The Hawaii County Charter is the County's equivalent of a Constitution. A Commission has been appointed to review the Charter. The next meeting of the Commission is scheduled for this Friday June 5th. If you want to submit written comments to the Commission on any of the June 5 agenda items you are required to do so by noon tomorrow June 4th (unless you will be present at Friday's meeting to present in person testimony). There is a link to the Charter Commission in the right hand column of this website. My concern is that it is now June 3rd and the minutes of the last meeting, which was held on May 8th, are still not available at the Commission's on-line website. Interested members of the public are therefore not provided a reasonable opportunity to read the minutes of the previous meeting in advance of submitting written public testimony to the Commission. Today I submitted testimony to the Commission asking that the minutes of Commission meetings be available at least 5 days in advance of the next schedule meeting. Here is a copy of my public testimony:

To: Hawaii County Charter Commission
From: Margaret Wille, 65-1316 Lihipali Road Kamuela, Hi 96743
Date: June 3, 2009
Re: Public Testimony for June 5, 2009 Meeting

This testimony is relevant to all items on the agenda:

Chairman Haitsuka and members of the Hawaii County Charter Commission. I am interested in following the discussions and recommendations of the Charter Commission.

I am disturbed that it is now June 3, and the minutes of the May 8th Commission meeting are not yet available on line to the public. The next meeting of the Commission is June 5th, and therefore according to your procedures public comments are required to be submitted to the Commission by June 4th at 12 noon. Interested members of the public therefore do not have the opportunity to read the minutes of the previous meeting before commenting on the upcoming agenda.

From now on, please make a point of having the minutes available on line at least 5 days in advance of the next scheduled meeting – if not sooner.

If not already possible, please also make available on-line the communications to be discussed by the Commission.

Thank you for considering my request. Margaret Wille

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[NOTE: THERE IS A LINK TO THE COUNTY CHARTER COMMISSION IN THE RIGHT HAND COLUMN OF THIS WEBSITE.