 Aloha and welcome to Talk Story with John Whitehead. Boy, do we have an interesting show for you tonight. For the past year and a half, maybe two years, I have been serving as a member of the Honolulu City Charter Commission. And we were able to put together 20 questions that will affect the charter of the city and county of Honolulu for you to vote on in the upcoming November election. And here's the good news or the exciting news I have with me this afternoon, the vice chairman of the Charter Commission, Mr. Kevin Mulligan. And he is here to help answer questions and present the various items that we're gonna be discussing. So welcome, Kevin. Thank you. Welcome to be here. Yeah, see, and look, this is what the Charter Commission did today, which is Thursday, September 22nd. There was a notice in the newspaper. And what it did is it listed all 20 items that are up for discussion. And as well as the questions themselves laid out in a way that you can take into the polling booth. That's it. So what I recommend you do, folks, is just take it off your newspaper, here it is. But meanwhile, Kevin, we are going to, we have very short period of time and we have to discuss 20 questions, 20 questions. Give me a little bit about what you were shooting for with these as a member of the Charter Commission. Well, I think what we tried to do is think about how we could improve city government and looking towards the future in terms of challenges and that we're gonna face, not only in the near future, but 10, 20 years and beyond. And that was a very important part of what we tried to do is really look to the future and not just respond to pressing issues in the present, but really look to the future. Well, to the future and how we could make things better. And there were 11, 13 members. 13 members. Very good cross-section. So if we're gonna get through this, we need to get started. So, oh, by the way, here, take a look at that. There were 154 proposals that we reviewed. We got down to 20 that we have up for the general election on November 8th. And this is a process that occurs every 10 years with the city and county. So let's have the first question. Okay, the next slide, please. Okay, the first Charter Amendment deals with the Police Commission. And what we tried to do here is increase accountability and transparency over how the Police Department is administered and give the Police Commission the authority to suspend or dismiss the Chief. Right now, that's rather difficult. And this makes it easier. And it also makes it required that the Chief of Police be required to submit a written explanation if they disagree with the finding of the Police Commission right now. That's not a requirement. It is being done, but we're making it a requirement in the Charter. Okay, great. So this is an amendment for accountability. The second Charter Amendment has to do, we're gonna switch off. So this is my turn, Kevin. The second Charter Amendment allows the Ethics Commission to set the salaries of the Executive Director and the Staff Attorneys. Now, this sounds like it may be a pretty routine, something that maybe I've been already there, but it isn't. And as a result, there is some of the appearance that by controlling the salaries, the Ethics Commission would not be as independent as it should be. Number three. Okay, should the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney control its budget after it's approved by the city council? Basically what this does is give the prosecuting attorney who is an elected official control over its budget once the city council passes it. In other words, the executive branch or the mayor can't withhold funds once the city council approves the budget. And again, this is the way of making one of the Watch Dogs agencies of the city more independent of any outside influence. Not that any may exist now. Number four has to do with rapid transit. Actually, this is your thing, but what this does essentially is that it forms a, it removes the operational side of the rapid transit from heart, from the current agency that's responsible for building the system and transfers it back into the Department of Transportation. A very, very important part of this amendment was to make sure that there is a coordinated balance between the fares and the operations for the rapid transit system, for the bus and for hand events. So I hope that people pay close attention to this. Number five, this is really an attempt to increase the supply of affordable housing by changing the criteria where persons would be eligible for this. It's currently at 50% or less of the median household income or we're proposing raising it to 60%. And also changing the provision that the housing remains affordable in perpetuity and changing it to at least 60 years. And we're hoping that that will provide more incentive for developers to create affordable housing which we all know is in short supply. That's great. And so our next amendment that we have coming up on amendment number six or question number six is that we want our departments to prepare plans. As Kevin said earlier, this is about the future. So really we would like to have the city departments plan out future infrastructure plans. I think there would be functional plans or other types of plans like that. Okay, charter amendment number seven, this actually addresses the issue of climate change which is an increasingly important issue. And again, an indication of looking to the future. We feel that it's a good idea that the city actually create an office of climate change to address the issues that come about because our climate is changing. We're an island community and we need to be prepared for sea level rise and sea level intrusion and other issues that are related to the warming of the planet. Absolutely, and one of the great things about this amendment Kevin was the fact that so many young people testified in favor of it. So many people from the University of Hawaii. It was really, I think one of the exciting things that we have in here. And then number, question number eight, charter amendment eight is, should a new department of land management be responsible? What this means is that right now land management decisions in the city and county of Honolulu pretty much spread over a number of departments. So it's actually hard to deal with, hard to keep control of. And this hopefully if this amendment passes, we'll be able to centralize and coordinate all of that and to make sure that the people's voice heard in this process of this new department will have to comply with all environmental laws. And more than that, it would have to be, its work would be ultimately approved by the city council. Okay, charter amendment number nine is an interesting proposal. This attempts to address a concern related to the Honolulu Zoo, which has recently lost its accreditation. The accrediting agency had recommended that there be a dedicated source of funds. And what this charter amendment proposes is that one half of 1% of the estimated annual real property taxes be used to help the zoo operate. This is not an open ended amendment. It's predicated on the zoo achieving accreditation by 2023. And if it doesn't, then the charter amendment would sunset automatically. Well, one of them, you know, the zoo is kind of a special place because we're dealing here with living things. So without the guaranteed source of funding, people who set accreditation are concerned and as rightfully they should be about whether we're gonna take care of all of the living animals that are there. And then charter amendment number 10 does, what it does is that it gives concurrent powers to the mayor and the city council to establish special funds when they're needed. There was a, over the years, there have been different approaches to doing that, having first of all restricted that only to the mayor and then subsequently only to the city council. It makes no sense because they both have to be involved. And it also allows both the city council and the mayor again to amend the executive budget to make it current as needs change. And that is an important part of the flexibility needed to meet the governments of today and the future. Charter amendment number 11 deals with the Clean Water Natural Lands Funds and basically it establishes an advisory council that's appointed by the mayor and the council and it establishes a process for these funds to be used. This is not currently in the charter and there were questions and problems about actually accessing projects using these funds. And hopefully as a result of this charter amendment those funds will be able to be used more readily. Again, this is another one of those amendments that got a tremendous amount of community support. Now Charter amendment 12 is something that I think, again, adds to the efficiency of government because what it does is that it requires and commissions of the city are with the exception of the border water supply and the Honolulu authority for rapid transit heart that except for those two, all the other boards and commissions need to be periodically reviewed, evaluated to see whether or not they should be retained or repealed or maybe modified. So this is a way of keeping our government current to its needs, to the needs of its people, not on its needs. I'm sorry about that. Charter amendment number 13 and this deals with the grants and aid fund. This is one of the proposals you worked on governor. And what we're trying to do here is make the grant and aid fund be the sole source. There's a commission that reviews these grant and aid requests and the objective here is to make it the sole source for city funded grants to federally tax exempt nonprofit organizations that provide services to the disadvantaged. And this is, I guess, to provide more transparency, accountability and uniformity in how these grants and aids are actually granted. Right. And it also is good for the people who are applying because then there would be one clear process that you would need to do this. Amendment number 14 or question number 14 actually is just a way of bringing things updating the election process when there is a vacancy for the mayor, prosecutor or council members. Now, what this is about is that in order to make sure that our service people and others who are far away in Afghanistan or Iraq that they have enough time to participate in an election. So this just moves the deadline from 60 to 120 days. At this point in time, you know, we're doing pretty well. We're going to have a chance to talk about this more in a minute and we want to make sure that you all come back because here's your chance to learn about what's going to be on the ballot regarding the city charter in November. Hi, I'm Keeley Eakina, president of the Grassroot Institute. I'd love you to join us every week, Mondays at two o'clock p.m. for Ehana Kako. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government and society. See you Mondays on Ehana Kako at two o'clock p.m. Until then, I'm Keeley Eakina. Aloha. Hi, I'm Stacey Hayashi with the Think Tech Hawaii show Stacey to the Rescue, highlighting some of Hawaii's issues. You can catch it at Think Tech Hawaii on Mondays at 11 a.m. Aloha, see you then. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahee. And today I am revealing myself as a member of the Honolulu City and County Charter Commission and giving you a little bit about what you have a preview of what you have to vote on in the upcoming November election. And with me, I have the Vice Chairman of the Charter Commission himself and we are in the process of going through all of the amendments. Now, if you need, if you wanna call in, our number is 415-871-2474. And we will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. So now we are on Charter Amendment question number 15. Okay, this basically addresses the term limits for the prosecuting attorney mayor and city council and we're extending the terms for the mayor and the councils from two to three. Presently the prosecuting attorney does not have a term limit. I think basically we were looking for consistency and not so much turnover. I know for myself I was interested more in the council and providing the kind of legislative oversight that takes time to develop, but it also applies to those other offices as well. Well, you're coming, we're gonna take a few minutes to talk about this particular amendment if you don't mind because the knee jerk reaction, the knee jerk reaction from unfortunately, a great number of people is, you know, the rascals shouldn't be there. Which is kind of a bogus in the sense that why did we elect them in the first place? But in any event, that's all of the reaction. Yet on the other hand, if you have somebody that's doing a good job, then really my point of view, and actually I have to confess, I'm one of the people on the commission that would have abolished all term limits, not just extended. And the reason being that when you have a good person in there, you know, why not keep them? And if they're not doing the job, then just do what voters are supposed to do, which is kick them out of office, vote for somebody else, you know. Because one of the consequences of the current term limits is the fact that everybody changes almost at the same time. And you start all over again. And there's really- You're losing institutional memory, you're losing experience. And I think from the legislative standpoint, if there are term limits, I think that there's an imbalance of power that shifts to the executive. Exactly, and that's why I think if there are going to be term limits at all, it ought to be on the executive. I agree. Not on the legislative branch. I agree completely. Okay, what do we got next? All right, Charter Amendment 16, which is, oh, this is a great one. And you know, a lot of these things don't sound tremendously interesting like the term limits, but they are very important. And right now, what happens is that there's one department that is responsible for doing the design and planning of construction projects. And the thing about that is that that responsibility runs from huge projects to tiny projects. And what it made more sense if, for example, the parks department actually was responsible for planning the little parks that are necessary. And so as a matter of just good efficiency in government again, this amendment would make it possible to do that, to make sure that smaller projects are handled directly by the departments that are responsible for them. Okay, this is, Charter Amendment 17 is a kind of a simple one, but apparently the mayor currently is obligated to sign a large number of documents within city government. And this has become onerous. And so what this does is it provides for the delegation of the signing of documents primarily to the managing director and the deputy managing director and to department heads only with respect to those issues or items that are specific to that department. So again, this is an efficiency type of amendment. Can you imagine back in, there was a day in the city in County of Honolulu when the mayor would be signing every document was not that onerous, but it's getting pretty bad. When I was governor, I mean, I used to tell people you can tell how long somebody was in office. As governor or as mayor, by watching their signature become more and more illegible. Because there are so many documents that you have to, fortunately for us at the state level when I was in office, that was that requirement was on the statute by statute. So we didn't have to amend the state constitution. Unfortunately, with the city in County it's in the charter. So what do we got next? Oh, this is another efficiency proposal and dealing with the fire commission, which is what the fire commission is supposed to do is help the fire department by giving as much community input as necessary. And the people felt that they would be much better if we had a broader representation. So this would take care of that. And it was also an opportunity to update whatever duties and functions the fire chief was in charge of. Okay, this deals with the reapportionment and removing the requirement that they be no more than five of the city council reapportionment commissions, nine members beef in the same political party. And if I recall correctly at the elections in the city are nonpartisan. So this really doesn't have any relevance since it's they're nonpartisan. Yeah, it's a nonpartisan election. So this makes sure this would be one way just making it consistent. Right. The last charter amendment 20 is just is the what we're calling what we call the housekeeping amendment. And it is basically an amendment that will confirm current, just confirm the charter to what current practices are actually happening. Make sure that we conform to the legal requirements that the city has to deal with. In other words, these are all things that don't change policy, but are required. And so it's our opportunity to clean up the books, so to speak. And so all of us have an opportunity to vote on these charter amendments, learn more about them for the upcoming election. And we got a few minutes to talk about where people can go and actually see some of this information. Now, first of all, we have a brochure that is being prepared. It's got all the questions here. It's got the explanations. It's got a much more detailed explanation than Kevin and I could do in our short period of time. And as I understand Kevin, each every household on Oahu will get a copy of that. That's correct. Yes. And it provides not only a summary of the proposed amendment, but what the current situation is and what would actually happen if the charter amendment is adopted by the voters. And we have been extremely careful to make sure that it's very objectively placed out there. And so, and don't forget, you've got this two-page, what do you call these things? Spadia. Spadia. This is a spadia. I mean, I have known a lot about government when I, before I was appointed to the Charter Commission, but now I know about Spadia's, which is my new knowledge. And so this is a chance for people to take advantage of it. And what's the website? The website is honoluluchartercommission.org. Honoluluchartercommission.org, you can go to that site and see, again, all of this information, any kind of explanation. And I should also say as the Charter Commission will be publishing some of this in the various ethnic newspapers, right? That's correct. And we hope to run some public service announcements. And we're going to go out to various neighborhood boards and community organizations that request speakers from the Charter Commission to do exactly what we've done here. Yeah, so if anybody out there wants to hear the vice chairman of the commission, his name is Kevin Mulling, he's right here. And he is, if he's available, more than willing to come out and talk to you about what this is all about. Now, I know that this upcoming election in November is, you know, we're all looking at the Donald Trump and Hillary and all of this stuff. And I know that many of you are out there campaigning for your favorite statesman, I'll call them, or stateswoman, but don't forget that these Charter Amendments are very, very important. They're very important. I think you know from just from the range of what we discussed. Starting with the police commission, which you had a lot to do with, you know? And others that other people contributed that will affect the future of city government for a long time. Exactly. And as you mentioned earlier, this opportunity only comes about once every 10 years. Charter Amendments can be put on by the council or the mayor for that matter in non Charter Commission for many years, but you probably only have maybe a few one or two Charter Amendments. But it's in this particular window that people have an opportunity to really make broad changes and important changes to the Charter, which is the city's governing document. So we want to encourage you. We want to encourage you to learn more about these amendments, and obviously both on November in this upcoming November election. So once again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us on Talk Story with John Wahee. And thank you to my special guest, Kevin Mulligan, the vice chairman of the city and county of Honolulu Charter Commission. Thank you, Kevin.