Michael Levine The Garden Island LIHU‘E — If the Charter Review Commission decides to continue work on the county manager proposal, it will need the help and cooperation of new members along the way. The seven-person board lost three of
Michael Levine
The Garden Island
LIHU‘E — If the Charter Review Commission decides to continue work on the county manager proposal, it will need the help and cooperation of new members along the way.
The seven-person board lost three of its members to resignations earlier this year, and after four meetings with just enough members to scrape together a quorum, the commission could get an influx of new blood in the form of three new appointees next month.
The Kaua‘i County Council has scheduled a special meeting for 8:30 a.m. today to interview appointees Jan TenBruggencate, Charles Patrick Stack and Mary Lou Barela.
TenBruggencate, a retired Honolulu Advertiser writer who covered Kaua‘i politics from 1971 to 2006 and current communications consultant who counts Safeway among his clients, was part of a three-member expert panel, convened by the commission’s Special Committee on County Governance last month, that downplayed the need for a switch to a county manager system.
He attended the commission’s final 2009 meeting on Monday, but sat in the gallery in Council Chambers at the Historic County Building and did not testify during public comment periods for recommendations made by the committee about the manager proposal.
Afterwards, he said he had first been scheduled to moderate the panel in November and only joined to give a presentation when it was decided a Kaua‘i voice should be included. He said he was only approached to serve as a volunteer following that meeting.
“I have long been interested in the structure of county government and I look forward to sitting down with the other commissioners and trying to find ways to make the county government function more smoothly,” TenBruggencate said Tuesday.
Stack is a 15-year Kaua‘i resident who has served as executive director for Habitat for Humanity and for the last 10 years has been a mediator for the 5th Circuit Court through Kaua‘i Economic Opportunity.
He also runs a company, Kaua‘i Arbitration and Mediation, that has allowed him to work with Commission Chair Sherman Shiraishi, an attorney who encouraged Stack to join.
“I thought it was time for me to expand my donation to my community by trying to do more,” Stack said Tuesday.
Asked if he had been following the commission’s work in recent months, Stack said, “I’m well aware of what’s out there. I’ve listened, I’ve considered, but I’m far from pro or con on either side. … Because of my history as a mediator, I’m perfectly suited because I’m neutral.”
An attempt to reach Barela, a Lihu‘e resident, Tuesday afternoon was unsuccessful.
Commissioners Mattie Yoshioka and Jonathan Chun resigned in August and September, respectively, amid ethical concerns raised by the county Board of Ethics’ review of Charter Section 20.02D that bars county officials from appearing before other county agencies on behalf of private interests. Carol Ann Davis-Briant cited frustration with the commission’s slow progress on the county manager proposal in her September resignation letter.
Barela and TenBruggencate would serve full three-year terms set to expire Dec. 31, 2012, while Stack would fill the remainder of Yoshioka’s term, which ends Dec. 31, 2010.
The three are among 19 appointees for 11 different agencies. They are the only three scheduled to be interviewed today, but reappointments to various other boards could join them in being confirmed via resolution later in the regular council meeting, set to start at 9:30 a.m.
