David Rae, chairman of the Honolulu City Charter Commission, has looked at government from just about every angle, which is not a bad credential for someone contemplating ways of restructuring it.

The commission is in the throes of paring down some 180 proposed amendments to the charter. On Monday, the panel will discuss the recommendations by one of its sub-groups on suggested ways of changing the governance of the rail project, among myriad other topics.

Unlike amendments to the state Constitution, Rae said, in which questions left blank count as a “no” vote, charter amendments can pass with a simple majority of votes actually entered.

So it’s doubly important to put the most serious and carefully considered changes on the ballot. And there’s much more to do in the winnowing process before final proposals are finalized Sept. 1. These are what voters will consider in the general election.

Rae, 68 and single (“My friends are my family,” he said), loves to travel in his retirement. But at the moment, he’s busy not only with the commission but as a board member for the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

“Retired is an odd word,” he said, laughing. “I have found out that retired in my case means not being paid. It doesn’t mean not working.”

Born in Ohio, Rae has had a wide-ranging career and holds three master’s degrees: in clinical psychology (his practice was his first career), public health and urban planning. He has worked as a planner for the city, with City Council committees and on contract work before joining the James Campbell Estate, now James Campbell Co.

He lives in Makakilo, overlooking Kapolei, a development in which he has been actively involved.

“All of my background was leading up to building a new city,” he said. “I mean, how great is that?”

QUESTION: There was a flap over you being part of the commission, having been a lobbyist for Campbell Estate/Campbell Co., saying you’d be conflicted over the rail issue. How do you answer that criticism?

ANSWER: Well, my job was never “lobbyist.” My job was doing entitlements, working with the communities, things like that.

Q: Were you registered as a lobbyist?

A: I did register … and this was with an abundance of caution. I registered with the city, I registered with the state, I registered federally. Because we were touching all those branches with regard to developing Kapolei, making it happen … because I would come and testify, so I figured I should register.

I never lobbied, quite frankly, for rail itself. What I had always advocated, and what the company had advocated, was transit equity.

Getting people to and from jobs, and to and from where they lived, and all of that. … So it was in that capacity that I advocated for things like rail and roads.

Q: So, in the interest of the current and future residents of Kapolei?

A: Right. Especially the future residents. Kapolei is about the future. …

Q: So you don’t feel you were conflicted?

A: No. … Everyone that appointed us is fully aware of our backgrounds, and what our past is, and appointed us because of what we knew and who we were. (City Ethics Commission Executive Director) Chuck Totto came to the first commission meeting and said, “None of you have conflicts. The nature of this organization and who you are and what you are, no conflict.”…

I had been interviewed previously a few years ago by the Ethics Commission on gifting, specifically … because I was mentioned in one of the cases that they had before them … (former City Councilman) Romy (Cachola).

So I’d been very careful, even though both the Corporation Counsel and Mr. Totto said, “David, you do not have a conflict on this issue.”

When the gifting issue came up before the commission, I recused myself. …

Q: Why would you say the “stop rail” amendment proposals were rejected by the commission?

A: My personal opinion, and what I think the commissioners were saying, is that those proposals that dealt with stopping the project were not ones that the commission wanted to move forward on. The ramifications were so large, it’s really an issue for other bodies.

The ones that we did take up, and are taking up, are the ones that deal with governance, the ones that deal with transparency, the ones that deal with operations of the system, and making sure the public is delivered a vibrant, multimodal system. Because that was always the promise to be kept. …

Q: So, the proposals that are more classically dealing with what’s in the charter.

A: Exactly. The charter is a governance framework, a structure. So we’ve been looking at things that are structural. … The headline of the day was not really a demonstrable input to what we were looking at — except to the fact that it might point to an issue that is of structure, that we might need to look at.

So, cost overruns and things like that are not issues that we’re looking at; we’re looking at structural issues.

Just as we did with police — those were structural issues; it wasn’t the headlines of the day. … We did take up issues regarding the Police Commission, and we did not take up issues that were reacting to headlines; they were structural.

We had discussions with the Police Commission: What would help you make your job more effective? Clear direction that (police commissioners) do have powers to suspend, that we have investigatory powers. Our proposal was to give them subpoena powers, which they did not have before. …

Q: So, what would make things better, all the current eruptions aside?

A: And that’s hard to do. It’s hard for the commission to put aside current eruptions. But it’s been a very conscious thing on our part. …

Q: What’s the total number of amendment submissions?

A: I think we had close to 180.

Q: How does the winnowing process work?

A: I think the first process was, we looked at ones that we were going to defer indefinitely. … They’re the ones that, as (commissioner) John Waihee phrased it, were just a way of doing referendum. There’s a referendum process — we weren’t going to take those up.

Some of those were the ones terminating rail at a certain place, that kind of thing; others were significantly changing the nature of government.

We had ones that got rid of the mayor … and went to a city manager. And we decided very early on that wasn’t for us. … In the time we had, we’re certainly not in a capacity to do something that drastic, and to figure out all the moving parts of doing it.

But secondly, … at least my opinion is that Oahu is not best served by a city manager. It’s got very complex issues.

I’m a proponent of a strong mayor, strong (City) Council. I think a city-island of a million-plus people is served by the friction, if you will, between an executive and a legislative branch.

I believe that it is through that friction process that the public is best served, that the results that come out of that dialogue, of that debate, of those differences. While uncomfortable … I think the best results come from that.

I would personally, as a citizen, be very worried about a legislative (body) and executive that were in lockstep.

Q: So a city manager is more suited to a smaller population? Kind of a corporate running of things?

A: Right … the legislative branch, in those cases, hires the city manager. So you abolish the position of mayor. And I think you’re right, that it is meant for a smaller, more compact community, and may be very effective, in such a case.

But on Oahu, we have massive, bigger issues than we’ve had in the past. Which is one of the reasons I’ve always advocated personally for changing of term limits. For longer — if any.

Because the problems of today are not the problems of 20, 30 years ago. These problems of homelessness, of massive infrastructure projects, those kinds of things, take people a long time to get the learning curve together, to get the organization together. …

We have a representative government. It’s not a direct democracy. People, I believe, have the right to the representative they want. And my personal view is that term limits, especially at the legislative level, abrogate the voters’ responsibility to … get off the couch and go vote. …

Q: The idea of the city manager, it was dispatched early on?

A: It was considered, and we moved on.

There were others like that, that were first analysis. There were ones that wanted to have — and they admitted it — the HECO (Hawaiian Electric Co.)-NextEra (Energy Inc.) merger put on the ballot. Not something we thought appropriate for charter.

There were questions about GMO (genetically modified organisms). Again, other people’s domains — state Department of Health. …

Things that can be done administratively, through the current process, the mayor’s powers, the Council’s powers, we are looking at and will probably use as a screen of things not to put on the ballot.

Q: Do you think people basically misunderstand the charter amendment process? Why are there these proposals that are not germane to the charter?

A: I hear what you’re getting at. Yes, I think that people do not understand charter. … It’s a vitally important document because it is essentially the constitution, the framework of how things happen in the city — soup to nuts, everything. It affects everybody, whether they know it or not.

I’m having this conversation with you to help people know that this is out there, it’s happening, it happens once a decade, and participate, make your views known, give us feedback.