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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013_0520_Minutes Open_APPROVED COUNTY OF KAUAI Minutes of Meeting OPEN SESSION Approved as circulated 7/22/13 Board/Committee: CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION Meeting Date May 20, 2013 Location Mo'ikeha Building, Meeting Room 2A 2B Start of Meeting: 4:00 p.m. End of Meeting: 4:55 p.m. Present Chair Jan TenBruggencate; Vice-Chair Ed Justus. Members: James Nishida (4:06 p.m.); Patrick Stack; Carol Suzawa Also: Deputy County Attorney Jennifer Winn; Boards & Commissions Office Staff: Support Clerk Barbara Davis; Administrator Paula Morikami; Administrative Aide Teresa Tamura and Curtis Shiramizu of Shiramizu Nakamura Loo, Attorneys at Law Excused Members: Mary Lou Barela; Joel Guy Absent SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION Call To Order Chair TenBruggencate called the meeting to order at 4:00 pm with 4 Commissioners present. Chair TenBruggencate forwarded the fact sheet from the League of Women Voters of Kaua'i's on Districting to the Permitted Interaction Group for their study. Approval of Open Session Minutes of April 22, 2013 Mr. Justus moved to approve the minutes as Minutes circulated. Mr. Stack seconded the motion. Motion carried 4:0 Business CRC 2013-03 Recommendations from legal analyst Curtis Shiramizu on identifying and proposing non-substantive corrections and revisions to Articles V through X of the Charter. (On-going) Mr. Justus asked if the Commission had determined whether County, Council, and Mayor, etc., were to be capitalized or not. Mr. Shiramizu said it should be consistent but he did not recall whether there was a decision to capitalize such words or not. His notes show that council members should be two words and not one word, however, Mr. Shiramizu suggested it be kept the same as the original Charter, which is one word. The capitalization of those words seems to have appeared in the recent year's amendments. Mr. Stack referred to Skrunk and Cummings, a writer's Charter Review Commission Open Session May 20, 2013 Page 2 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION guide, which suggests when the president is referred to in the third person it is lower case; when a certain name is attached or it is obvious a particular president is being referred to then it is capitalized. Chair TenBruggencate pointed out that the Charter never refers to a particular person; it is whoever is currently in office. Mr. Nishida entered the meeting at 4:06 p.m. Mr. Justus moved to leave the titles of persons and offices in lower case in accordance with the original Charter. Mr. Nishida seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Section 7.05 B Insert "mayor"before the word staff to read:Appoint the necessary members of the mayor's staff and other employees and officers whose appointments are not provided herein. This differentiates the appointment of administrative staff versus the council staff. Section 7.05 H For ease of reading, swap "messages" and "information" and change "is"to "are": Present information or messages to the council which in the mayor's opinion are necessary or expedient. Section 7.06 Following discussion on whether to insert "Amended 2006" after each sub-section, Attorney Winn suggested it was easier to make the notation at the end of each section because sub-sections can be amended versus the whole section. Mr. Shiramizu agreed. Section 7.08 A(1) Should the managing director be referred to as the mayor's principal administrative aide since that was the former title for the managing director. Mr. Stack said in the corporate structure, people's responsibilities are delineated by"executive" or"administrative" and the title managing director is clearly an executive position while administrative aide suggests something else altogether. Attorney Winn said this might be Charter Review Commission Open Session May 20, 2013 Page 3 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION more of a substantive issue rather than just a grammatical change. Mr. Stack agreed saying this has to do with the authority of the managing director. In a corporate structure the managing director, as a line function, has the ability to hire and fire. An administrative aide does not usually have that same authority in the corporate world. Being of the nature of a substantive change, Chair TenBruggencate said he would entertain this in the future if the Commission would like to further define the rules of the managing director. Section 7.07 A Mr. Shiramizu explained his difficulty with changing "he succeeded" in the next to last sentence to "he or she succeeded" and asked if it would change the meaning to say"unexpired"term. The Commission members were in agreement with "unexpired"term. Section 8.04 In the last sentence, it would clarify the vagueness of the office if the words of county attorney were inserted which would then read: The county attorney shall perform all other services incident to the office of county attorney as may be required by law. Article IXA To make the roman numeral for this article header easier to read, the Commission agreed to add a dash between the IX and the A: IX-A but not add a dash to the individual section numbers. Mr. Shiramizu was asked to make the changes to the working document as discussed. Ms. Morikami asked for clarification of the wording in Article V, Section 5.01 B (2) if a comma should be added in the first sentence following"Take charge of'. In reviewing a copy of the original Charter, the comma is present and the section correctly reads, with exception of addressing the gender neutral term, as follows: (2) Take charge of safely keep and dispose of all books, papers and records which may properly be Charter Review Commission Open Session May 20, 2013 Page 4 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION filed in[his] the county clerk's office and keep in separate files all ordinances, resolutions and regulations and cumulative indices of the same, or exact copies thereof enacted or adopted by the council. Mr. Shiramizu exited the meeting. CRC 2013-03 (cont'd) a. Island of Hawai'i's 2010 purpose for making Housekeeping Amendments to the Charter and the amended Charter Language Mr. Stack said he asked for the information on Hawaii Island's 2010 amendments as a comparative analysis to simply double check this Commission's own work. Ms. Morikami read the ballot wording that Hawaii Island used in 2010 to correct grammatical errors to their Charter. When this Commission drafts the language for the 2014 ballot, it will also include wording to correct gender neutral issues. b. Discussion on how to formulate Kaua'i's presentation to educate the public on proposed changes to the Charter Chair TenBruggencate asked to defer this discussion to the next meeting. Mr. Stack moved to defer item b. to the next meeting. Mr. Justus seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 CRC 2013-09 Update from the County Attorney on the appellate court case regarding the Kaua'i County Charter, Article VII, Section 7.05 as it relates to the powers, duties and functions of the mayor's office and Article XI, Section 11.04 as it relates to the chief of police. Attorney Winn stated that the Police Commission filed a notice of appeal with the Appellate Court on January 8, 2013. The Police Commission then filed its jurisdictional statement on March 21, 2013. Originally they were set to schedule their opening brief on April 22nd but they requested an extension from the Appellate Court. That brief is now due Wednesday, Charter Review Commission Open Session May 20, 2013 Page 5 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION May 22, 2013. After the Police Commission files its opening brief the appellee, who is the Mayor, has 40 days after the opening brief is filed to file his answering brief. The Mayor can get a 30-day extension by calling the court. The Police Commission has 14 days after the answering brief is filed to file a reply brief or a statement to say they are not going to file a reply. The Appellate Court can ask for argument if they want it but it is not necessary and it is not done in every case. Chair TenBruggencate asked if the Appellate Court had a deadline within which it needs to act once it has all the paperwork in place. Attorney Winn said no. Chair TenBruggencate, adding up the various timelines, said that the earliest anything would happen would be September. Chair TenBruggencate suggested deferring this item for 2 months and ask for an update at that time. CRC 2013-10 Discuss how to initiate community discussion on proposed charter changes that are necessary or desired Chair TenBruggencate suggested combining this item with CRC 2013-03 b. for discussion at a later date but asked the Commissioners if anyone had an idea of how to take the Charter amendments into the public for discussion. Mr. Justus moved to defer this item. Mr. Nishida seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Chair TenBruggencate reopened agenda item CRC 2013-09 for the purpose of discussion by Mr. Stack. Mr. Stack said the discussion begins with a question. The Charter Review Commission has no authority to regulate the day-to-day operations of different departments and that being the case, by what authority is the CRC talking about the Mayor's actions in his "day-to-day" operations of hiring and firing people. Charter Review Commission Open Session May 20, 2013 Page 6 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION Attorney Winn said the CRC has the authority to talk about changes to the Charter and if the CRC is using situations they have seen on why or why not a Charter amendment would be desirable or necessary,they can discuss it. But no,the CRC cannot tell the Mayor he can or cannot do something. In general the Charter itself is supposed to be a broad document versus ordinances which get into the details. Mr. Stack said the CRC is not involved in an event that took place but involved in policy for the future as it relates to the authority of a particular individual within the structure. Attorney Winn said that sounded right. Announcements Next Meeting: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 4:00 pm in the Mo'ikeha Building, Meeting Room 2A/B The Office of Boards and Commissions will no longer be providing bottled water to our members starting July Pt, 2013. This is one of our sustainability goals. Staff will provide cold water using a filtered system (i.e. Brita), so please bring in your water bottle that was provided to you. Chair TenBruggencate announced he would be out of town on the day of the next scheduled meeting. Mr. Justus said he would also probably be out of town on that day as well. Chair TenBruggencate asked Staff to try to set another date but if there is a quorum for June 24, Mr. Stack is designated as Chairman Emeritus to chair the meeting. Mr. Justus stated he also would not be available on June 17 and further suggested postponing the PIG report until the July meeting. Chair TenBruggencate asked Staff to try to change the meeting to the 17th and if Mr. Shiramizu is not available on that date then cancel the meeting. Adjournment Chair TenBruggencate adjourned the meeting at 4:55 p.m. Charter Review Commission Open Session May 20, 2013 Page 7 Submitted by: Reviewed and Approved by: Barbara Davis, Support Clerk Jan TenBruggencate, Chair ( ) Approved as is. ( ) Approved with amendments. See minutes of meeting.