1999-10-13 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 10-13-99Page 6 of 31 want to take that away from the Executive Branch of government, but I don’t believe they should take the place of the normal appropriation process. And I think you’ve heard from Mr. Childs with respect to strengthening the authority, responsibility, and if you would call it, the power of the Council. I think he called it ‘having a stronger Council’, and I believe that this very small change would play a very important role. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have regarding any of my statements. Thank you. RAY: Ms. Herkes. HERKES: Three questions on all three points. I’ll take the last one first. Council Manager. If we proposed a Council Manager operation, would you still limit the amount of money that could be transferred in the departments? You’d still suggest that with the Council Manager? TYLER: Yes. Well, I wasn’t talking about a Council Manager. I was talking about a County Manager. HERKES: We have changed the wording here. TYLER: Well, I’m sorry. I wasn’t privy to that, but we know it in - HERKES: You know it as County Manager. We have Managing Director. There’s a ton of words for it, but if you had that form of government, would you still want to see that limit of transfer? TYLER: Yes I would because there’s a straight line accountability between the people, the elected officials and the hired County Manager/Council Manager, whatever you want to call it, CEO really. It’s a CEO. HERKES: Or a COO. TYLER: And therefore, that person would have a direct relationship with the Council to be able to say, hey, look, we’ve got this situation; better change this appropriation. That’s the way we normally do it. HERKES: On one of the other questions, when you’ve been talking to people from other counties, have you talked to anybody from Louisville, Kentucky? Did I say it right? IRVINE: It is actually Lexington. HERKES: Because that’s the latest favorite, but I’m not saying there won’t be another favorite next week. TYLER: I don’t recall having talked with someone there. I certainly have talked with David Crockett of Chattanooga, Tennessee. You may know him. He’s a very interesting guy, but I’m sorry, I don’t recall. HERKES: Well, it’s close, but I don’t know if it’s the same form. Okay. We have something like, examples from maybe 20 operations, and they’re all different, so I don’t know what we’ll do, but we’re not into that yet. We’re into the smaller things and the easier things. On your information that you have on the Fire Commission, would you recommend one? TYLER: Let me answer that by saying that one of my colleagues, Ms. Leithead-Todd, was talking, at one point, about having a combination Public Safety Commission. That possibly has some merit, file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 10-13-99.html7/1/2011