Michael Levine The Garden Island LIHU‘E — A trio of first-time appointees to the county Charter Review Commission were interviewed and confirmed by the Kaua‘i County Council Wednesday. Mary Lou Barela, Jan TenBruggencate and Charles Patrick Stack are expected to
Michael Levine
The Garden Island
LIHU‘E — A trio of first-time appointees to the county Charter Review Commission were interviewed and confirmed by the Kaua‘i County Council Wednesday.
Mary Lou Barela, Jan TenBruggencate and Charles Patrick Stack are expected to be in attendance at the commission’s first 2010 meeting, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 25, and will help ensure that the body maintains a quorum during a time of transition.
Council Vice Chair Jay Furfaro said there was a “sense of urgency” to get the three appointees confirmed quickly if the board is to get anything on the ballot in 2010, and council members thanked all three for volunteering their time and energy for a commission that sees its fair share of controversy.
First-term Councilman Derek Kawakami, who served on the Charter Review Commission before resigning to make a run for the council, told the three new members they were about to start a “thankless job” and called them “courageous” for taking such an assignment.
Barela, a 35-year Kaua‘i resident and long-time Hale ‘Opio executive director, said her role as an accreditation peer reviewer for nonprofit agencies nationwide forces her to travel out-of-state four to six times per year but is flexible enough that she plans to be able to attend meetings and contribute to discussions.
Council Chair Bill “Kaipo” Asing said Barela did “tremendous” work during her 30 years with Hale ‘Opio, and Councilman Tim Bynum said he was “thrilled” to see her name on the list of appointees.
TenBruggencate, a retired Honolulu Advertiser writer who covered Kaua‘i politics from 1971 to 2006, said he was deeply educated in the County Charter by its principle architect, former County Attorney Morris Shinsato, and while the issues before the commission are of public interest, he has not yet formed an opinion one way or the other.
TenBruggencate 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, but said Wednesday that if he had been asked to take a particular position on the issue as a prerequisite for his appointment, he would have refused to serve.
Stack is a former New York Stock Exchange operative and 15-year Kaua‘i resident who served as executive director for Habitat for Humanity, which counts Furfaro among its board members.
“We got through some stormy time by having somebody pretty steady on the switch,” Furfaro said of Stack’s leadership
Stack described the County Charter as a “living, active document, not an ideology” that needs to be attended to.
Three CRC members resigned in recent months, and a fourth announced this month she would not be accepting her re-appointment, leaving just three existing members heading into the new year.
One of those members, 2009 Chair Sherman Shiraishi, testified before the appointees were interviewed Wednesday morning that he was in favor of all three and held them in the “highest regard” personally.
“I believe that these three nominees would be great for the Charter Review Commission,” he said.
Decisions on the three were made later in the meeting. A communication from the mayor listing 19 appointees to 11 different agencies was received for the record, and action on 12 first-time appointees and four re-appointments was deferred until after the council has a chance to interview all of them, County Clerk Peter Nakamura said Thursday.
Barela and TenBruggencate will serve full three-year terms set to expire Dec. 31, 2012, while Stack will fill the remainder of a term ending Dec. 31, 2010.
Board and Commission appointments
Agency Appointee Term ends
Board of Appeals Dennis Aquino Dec. 31, 2011
Board of Appeals Gerald Nakasone Dec. 31, 2012
Board of Ethics Warren Perry Dec. 31, 2012
Board of Ethics Brad Nagano Dec. 31, 2012
Board of Review Lisa Wilson Dec. 31, 2010
Board of Review Russell Kyono Dec. 31, 2011
Board of Water Supply Roy Asao Oyama# Dec. 31, 2012
Charter Review Commission Mary Lou Barela* Dec. 31, 2012
Charter Review Commission Jan TenBruggencate* Dec. 31, 2012
Charter Review Commission Charles Patrick Stack* Dec. 31, 2012
Civil Service Commission Roy Morita Dec. 31, 2012
Cost Control Commission Lawrence Chaffin Jr. Dec. 31, 2010
Cost Control Commission Dirk Apao Dec. 31, 2012
Cost Control Commission Russell Wong Dec. 31, 2012
Liquor Control Commission Gerald Matsunaga# Dec. 31, 2012
Planning Commission Camilla Matsumoto# Dec. 31, 2012
Police Commission Rowena Tachibana# Dec. 31, 2012
Salary Commission Charles King Dec. 31, 2011
Salary Commission Sheri Kunioka-Volz Dec. 31, 2010
# Re-appointment to second term
* Confirmed at Dec. 16 meeting
Source: Communication C2009-393, sent Dec. 4 from the mayor requesting County Council consideration and confirmation.
• Michael Levine, assistant news editor, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or mlevine@kauaipubco.com.
