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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014_0224_Minutes Open_APPROVEDCOUNTY OF KAUAI Minutes of Meeting OPEN SESSION Approved as circulated 3/24/14 Board/Committee: CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION Meeting Date February 24, 2014 Location Mo'ikeha Building, Meeting Room 2A/213 Start of Meeting: 4:02 p.m. End of Meeting: 5:32 p.m. Present Chair James Nishida; Vice -Chair Jan TenBruggencate (in 4:05 p.m.). Members: Joel Guy; Ed Justus; Patrick Stack; Also: Deputy County Attorney Jennifer Winn (out 5:06 p.m.); Boards & Commissions Office Staff. Support Clerk Barbara Davis; Administrative Aide Teresa Tamura and Curtis Shiramizu of Shiramizu Nakamura Loo, Attorneys at Law. Audience Member Bert Lyon Excused Members: Mary Lou Barela; Carol Suzawa Absent SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION Call To Order Chair Nishida called the meeting to order at 4:02 p.m. with 4 Commissioners present Approval of Regularpen Session Minutes of January 27, 2014 Mr. Justus moved to approve the minutes as Minutes circulated. Mr. Guy seconded the motion. Motion carried 4:0 Communication CRC 2014-02 Letter dated 1/27/14 from Councilmember Ka a� Mr. Justus moved to receive the communication. opposition to election districting Mr. Guy seconded the motion. Motion carried 4:0 Business CRC 2013-03 Review of Recommendations in Ramseyer form from legal Mr. TenBruggencate entered the meeting at 4:05 analyst Curtis Shiramizu on identifying and proposing non -substantive p.m. corrections and revisions to the Kauai County Charter for Articles I through XIX (On -going) (Deferred to 2/24/14) Section 1.02. Geographical Limits — Mr. TenBruggencate says the Charter mischaracterizes the geographical limits of Kaua'i, which includes the island of Ka`ula, but does not lie within three miles of Kauai or Niihau. Mr. TenBruggencate felt this was not a substantive change since Ka`ula is included in the State statute and in the Federal census tract as part of Kauai County. Attorney Winn noted she was hesitant to add affirmative language to the Charter and call it non -substantive, but she will try to look into this Charter Review Commission Open Session February 24, 2014 Page 2 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION before the next meeting. Mr. Shiramizu said he was in agreement with Attorney Winn and was unsure if that was a non -substantive change even though it may be accurate. When suggested maybe it should be a Charter Amendment, Mr. TenBruggencate said you run into the possibility that voters on Kauai turn down what is in the State statute. Section 3.04 C — Mr. Justus noted that Fifth Circuit Court is capitalized while Section 8.03 does not capitalize supreme court and yet it is capitalized in 9A.02; Section 9A.03 B capitalizes Attorney General indicating inconsistencies. It was agreed they should all be capitalized including Supreme Court. Section 3.06 — Change Article to article Section 3.13 A — Constitution remains capitalized to show the relationship to the State of Hawaii. Section 3.16 A —LDM (Legislative Drafting Manual) suggests using figures to express percentages. Section 3.6 C — State remains capitalized Section 14.03 F — State and Federal were changed to lower case in regard to their relationship to the word "programs". Section 4.02 F — The numerical listings in this section do not indicate true subsections so they do not need to be itemized. Add comma following bonds in third sentence. Section 7.06 B — Line 11 use lower case for office of the mayor; common practice through the State is to capitalize State Sunshine Law so it remains Charter Review Commission Open Session February 24, 2014 Page 3 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION as written. Section 9A.03 E — Delete comma following before that was inadvertently added. Section 12.02 — No change required. Section 14.02, second paragraph — Leave the original commissioners in the text and delete the added suggestion of commission members. Article XV — Since there is an amendment under consideration for Human Resources, should the proposed changes to correct that grammar be reflected in this Article? Attorney Winn said they face the possibility that the proposed amendment may not pass so the existing Article should reflect only non -substantive changes. Section 17.03 B — Use lower case for state's and county's and delete the possessive for both words in the first part of the sentence and apply the same at the end of the section for county's. Section 19.13 A — No changes required in highlighted section of the working copy of Charter. Section 19.15 C (2) — insert of the prior to the word charter in the fourth sentence. Mr. Shiramizu pointed out there were several commas added to clarify a series of things, which was not reflected in the Commission's working copy since those omissions were caught at a staff meeting on Friday: Sections 11.01 C; 11.05 B; 2.03 A, B, C; 13.03 A, E; 14.05 C, E. The Board accepted the addition of the commas as well as subsequent Charter Review Commission Open Session February 24, 2014 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION recommendations the staff made. Section 15.03 B — delete the comma following director. Section 17.03 A — Delete the comma following financial status Mr. TenBruggencate moved that the Commission accept the changes made to date and thank Mr. Shiramizu for his work and ask that he continue on. Mr. Justus seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 CRC 2014-03 Overview of the findinigs and recommendations of the Special Committee on the 7 District Proposal to the Charter Review Commission, pursuant to Section 92-2.5, Hawaii Revised Statues and Rule 6, Rules of the Kauai County Charter Review Commission for discussion and possible decision -making by the Commission as a whole at its March 24, 2014 meetinjZ Attorney Winn stated that before she departs the meeting she wants to remind the Commission of the purpose as stated in Section 92-2.5 and that deliberation and decision -making cannot occur until the March meeting. Mr. Justus moved to receive the Special Committee's report as distributed. Mr. Stack seconded the motion. Bert Lyon emailed his research to the Commission, which was not received in time to distribute at the meeting, but was subsequently forwarded to the Commissioners. Mr. Lyon explained the overview by the National League of Cities on how district and at -large elections are held in the county, as a whole. Included in his report were the four different districting proposals Maui was considerin, and a report he created on an Excel spreadsheet using the 2010 census and reflecting populations using various districting models. While not discussing the Committee's report on districting, Mr. Justus said he did receive a complaint from a community member who did not Charter Review Commission Open Session February 24, 2014 Page 5 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION understand why the Committee held only 3 community meetings since the proposal was for 7 districts; they felt there should have been 7 meetings. Mr. Justus said he initially expressed that concern when it was decided to take the proposal out to the public. He said there was also concern and confusion of how the meetings were operated and because the Committee asked for a show of hands, the public thought people were actually voting. They stated they were told this would also be on the ballot of which there should not have been any such statements made. The public did not know the purpose of the meeting because there was no clear explanation given of how the Commission got to the point of 7 districts. Mr. Justus pointed out that the Committee report did not include the conceptual map of the 7 districts. Mr. Stack responded to the concern of why there were not 7 meetings noting the Committee members are volunteers and the 3 community meetings held were all within driving distance of the constituents of those 7, 3, or 5 districts; it would have been overkill and a waste of taxpayer money to have held more meetings. It was simply a town meeting to solicit their opinions and testimony on how they feel about districting. At the end of each meeting, Mr. Nishida asked for a straw poll vote, which is not binding on anyone or anything. If people left with questions Mr. Stack said he was sorry, but he did make himself available to the attendees for as long as it took should there have been further questions. Motion carried 5:0 with Mr. Justus adding thanks. Mr. TenBruggencate wanted the record to reflect thanks to the 3 committee members. CRC 2014-04 2013/2014 Trackingof Amendments for consideration of placement on the 2014 ballot Mr. Justus questioned the pending legal reviews noted on the tracker to which Ms. Davis said the reviews were received after the agenda was Charter Review Commission Open Session February 24, 2014 SUBJECT DISCUSSION ACTION posted and will therefore appear on the March agenda. Mr. TenBruggencate stated that JoAnn Yukimura has a ballot amendment which she is planning to take to the County Council, which will address the issue of whether County board members can represent private interest when they meet before other boards. Mr. TenBruggencate moved to receive the Tracking List. Mr. Justus seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 CRC 2014-05 Overview of the 2014 CRC Timeline for Charter Amendments/Election Calendar Mr. TenBruggencate moved to receive the Timeline with thanks. Mr. Justus seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Announcements Chair Nishida asked that the agenda be moved around to allow CRC 2014-03 first on the agenda to accommodate the public. Next Meeting: Monday, March 24, 2014 at 4:00 p.m. Adjournment Mr. Justus moved to adjourn the meeting at 5:32 p.m. Mr. Stack seconded the motion. Motion carried 5:0 Submitted by: Barbara Davis, Support Clerk Reviewed and Approved by: James Nishida, Chair ( ) Approved as circulated. ( ) Approved with amendments. See minutes of meeting.