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minutes 12-04-99Page 26 of 39
<br />RAY: By the way, we should have the head of the Police Commission at our meeting Wednesday.
<br />SANTANGELO: What I think we’re going to hear from them, in having talked to a few of the Commissioners, they seem to
<br />be very frustrated with the ineptness, with the lack of, you know, just no teeth in it at all. One of the things, and I haven’t
<br />really been in favor, or at least, understood a Safety Commission, but one thing I’d like to see with Commissions, and maybe
<br />the Safety Commission answers that, and does pull it together, that if I see what’s wrong with the Police Commission as I’m
<br />hearing it from their Commissioners, is they may hire and fire this police chief, but they have absolutely no way of
<br />ascertaining whether the chief is doing the job or not. A Safety Commission could be tasked with hiring and firing of the
<br />Police, Fire and Civil Defense, because that is safety, with a performance based contract. Then you have to have certain
<br />evaluations because, right now, once that Police Captain is appointed, it appears that the Commission has absolutely no way
<br />of dealing with that.
<br />RAY: Wait a minute. You’re mixing things up here. It’s one thing to have jurisdiction over the Chief. You’re not talking
<br />about the Commission having jurisdiction over the -
<br />SANTANGELO: Right, just the Chief. Just the Chief. The Fire Chief, the Civil -
<br />RAY: But they do now.
<br />SANTANGELO: No they don’t. If you hear from them, you’ll find that they have in theory, but there’s no practicality to that
<br />at all. And so I’m looking at something that -
<br />HERKES: They don’t have a performance based contract? They’re hiring somebody without a performance based contract?
<br />SANTANGELO: Apparently they have no way of getting rid of them.
<br />HERKES: Is that in the Charter, that they can’t have a contract and a performance based contract with the Police Chief?
<br />SANTANGELO: I don’t know.
<br />HERKES: I don’t think it is. I think, once again, they’re asking us to solve a problem that they haven’t been able to solve.
<br />SANTANGELO: When you talk about a Safety Commission, and it deals with the Chiefs, I’d like to see it be able to hire
<br />good people, maintain that they are good people, and get rid of them when they’re not. That’s what I propose.
<br />RAY: How about, just for the sake of discussion, throwing a Fire Commission on the table. If we’re not in favor, or if the
<br />Public Safety Commission doesn’t seem like a good idea, would we want to entertain the idea of a Fire Commission, or is it
<br />worth discussing that separately?
<br />MARTIN: I think it should be discussed, in that some reports came back from individuals of the professional ranking within
<br />the department, saying yes, we’d like to at least be considered to have one, so again, it comes down to the public beliefs. We
<br />put it on the Charter, we put out to vote, and they’re going to decide. Now, if these people can ho’omalimali enough people
<br />to pass it, fine, if they can, but, I think we should entertain it. Now, it could be worked into this Master Safety Committee if
<br />that would suffice everybody, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen.
<br />RAY: I guess the question is if we were to pursue the idea of a Public Safety Commission, and for whatever reason, decided
<br />we weren’t in favor of that, would we still want to look at a Fire Commission? In the County Council, when I was there, we
<br />dealt with this on a couple of different occasions, and there’s very strong sentiment in support of a Fire Commission, not only
<br />among the rank and file, but among the general public. And when I say strong, I mean there was a lot of expression in favor
<br />of it. I’m not saying everybody has thought about it, and is in favor of it, or whatever, but there was a lot of expression in
<br />support of it.
<br />MARTIN: So, you’re looking for a motion or something right now?
<br />RAY: No, no. I’m just throwing this out. Sue.
<br />IRVINE: I was just wondering what kind of support. The only thing I’ve heard about this is what we got from the Hawaii
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