City reorganizing
faces roadblocks

The proposed changes might require the
convening of a City Charter Commission

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Mayor Jeremy Harris and the City Council majority may have to convene a City Charter Commission to reorganize city government.

But there are roadblocks to convening a Charter Commission, including conflicting opinions about whether it can be done this year.

An administration reorganization plan, backed by the Council majority, includes changes that require at least four amendments to the City Charter:

Merging the Planning Department with the Land Utilization Department.

Combining the Budget and Finance departments.

Exempting deputy directors from civil service requirements.

Changing the name of the Office of Information and Complaint to the Office of Customer Services and giving all its employees civil service status.

A Charter change requires the approval of Oahu voters to become law.

To get on the ballot, six of nine Council members must approve the amendment because the Charter requires a two-thirds majority.

So far, neither the amendments nor the reorganization plan has received six votes from the Council.

Harris and five Council members say the alternative way to get the measures to the voters this fall is to call a Charter Commission to decide whether the issues are worthy of the ballot.

"There's no hidden agenda here," City Council Chairman Mufi Hannemann said.

"If we don't get six votes, we're going to go to Plan B."

An opinion from attorneys at the Council's Office of Council Services states, however, that a commission may not be convened.

Supervising attorney Jim Williston wrote that the charter calls for charter commissions to be convened every 10 years with the next one scheduled for "on or before Feb. 1, 2001."

Holding a commission this year, Williston wrote, "ignores the express language setting forth the 10-year interval and makes the interval language superfluous."

Corporation Counsel David Arakawa believes the 10-year provision was intended as a "maximum" time frame only.

There are sticky issues that have been raised about convening a Charter Commission.

For instance, Arakawa and the Office of Council Services believe a commission would render worthless any Council-approved amendments now scheduled to be approved by voters. That's because of another Charter provision that bars the Council from proposing amendments in the two years before a commission is called.

Council Policy Chairman Jon Yoshimura said he doesn't like the idea of three amendments already approved for the ballot by the Council being nullified. Yoshimura said one of the amendments he wants to make sure is on the ballot would require five-year terms for police chiefs.

Council members Steve Holmes and Duke Bainum said they've received an oral opinion from Office of Council Services attorneys that amendments already approved by voters during the 1996 general election may also be in jeopardy under one interpretation of the Charter.

One of the 1996 amendments abolished the Honolulu Public Transit Authority and merged transit operations with the Department of Transportation Services.

Bainum and other minority members have proposed that the reorganization plan instead be studied by a task force that will meet in December and offer recommendations to the Council before next year's budget cycle.