Oahu residents will vote Tuesday on a City Charter amendment aimed at allowing city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle to use public funds to campaign on ballot issues.

“;Basically, this allows me to do my job, which includes trying to make the community safer for victims, and to watch out for their best interests, and not just the best interests of the criminal defendants,”; Carlisle said.

But Honolulu attorney Earle Partington contends the measure is “;very dangerous”; because it will allow the prosecutor to use public money to “;ram more constitutional amendments through his Draconian agenda of taking away our civil liberties.”;

The charter amendment is one of three that have been overshadowed by the high interest in the fourth Honolulu charter amendment proposal on a steel-on-steel rail transit system.

The other two charter amendment proposals deal with providing the city Ethics Commission the authority to fine nonunion city officials and with giving the circuit courts the authority handle impeachment proceedings against elected city officials.

The four questions were overwhelmingly approved by the City Council to be placed on the general election ballot.

Ann Kobayashi, the councilmember who introduced the prosecutor measure, said the proposal gives the city prosecutor the authority to use public funds to educate the public and lobby on ballot issues. She said it is the same authority that the attorney general has under state laws.

The proposal seeks to essentially negate a 2007 Hawaii Supreme Court decision that said Carlisle did not have the authority under the Charter to use taxpayer money to lobby for a 2002 constitutional amendment that makes it easier for prosecutors to send felony cases to trial.

Carlisle, who won an unprecedented fourth four-year term as the prosecutor when no one ran against him this year, said the charter amendment would allow him to use his office's telephones, photocopy machines, stationery and other services to campaign on ballot issues.

Carlisle has been speaking publicly in favor of a proposed constitutional convention on Tuesday's ballot, but said he is allowed to do so because he is not using his office resources.

Partington was a volunteer American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii lawyer who represented the late political commentator Robert Rees in filing the lawsuit against Carlisle that led to the high court's decision.

“;I just don't see where it's the prosecutor's function (in lobbying for ballot questions),”; he said. “;More importantly, it's a waste of money. We don't have money right now.”;

The proposal on the city Ethics Commission fines was introduced by Councilman Charles Djou as part of what he said is his quest to give the city panel the same authority as state and federal ethics commissions. Oahu residents approved a charter amendment in 2006 that gives the city commission the authority to impose fines on the 11 elected city officials: the mayor, nine councilmembers and city prosecutors.

The proposal would expand the panel's authority to impose fines on nonelected city officials, but not city workers in public employee unions, which opposed providing the commission the authority to fine the union employees, Djou said.

Djou said officials covered by the proposal include Cabinet members, department directors and deputies, which still would be a fraction of about 9,000 city employees.

The impeachment proposal would alter the Charter to make it consistent with state law, Councilwoman Barbara Marshall said. She said she had been asked to introduce the measure.

The Charter currently calls for the Hawaii Supreme Court to establish a board of impeachment to decide whether the mayor, any councilmembers or city prosecutor should be removed from office.

Gov. Linda Lingle signed into law this year a measure that gives the Circuit Court the authority to handle impeachment cases. The charter amendment proposal gives circuit courts the jurisdiction to hear those cases.