Hawaii County, Hawaii

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Contents

Budget
Meetings
Elected Officials
Administrative Officials
Permits, zoning
Audits
Contracts
Lobbying
Public records
Local taxes
County websites


Hawiii County is one of 5 counties in Hawaii. It is coterminous with the Island of Hawaii. The 2000 Census estimated the county's population at 148,677. The county seat is Hilo. There are no incorporated cities in Hawaii County.

Hawaii County has a mayor-council form of municipal government. Executive authority is vested in the mayor, elected by the voters on a non-partisan basis to a four-year term. Legislative authority is vested in the nine-member County Council, each of whose members represent a district. Members of the County Council are elected on a non-partisan basis to two-year terms. The current Mayor of Hawaiʻi County is Harry Kim.

[edit] Website evaluation

[edit] The good

  • The website provides a listing of scheduled Council and Committee meetings to air on Government Access Television. [1]
  • The website provides a downloadable application for Hawaii County Boards and Commissions positions.[2]
  • The website includes complete expenditure reports for each City Council member. [3]
  • The website includes a good deal of information on negotiated contracts and limited scope performance audits. [4]
  • You can look up any property in the county and find its property tax rates. [5]


[edit] The bad

  • There is no online checkbook register.
  • There is a lot of useful information on this website, but it is hard to navigate. It takes a lot of time and troubleshooting to sift through this website, and this can be discouraging when looking for information. For an example of useful but hard to find information, the link to department audit informations is found at the following link.[6]
  • There is very little information on lobbying.
  • If there is information on open records requests, it is not readily available.
  • The tax information is there, but very hard to find. Here is the link. [7]

[edit] Lobbying

Main article: Hawaii taxpayer-funded lobbying

The county has one registered lobbyist and has spent no money for 2009. [8]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

Working for accountable government now


  1. ↑ Government Access Television Schedule
  2. ↑ Application for Hawaii County Boards and Commissions Open Positions
  3. ↑ City Council Members
  4. ↑ Contracts and Audits
  5. ↑ Property Tax Search
  6. ↑ Audit Information
  7. ↑ County Tax Information
  8. ↑ Hawaii State Ethics Commission - Lobbying expenditure reported by organization

Portions of this article were taken and modified from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under the GNU license

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Counties in Hawaii
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