1999-08-25 Charter Commission Minutes (2)

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minutes 8-25-99Page 33 of 60 out of our department. RAY: Yes, those funds are not appropriated so we’d have to - IRVINE: I guess that was the question of mine earlier too. It says in the Charter that we can decide to throw a Special Election, but does that mean that the County Council has to provide this money or is it up to them? I’m not sure. YUEN: It means that they’re supposed to. On all these things that are in the Charter - Let me give you a more neutral example. The Charter says that you have a Department of Research and Development and you have a Director of Research and Development. That means the Council is supposed to appropriate money for a Director of a Department of Research and Development. If the Council sits there and says, oh, the hell with that, then they vote nine-zip not to appropriate the money for this, or for a Special Election, then you have one of your classic kinds of governmental impasses and somebody winds up running to court to the judge and say, no they have to do this and no they don’t. And then there’s a lot of technicalities involved in forcing the Council to appropriate money, but the best I can answer you is it means that because the Charter Commission has been given the power to determine that a Charter Amendment or a new Charter can be voted on by a Special Election, and obviously it costs money, they are supposed to appropriate money for the purpose, if the Charter Commission so decides. IRVINE: I think aside from talking to the clerks, we need to talk to Finance or the County Council about a time line on getting money if we wanted to throw a Special Election. RAY: Marni. HERKES: What a lead in. That’s wonderful. I’m going to say this because I want it in the minutes because I want this is writing. If we had an election in June, in January we would have to get an appropriation from the Council. In March, with that four months, we would have to have a vendor hired because that’s a procurement process. I mean not hired, but beginning to talk to because that’s the four months. In April, we’d have to write the ballot because that’s 60 days. In May, to train the volunteers and June, to have the elections. So you will all have that in your minutes and we can talk about it with a time line because I think that’s what we need to look at is what is the time line here and maybe we can ask Mr. Konishi to take it to his staff and start to look at that time line and see what we’ve left out, so we can start to talk about where we really are. RAY: Any questions? Thank you, and Al, you wanted to make a comment as a private citizen, as a statement from the public? KONISHI: Yes, and I’m glad it’s after 4:30 so I don’t have to sign out on vacation time. Yes, thank you, Mr. Ray and Members of the Commission. I just want to make a brief but detailed statement. This is as a private citizen and based on my experience as a Deputy Clerk, Clerk, member of the Chambers of Commerce over the years, and a taxpayer. We’ll keep it real brief. First of all, these are just thoughts that I’ve had over the years, working in the elections and observing other counties. First of all, I was going to recommend that the County Election should be nonpartisan. I think this is especially true with the post of Prosecutor. I think that voters tend to be more independent today, and I think I’m typical of most voters. I vote for people of both parties, even though I’ve been a lifelong Democrat. In fact, we have more than two parties represented file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 8-25-99.html7/1/2011