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minutes 12-04-99Page 2 of 39
<br />Communications: In your packets, we have the meeting agenda for this coming meeting next Wednesday, letter from Rudy
<br />Legaspi. Just want to point those out.
<br />Unfinished Business: Let’s just take off with General Review of the Charter, and we’re trying to identify today, and discuss,
<br />major areas of interest and to see what progress we can make in terms of, first, what we want to pursue, and if we do, what
<br />we might need in terms of more information or input to proceed. I think at the top of the list is clearly the Council Manager
<br />form of government, because I think we’ve acknowledged
<br />that if we were to pursue that, it would pretty much be a rewrite of the Charter, and I’m sure affect our thinking in lots of
<br />other areas. So I want to throw that out for discussion and see how far we can proceed on that today. I’ll open the floor to
<br />discussion on Council Manager form of government. Does anybody - first, advocating for, if you’re advocating for and what
<br />information you might need?
<br />HIGASHI: Are we asking if anybody is advocating for County Manager, or a similar position, is that it?
<br />RAY: Yes. Sue.
<br />IRVINE: Hearing no comments, I move that we cease deliberations on changing our County form of government to City
<br />Manager.
<br />RAY: Okay. Marni.
<br />HERKES: There’s a motion on the floor. Is there a second and then we can have a discussion?
<br />HIGASHI: Second.
<br />RAY: Okay, second. Discussion?
<br />HERKES: I didn’t speak because I was organizing my thoughts, and I really think that we need to look at, in this day and
<br />age, managing our County a little bit different. I think we need to look at having a caliber of manager with managerial
<br />qualifications, rather than electoral qualifications. We need to look at people that have skills that are different than the skills
<br />that we’ve relied upon in the past. We’re in a different ball game as far as survival goes here. We’re in a different ball game
<br />as far as a global economy, as far as competing. We’re in to exporting; we’re in to importing; we’re in to E-commerce. We’re
<br />in to visitor industry things that are on a different level. We’re building a $5 million research facility to improve our
<br />agricultural products. There’s a different level of expertise needed, and that’s why I would like to continue the discussion on
<br />County Manager, and see how we could make the process work better. And I’m not criticizing the present process because I
<br />think it’s worked really well, but I think we’ve had some disasters in the past, and we’re perfectly capable of electing one of
<br />those disasters again.
<br />RAY: Gary, you brought up earlier, the underlying issue of a strong mayor versus strong council form of government. I think
<br />we need to decide that. Do we want to move away from the strong mayor form of government?
<br />SANTANGELO: I’d like to make a couple of comments on that. One of them is when I looked at this County/City Manager
<br />versus Mayor, I felt, if anything, we could do is lay more background and, possibly, punt to the next Commission. And the
<br />reason I think that is when I looked at the strong mayor and weak council concept when I was on the Council, of course I
<br />struggled against that, but looking at it administratively, how I run my business, the decisions that have to be made really do
<br />impact services on the island, I don’t have as much problem with the strong mayor concept at this time. The thing that I’m
<br />looking forward to that would be interesting to hear from other Commissioners, is going into this complex world that Marni
<br />has described, and how we’re moving, and the paradigms that are changing so quickly, would it now be possible on this
<br />island, that we would have smaller forms of government? And having the present form of government possibly take that
<br />Managing Director, which has been proposed, and try to strengthen that, but also starting to lay groundwork for what may not
<br />be changed, this City Manager situation, but would we possibly have cities, or is it always going to be a County? Is this
<br />growth and the changes going to incorporate smaller political subdivisions? And that’s something that interests me. It’s not
<br />something that we need to deal with here. So, I, kind of, speak in favor of dropping the City Manager type of thing, look at
<br />how we can do a better job in steps and prepare for the next Commission.
<br />RAY: Marni, I understand your advocacy, and I think we all share that in terms of more professionalism in terms of
<br />management of the County, but what model do you see in terms of this position vis-a-vis the Mayor and the Council? I think
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