|
minutes 12-04-99Page 16 of 39
<br />RAY: Right.
<br />HIGASHI: Not so much the job description as his area of responsibilities.
<br />IRVINE: Or his area of expertise.
<br />MARTIN: Is that what you wanted, Steve? Or what did you have in mind?
<br />BESS: I think there are two things. One is his qualifications, and to put that in the Charter, and to provide for a high degree of
<br />professionalism, and then two is his scope of authority. And, I’m not sure that handing it over to the attorney at this time - I
<br />mean, is everybody clear about what kind of scope of authority we want? Are we pretty much leaving that up to Chris? I
<br />think we ought to discuss that.
<br />RAY: Okay.
<br />MARTIN: Good point.
<br />KUROZAWA: Just a point of information, actually. We talked earlier about trying to get rid of the Mayor and have a County
<br />Manager, but is there any system where they actually have a Mayor and a County Council, but actually have a true
<br />professional Managing Director, like a CEO, for the County still? Is that still a possible option for the County here?
<br />RAY: I think it is, and whether that’s the choice of the Mayor versus something that’s strictly dictated in the Charter is what
<br />we’re, kind of, exploring. But, I think more that the model is the Mayor’s the CEO, and the Managing Director is the COO,
<br />the Chief Operating Officer, or something, of the County, that runs the day to day business. But I think where you get into the
<br />conflict is under the true Council Manager form of government. That person hires the department heads and deputies versus
<br />the Mayor, and that’s where you get into who do they really work for, or answer to, and that’s the sticky part.
<br />HIGASHI: So that’s why in the strong Mayor type of government, the Mayor is the overall administrator, yes?
<br />RAY: Right.
<br />HIGASHI: So, he still will be running the operation.
<br />HERKES: The difference, to me, would be that the Mayor - excuse me for jumping in, but I need to clarify this. If the
<br />Managing Director were the COO, and he hired the department heads, the departments heads and the COO would not be
<br />subject to the elections. That’s what I need clarification on. Would they be subject to an election cycle? Would we be hiring a
<br />person who could function until we didn’t want them to function, until they got fired or until they retired, like a business?
<br />HIGASHI: Then you go back to the County Manager. It alludes to the same thing.
<br />MARTIN: Then how do you separate the powers at that point, in hiring the individual?
<br />RAY: I think, with the strong Mayor, we’re talking about the Mayor’s going to be hiring the Managing Director, so it is very
<br />much subject to election cycles.
<br />HERKES: I would like to see it taken out of the election cycle, but that’s a different story. I’d like to discuss what it would
<br />look like.
<br />RAY: I don’t have any detailed answers on this. Steve, do you have any more?
<br />BESS: I don’t have detailed answers but I think we should really discuss this. Maybe we table the discuss and we all think
<br />about just how this Managing Director would interface with the Mayor, and how much power we’re going to give him, and to
<br />what extent are we willing to depart from this strong Mayor executive form of government, for the purposes of putting in
<br />professionalism. I, personally, just have not done my homework to be able to say which way I want to go, but I do feel very
<br />strongly, that by voting down the County Manager, I did so on the basis that we could build in professionalism through the
<br />Managing Director’s Office, and not just encourage the Mayor to get more professional, but put some teeth in this.
<br />file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 12-04-99.html7/1/2011
<br />
<br />
|