. 568, 465 P.2d 552 (1970), is relevant: “A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.”
The charter has as its basic scheme a clear and definite separation of the legislative power and the executive power of the city and county, vesting the former in the legislative branch represented by the council and the latter in the executive branch headed by the mayor. Under the separation of powers so provided, each branch is coordi: hate with the other, and neither may exercise the power vested in the other. However, this does not mean that the wall of separation is complete and either branch is free to exercise its power as it pleases without any say by the other. Cf. In re Koki, 25 Haw. 406, 410 (1920); Koike v. *6Board of Water Supply, 44 Haw. 100, 113, 352 P.2d 835, 843 (1960).
The charter contains a number of provisions which grant to one branch some voice with regard to the actions of the other. The mayor’s veto power is an example. So is the council’s policy-making power, which is implied in section 5-403 (k).1
It is evident from a careful reading of the charter, together with the reports of the charter commission, that such provisions were not designed as departures from the principle of separation of powers to enable one branch to exercise some power vested in the other, but are safeguards against improvident legislative or executive actions.
For instance, the mayor’s veto power does not enable the mayor to legislate. Its function is to prevent precipitate action on any proposed legislative measure which the mayor may deem not to be in the public interest by having the council take a good second look at the measure before it becomes law.
Likewise, the council’s policy-making power mentioned in section 5-403 (k) , properly construed, is not a departure from the principle of separation of powers, but is a provision to enable the council to set up requirements, which it may deem to be in the public interest, to be observed by the executive departments in exercising their powers with respect to leasing, renting, and awarding concessions on city and county property under their control.2
*7In this connection, the statement regarding the functions of the director of finance in the final report of the charter commission is significant. There, the commission stated that the director of finance is an officer “concerned with the staff functions of treasury, accounting, purchasing and other centralized services for all departments, all as outlined in more detail in section 5-403.” The significant language in the statement is the phrase “centralized services for all departments.” There can he no question that among such centralized services are the services required in carrying out the decisions of the executive departments to lease, rent, and award concessions on property under their control. The council is not a department of the city and county, and, consequently, service to it is not among the functions of the director of finance.
We conclude from the language of section 5-403 (k), read in the light of the abovementioned statement of the charter commission, that the procedure involved in leasing, renting, or awarding a concession on city and county property is a two-step process. The first step is the making of a decision by the department in control of the property to lease, rent, or let it out as a concession, subject to the estáblished policies of the council, as defined in this opinion; and the second step is the carrying out of that decision by the director of finance, also subject to the established policies of the council.
*8The first council elected under the charter published on January 12, 1960, ten days after it took office, a policy declaration, which is printed as Appendix “D” in Revised Ordinances of Honolulu 1961. The declaration dealt with matters looking to prevention of contracts which encumber city and county property for long periods, avoidance of favoritism in the selection of tenants, obtaining of fair rental, assurance that tenants are financially qualified and are able to perform their contract obligations, and similar matters of public concern. It has been amended from time to time after the original publication, but all amendments made before the adoption of Resolution No. 436 were either amendments of original provisions or addition of similar requirements as the original.
The original declaration and amendments made before Resolution No. 436 contain the kind of policies contemplated in section 5-403 (k) and required to be followed by the director of finance under that section.
Resolution No. 436 is quite different. In form, it amends the original declaration by adding a new part designated as “Special Provisions Governing Concessions in the Queen’s Surf Property.” But, in substance, it is an outright usurpation and exercise of executive power.
The executive power involved here is the power to decide whether to permit or not to permit a concession on park property. That power belongs to the department of parks and recreation, which, under section 6-603 (a) of the charter, has the power to “plan, design, control, maintain and operate all. parks and recreational grounds, facilities and programs of the city.” The power to plan and operate implies the power to decide whether a concession should be permitted, for the allowancé or disallowance of a. concession has a material bearing on the planning and operation of a park.
Because Resolution No. 436 provides for the exercise by the council of executive power which is..inconsistent *9with the principle of separation of powers, we bold that it does not establish the kind of policy which the director of finance is required to follow under section 5-403 (k).
The foregoing holding makes it unnecessary for this court to consider the other questions raised by the council on this appeal.
The council says that the power of decision as to allowance or disallowance of concessions on park property resides with it as the residual depository of all of the powers of the city and county, and not with the department of parks and recreation, because section 5-403 (k) does not expressly reserve to that department the power which the pre-charter board of parks and recreation had under It.L.H. 1955, § 151-15, to “lease or rent or grant, to citizens only, concessions in any park or playground areas or improvements that may be deemed by it to be in the interest of the city and county.”
Needless to say, the basic difficulty with the argument is that it ignores the principle of separation of powers. The power to decide whether to permit or not to permit a concession on any specific city property is not legislative, but executive in nature, to be exercised by the department which has control of the property. Another difficulty is that section 5-403 (k) is not limited in its application to park property, but applies generally to all city and county property. Furthermore, to have reserved to the department of parks and recreation the power of the pre-charter board of parks and recreation would have run counter to the procedure for leasing, renting and awarding concessions on city and county property contemplated in the charter. . The pre-charter board of parks and recreation had not only the power of decision as to allowance or dis-allowance of concessions but also the power to carry out its decisions by having its chairman or acting chairman execute the concession contracts in its own name. R.L.H. *101955, § 151-10. The omission of any reference in section 5-403 (k) to the power of the pre-charter board of parks and recreation only means that the function of executing concession contracts has been transferred to the director of finance, and does not mean that the power to make the basic decisions to permit or not to permit concessions has been denied to the department of parks and recreation.
Richard P. Schulze, Jr. (Moore, Torkildson <6 Schulze of counsel) for plaintiff-appellant.
Paid Devens, Corporation' Counsel (Wayne Luke, Deputy Corporation Counsel, Avith him on the brief), for defendants-appellees.
On December 31, 1969, we issued an order permitting the present operator of the concession on the Queen’s Surf property to continue its operation pending considération of this appeal and until the further order of the court. That order will be terminated at midnight on May 31,1970.
Affirmed.

The charter does not contain any provision which expressly vests the council with any policy-making power. The existence of the power is only implied from the use of the phrase, “pursuant to policies established by the council,” in section 5-403 (k), and also in section 5-403(j). Section 5-403(3) provides that the director of finance shall “dispose of movable property not needed by any agency of the city pursuant to policies established by the council.”

 The history of section 5-403 (k) shows that the policy-making power is not a part of the legislative power vested in the council. An early draft of the provision, which later became section 5-403(k), provided that the director of finance shall “Award aU concessions which may be *7authorized on City property except property controlled by the Board of Water Supply, subject to the requirements that may be imposed by ordinance.” The final draft substituted the phrase “pursuant to policies established by the council” for the phrase “subject to the requirements that may be imposed by ordinance.” Under the charter, the council exercises its legislative power by ordinance. Section 3-201 provides: “Every legislative act of the council shall be by ordinance. Non-legislative acts of the council may be by resolution and except as otherwise provided, no resolution shall have force or effect as law.” The final draft of section 5-403(k), which dispensed with the requirement of ordinance, made policy-making a non-legislative act which may be exercised by a resolution. Although the policy-making power is thus non-legislative, we think that it should be given meaning and effect by making any policy established thereunder binding upon the director of finance, provided it comes- within the meaning of that word as defined in this opinion.