County officials grapple with perimeters of vision meetings

CIRA de CASTILLOTGI Staff Writer

LIHU’E — “It’s clear that everyone’s motivation is to accomplish the highest

and best outcome for the county,” said Marilyn Wong, facilitator for a

visioning meeting Tuesday attended by Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, Administrative

Assistant Wallace Rezentes, Sr. and County Council members.

The meetings,

held about once a month and open to the public, are aimed at building

relationships within county leadership with the goal of establishing open lines

of communication and trust, Wong said.

The meetings are held outside of

government offices in an informal setting.

One of the issues discussed

during Tuesday’s meeting related to confusion regarding county lobbyists at the

state Legislature.

Last week council Inter-govermental Relations Chair

Billy Swain and Administrative Assistant Wally Rezentes Sr. were at the state

Capitol lobbying for bills relating to fees to help finance the disposal of

junk cars. Swain said the county almost lost the bills in the confusion of the

lobbying effort, which had not been coordinated in advance.

During the

facilitated discussion, Swain and Rezentes discussed the lack of communication

and established a method to work together in the future.

Councilmember

Bryan Baptiste, who is credited with fostering the idea of the vision meetings,

said the purpose of the meetings is to work on relationships and work on

communication on how to get the job (of running the county) done.

He

stressed that the meetings are open to the public.

Councilmember Gary

Hooser said he saw the value of the meetings, but was concerned that group

discussions follow the published agenda and stay on course.

“I agree that

it’s healthy that we all work together,” Hooser said. “But I think we may have

strayed away from the original intent, so I would like to see us focus on the

kind of discussions we are having now.”

Baptiste said he understands

Hooser’s concerns and will work with him on the agenda.

The purpose of

Tuesday’s meeting, Baptiste said, was to discuss problems the county’s

legislative and administrative bodies have dealing with the visioning process,

and how things can be done “in a new way.”

At times, he said, because of

the informal atmosphere of discussion, “we may quite naturally begin to expand

the discussion and we need to check ourselves.

“At anytime if anyone is

uncomfortable with the meeting they need to say that, at the meeting,” said

Baptiste.

“As partners in leadership,” said Wong, “we need to respectfully

recognize when we are moving away from the agenda and bring that to the

attention of the group.”

Councilman James Tokioka said if any members of

the group have a problem with how the meetings are conducted, “maybe we

shouldn’t do it.”

Baptiste responded that he would like the group to weigh

the benefits of the meetings against any perception that they provide an

opportunity to hold secret discussions.

“I don’t see any determent if we

are fully aware of our responsibilities,” he said.

Council Chair Ron Kochi

said the original goal was to try to improve communications. He pointed out

that the meetings are public record and have summary minutes and that the

minutes are prepared in a timely manner in accordance with the law, for the

public record.

Swain said that the discussions are part of the vision

process because he sees them as the implementation of the vision “To Work

Together.”

“You create the vision and then you work on the next process of

making that vision work, and I think that is what we are doing,” he said.