2000-01-15 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 01-15-00Page 8 of 59 headed? HERKES: How does Chris feel about that? Do you need a vote, Chris? Would you feel more comfortable? YUEN: No, I think it’s all right at this stage. I think that people are interested, and you can always vote. RAY: I’d rather not vote today. It’s just, kind of, caught me off guard. I’m not sure just where we’re heading. I’d like to see it shape up a little bit. HERKES: I think rather than mentioning managed competition or privatization, which are buzz words, we’d like to look at partnerships that will make this work; public and private partnerships. HIGASHI: Again, I think we’re getting into managing the operation itself. The concept of the Charter is to have broad language in there which allow responsible people to develop programs. YUEN: I would say that you don’t want the Charter to be an obstacle toward how things are implemented. If you leave it open in the Charter, then whatever is legal under whatever changes might be made in the next few years, then can be put into place. If you put that you’re supposed to emphasize a certain form, and that’s not where the State legislation goes in the future, then you’ve stuck yourself into a corner again. It’s for the people that put it into effect to determine what is going to be the most efficient at the time; maybe all private operators; maybe they decide they want to go municipal; but one way or the other, this has got to last for a while. RAY: John. SANTANGELO: Chris, so say this department’s put in; we create that; it’s on the ballot; it’s passed, as ordained by ordinance. Then, that would be the Executive and Legislative that would bang that out, and it would be a public process, and Council members would all get - YUEN: Right, because there has to be some Council authorization when positions are moved back and forth, anyway. That’s when that would happen, as to exactly what bodies, when. Because when you talk about reorganizations, we’re not talking here about something that would result in the County hiring 40 new people. We’re talking about something that moves a line of people from the Department of Public Works into another organization, and there’s going to be ordinances involved, and there’s going to be funding to pay for all these people going over there. So, there has to be cooperation in the future. Even if we mandated it in the Charter, that there has to be this split, then actually, which people go over and which lines in the department, that’s still going to be worked out later with the Council and the Mayor. SANTANGELO: Thank you. RAY: Isn’t that kind of the approach we’re taking with this Division of Permitting? In other words, making a change in the Charter to enable the Administration to come forth with a proposal, and then they work it out? YUEN: That’s right. To take all the obstacles in the Charter away from reorganizing within the County Government so that the Council and the Mayor, who are, actually every day in the building, trying to get the job done, are never going to be stuck by something in the Charter. RAY: Sue. IRVINE: I thought there was some move to reconsider that business about permitting. Was that not true? We voted to accept the proposal by the Planning Department to move it. Did we change our mind on that later? RAY: Yes. IRVINE: Okay. RAY: We decided, rather than us mandating, we would remove language so that the Administration could come forth with that proposal and then the same process would take place. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 01-15-00.html7/1/2011