ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ

Lost in the shuffle of the Honolulu City Council shake-up were the combination of two committees into one and slight tweaks to the titles and purviews of two others — all moves that shift power over key issues to new Chair Ernie Martin‘s leadership team.

The changes handed down last week were Martin’s first actions as presiding officer of the city’s legislative branch. They offer a glimpse of how the council will treat the related matters of zoning, planning and transit-oriented development (TOD) — as well as oversight over the embattled Department of Community Services that Martin briefly ran before joining the council.

(See a , including the four that were dissolved June 30.)

As he replaced Nestor Garcia as council chair, Martin tapped Ann Kobayashi to run the Budget Committee. But because Garcia declined a committee chairmanship — he told Civil Beat Wednesday that he actually turned down two different posts — a seat was left empty. Rather than move other bodies around, Martin decided to combine the Planning Committee, formerly under Kobayashi’s purview, with the Zoning Committee, chaired by new council Vice Chair Ikaika Anderson.

But the issues under Anderson’s control are even more expansive.

The “Transportation and Transit Planning Committee” chaired by Breene Harimoto lost the second half of its name, and is now known only as the “Transportation Committee.” Transit planning issues will now fall under the scope of the Planning and Zoning Committee — meaning it will handle issues formerly distributed to three different panels.

“I think (one) of the big things you’re going to see coming up is special zoning classification for TOD. Given that that’s in the works and that’s going to take a lot of discussion as well as public testimony, I think it would be more appropriate in that particular committee because it’s more sensitive,” Martin told Civil Beat Wednesday. “I just felt that it would be probably a more workable committee to discuss those matters.”

The other organizational change involves the Parks and Human Services Committee, which was dissolved at the end of June and replaced by the Parks and Cultural Affairs Committee. Martin told Civil Beat that Committee Chair Tom Berg had expressed interest in the Royal Hawaiian Band and the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts and now has time to get up to speed on those issues before next year’s budget work.

But the words “Human Services” being dropped from the name means Berg will likely be unable to pursue a line of questioning he started last month.

On June 21, Berg’s committee agenda included a vague discussion-only item. “Review of recent activities in Department of Community Services programs,” said, offering no further explanation.

As the committee approached that agenda item, Kobayashi told colleagues she’d have to leave at noon. Eventually she did depart, leaving the committee without a quorum. After consulting with legal counsel, Berg told a small smattering of attendees that the committee could not even hold discussion without three voting members, and the meeting broke up. He said the conversation would have to wait.

What was Berg referring to with that agenda item? What discussion was to have taken place?

“Misuse of funds,” Berg told Civil Beat Wednesday, matter-of-factly. He hoped to learn more about the millions of dollars of federal grants the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says the city’s Department of Community Services (DCS) might need to return because it was misused by nonprofit ORI Anuenue Hale.

With Berg’s committee technically disbanded and re-created under a new name, oversight over DCS will fall to another committee — the Budget Committee, according to Martin.

“(The decision) was primarily based on my own experience in having worked with Council member Kobayashi when she was budget chair and I was in the Department of Community Services,” he said. “The matters that have been coming before the council from that particular department have been only two things: intergovernmental agreements and then acceptance of grant funds, and those are really budget-related matters. So that’s why I thought it was more efficient to consolidate that.”

Kobayashi said it makes sense to have it under her purview because the department deals primarily with grants and federal money that eventually become part of the budget.

Kobayashi said she hasn’t had any conversations with Martin about protecting DCS.

“He’s trying to make as few changes as possible, but trying to make whatever changes he does make efficient,” she said.

Of course, the name changes are only that — name changes. Committee titles don’t come with further explication from the chair, and there are no formal definitions in the memo he distributed to his colleagues. It’s not uncommon for a new council or new chair to create new committee titles.

But the changes are an indication of how Martin envisions the division of labor, and that’s important because ultimately he’s the one who will execute that vision. One of the many powers of the council chair — in addition to designing the agenda and writing the committee rosters — is deciding to which committee a particular bill, resolution or communication should be referred.

Berg said he didn’t feel he was “nixed out” as a result of his attempt to delve into the ORI troubles — but did say that he’d send a memo to the Budget Committee asking that it allow the discussion to happen because he wants to get answers straight from DCS.