1999-10-13 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 10-13-99Page 13 of 31 PRANKE: It cannot be elected for more than two consecutive full terms. MARTIN: No. PRANKE: Okay. BALOG: But if you resign, you’re not serving a full term. MARTIN: Thank you. PRANKE: Yes, you’re probably right. Okay, I see what you’re saying. I didn’t think that through, but there should make a small change in there. MARTIN: Thank you, sir. PRANKE: Probably should say ‘shall not be elected consecutively, more than two terms’. Something needs to be done about that because, obviously, that’s a legal technicality. SANTANGELO: Del, just real quick on this Managing Director and the election part of it. One of the things I struggle with on the election part of it, is that in a Council Manager, County Manager, position, what we’re finding is that the emotional part of an election. You know, a lot of times we are very capable of electing people that are not qualified, and more and more, we have, in this day and age, a need to really know what we’re doing on an administrative level, so with a Managing Director, it does place more responsibility, and also that responsibility is encumbered by the public, to elect competent County Council that would then hire this Managing Director, but the idea behind the Managing Director, and I’d like to get just a comment on that, real short, that the idea behind a Managing Director is the ability to have your best shot at a qualified, intelligent, experienced individual to manage that administrative part, the Council still setting the policy. They’re still okaying the budget, but there’s that administrative part of it. Now possibly in a scenario that might come up, the Council Chair may become a non-voting member, except to break a tie, and become that Mayor that satisfies the State Charter and other ceremonial functions, but there’s that whole thing of having ability to have consistently, at least do your best shot, at a good person. Could you comment on that? PRANKE: The only way that I could see that that would be appropriate in a democratic society is if the people have a simple recall of that Managing Director. A simple recall. Not this junk they’re always pulling where people go out and get petitions and then there’s always some technicality why the petition doesn’t work. If enough people don’t want somebody in, they ought to have a simple way of recalling that person, and if there’s not, then you divorce the people in a democratic society, from the person that will be using their money and running their government. And don’t forget, all you got to do is read the first Article of this. We are all the government. It’s not the people who are sitting up there at the County Building. We are the government. SANTANGELO: And I guess, just as a point of information, from the information that we’ve received on counties that are peer oriented, that a huge preponderance of them operate under a managing type situation, and have successfully for a long time. PRANKE: I lived in a county that did that, and there was still the same kinds of political problems and it didn’t solve anything. SANTANGELO: Thank you. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 10-13-99.html7/1/2011