Kaua`i Public Record

Controversy and Charter

At the root of the controversy swirling around the Police Department is a reality that shows its face regularly in county government; i.e. the failure of county officials to understand how the charter can be a positive force in preventing and resolving such controversies. They try to govern on the basis of emotion and good intentions. They turn to the charter after the damage is done, and then only to look for legal solutions. This is a recipe for confusion and ultimate failure.

There are three levels of authority in the charter: moral authority, intellectual authority, and legal authority. Legal authority is the authority delegated by the sovereign people through the charter to county officials to empower them to carry out their duties. But legal authority is the narrowest of the three, and when governing is reduced to legalisms it becomes mere authoritarianism. Moral and intellectual leadership is more fundamental in a democratic system than the narrow exercise of legal authority.

Two sections in the charter illustrate the point. Section 7.05A empowers the Mayor to see that all administrative activities are conducted honestly, efficiently, and lawfully. Honesty points to moral leadership. Efficiency points to intellectual leadership. Lawfulness refers to leadership with respect to delegated authority.

Section 7.05K empowers the Mayor to participate in the proceedings of all boards and commissions, with voice but no vote. The Mayor's legal authority with respect to the Police Department is severely restricted by state law and the charter. The Police Commission appoints the Chief and oversees the operations of the department. However, 7.05K allows the Mayor to exercise unrestricted moral and intellectual leadership in the department. He is free to sit with the Commission and the Chief in a public forum, not primarily as an authority figure but as an advisor and advocate. (Democratic leadership and transparency go together, just as authoritarianism and secrecy go together.)

However, 7.05K reflects a flaw that is pervasive in the charter. The section does not define the Mayor's responsibilities under 7.05K. The Mayor and his assistant interpret 7.05K as conferring a privilege which they are free to exercise as they choose. As a result, the Police Commission and other boards and commissions regularly meet without benefit of moral and intellectual leadership from the top. When did you last see the Mayor or his assistant sitting and dialoguing with a commission, not as authorities but as leaders? Would it have made a difference in the current situation if they had sat with the Police Commission and the Chief on a regular basis to provide the leadership implied in 7.05K?

Council members generally seem to share the administration's narrow view of the charter as a collection of rules to be invoked after the damage has been done. Do they also fail to see that the breakdown in communication now being attributed to the Chief is not confined to the Police Department? Such breakdowns are a widespread and near-inevitable outcome of the failure to understand and utilize the charter as a positive force in governance. Correcting the situation can only originate with elected officials.

Horace Stoessel

FEAR AND OPPORTUNITY

You may soon have a chance to vote for or against a county manager system, but don't hold your breath. During its 1/23 meeting a majority of Charter Commission members said they would not be comfortable in placing the matter on the ballot even though it might lead to greater efficiency and accountability in government.

Change always wears two faces: fear and opportunity. I favor adopting a county manager system, but only if we embrace it as an opportunity to improve government.

Changing to a county manager system will be a major step, but it wouldn't be earthshaking. It would redefine the mayor's role by transferring administrative responsibility to a professional manager, and it would give the council the power it needs to fulfill its oversight responsibility. About half of local jurisdictions in the country use the system.

What I heard from Charter Commission members is that they fear the change so strongly that they don't want to risk letting the voters decide. I have more confidence in the voters than that.

When I observe a fear that sometimes approaches paranoia in the words and actions of government officials I understand why they oppose the change. Do the voters share their fear? The only way to find out is to place the measure on the ballot.

It would not trouble me if the voters reject a county manager system. It would trouble me if they are denied the opportunity to decide.

POLITICS AND PRINCIPLE

You can’t take the politics out of government, but you can reduce government to nothing but politics. A few years ago a councilman told me that in the real world of Kaua’i government lip service is paid to the charter but all decision-making is political. Now that the political season is heating up, you can see for yourself the truth of the councilman’s remark by observing the political posturing on display in marathon council meetings and in the stream of PR releases from the mayor’s office. When the spin becomes so thin that you can see right through it, do we then have what the Sunshine Law means by transparency in government?

When government is reduced to nothing but politics, what happens to the public interest? What happens to the principles that should guide public policy? They take a back seat to political expediency, coming into play only when they serve the purposes of the politicians.

Of course, in the politician’s mind, his purposes are public policy and are in the public interest. By definition, if there is fault in a given case the fault lies elsewhere. Deflecting and re-directing blame is the first rule of politics. The second rule is to take credit, either legitimately or by the manipulation of the public’s perception of events and what they mean. An informed and vocal public is the only effective countervailing force to this pattern of politics-as-usual--there is no self-correcting mechanism in politics

The ease with which local politicians switch parties is a symptom of the triumph of political expediency over principle. Political parties at their best present the voters with alternative values to choose between, and party affiliation means that a politician is committed to those values. Nowadays political power is the be-all and end-all. Values are subservient to partisan quests for power and the ambitions of electable (they hope) politicians. When values take a back seat, honest debates and political courage also take a back seat.

The reduction of government to nothing but politics has led to a shift. The political battle is now between entrenched powers and the people, not between the competing values of political parties, as was once the case. It remains to be seen if the politicians have overreached in their fight against the Ohana Kauai charter amendment or their attack on OIP. These actions, financed with taxpayer dollars, challenge the will of the sovereign people as expressed respectively in the charter and in state law. Court decisions in these cases will not alter the fact that the political power structure has crossed the Rubicon in its determination to prove that the only power the people have is the power to vote for their favorite politicians.

Less dramatic than the court cases is the campaign by those wielding political power to ensure that the Charter Commission proposes no significant changes in the way power is allocated and exercised or in the way government officials are held (or not held) accountable. The mayor and council chairman praise the work of the Commission and in the same breath tell them and the world that only “tweaks” are necessary to bring the charter up-to-date. They rely on their authority, not fact-based debate, to carry the day.

Public interest in the work of the Commission is greater than at any time in the past, but it is still minimal. Public ignorance, apathy, and blind trust still work in favor of the politicians.

However, the jury is still out on what the Commission will propose and the voters will approve. It is not too late for public-minded citizens to pay attention to the issues now being considered by the Commission. Do we need a county manager system? District elections? A Parks and Recreation Department? Fulltime council members? Spending limits? A permanent Charter Commission? These are just some of the issues on the Commission’s agenda.

In my opinion, the weightiest question facing the Commission is how to make the first major mid-course correction in 35 years in the charter as a whole. There is abundant evidence that a major revision is needed, and the charter itself contemplates the need for a “new charter” at some point. But in the past the public has relied on 50 random amendments as the way to update the charter.

If you want to see a group of citizen volunteers who take their work seriously and who welcome and respect input from their fellow citizens, I recommend that you attend their sessions and/or watch them on Hoike. As matters now stand it will be eight years before you have another realistic opportunity to say how you want local government to work.

Horace Stoessel
P.O. Box 369 , Kapa’a
822-7976

Make Charter Commission Permanent

CHARTER COMMISSION SCHEDULE

I want to say a word about the commission’s schedule. It is clear that you have decided you will not work past the 2006 election. I can understand your decision, and I have no quarrel with it. I served for about a year on the Salary Commission and I know how demanding it can be for anyone who takes commission responsibilities seriously.

What I would like to see is for the commission to take responsibility for your decision. Article 24 gives you a time limit of ten years. Even the convoluted opinion you received from the County Attorney would allow each of you to serve three additional years. So I take exception to statements from commissioners about the time constraints you are working under. Those constraints have not been imposed on you. You have chosen them.

You have already demonstrated in a number of ways how a commission can function more effectively and serve more effectively as a countervailing force in the political structure. I would hate to see you tarnish your record by continuing to imply that you are working under time constraints imposed on you when in fact you have set your own limits.

I would also like to urge you to make it a priority to propose making this commission a permanent commission. Before you finish you will have looked at numerous issues and accumulated a vast amount of information. Under the present system much of your learning will be lost and continuity will be lost. During the next ten years all charter amendments will come out of the Council, with the possible exception of a citizen’s initiative. There is no way the Council will devote the kind of attention and time to the Charter that this commission is devoting. But if this becomes a permanent commission, the next group can build on your work, the next can build on their work, and so on.

In my view, one of the greatest benefits of a permanent commission would be an unbroken process of public education, which is the foundation of democratic processes. It is also worth noting that, even without considering a re-write of the Charter, all commissions have struggled with the question of how many amendments can reasonably be placed on the ballot at one time. A permanent commission would ease that pressure considerably and make the process a more orderly one.