2000-03-18 Charter Commission Minutes

Home

minutes 03-18-00Page 22 of 27 that but I did anyway. It’s not a big secret but it’s just atrocious the way this thing works, and that, to me, looks like politics at its worst. And my friends on the Police Department are just livid right now because they’re getting such a bad rap because the politically appointed people are doing that to them. There’s guys up there working their behinds off and doing a great job, but they’re getting kicked in the butt because of some of the politics. Okay, that’s my feeling is the politics. I’m going to skip that Mandatory Review Program. Now here we have another conflict. Here’s the Reapportionment Committee who reapportions the County Council, and they work under the County Council. Now, I realize they’re appointed by the Mayor, but again, they’re appointed by the Mayor with the approval of the Council, every ten years. And there’s some question. Since 1991 was the reapportionment year and they were supposed to be appointed by March 1st of that year, this should be the year they’re reappointed, because it says every ten years and this is the tenth year. That’s a minor thing. That Commission should also be appointed by the Council. Now I think that combining the Reapportionment Commission and the Charter Review Commission, and having a running Charter Review Commission would be a good thing to do. In other words, each Council member should appoint somebody to the Charter Review/Reapportionment Commission, which would work all the time. Now, you don’t have to have them stay in a long time. I don’t think a lot of people are going to. Okay? But, when the first Charter was done, if you go back and look at the records, every two years - every year, as a matter of fact, they had new members come on and old members go off. It was a rotating kind of thing. And to have each Council member appoint somebody to that standing committee, then if citizens want, like I’m always complaining about something in here, I would go to the Charter Review Commission, try to make my point to them, and if they said okay, the Council should vote on this, and they put it to the Council, then you’d have a provision, I would think, that if the Charter Review Commission thinks it’s a good thing, the Council would not have to have a super majority to put it on the ballot, but only a simple majority. That’s only one vote, but it makes a lot of difference when you’re talking about nine members. Now, you talked a little bit before about the Council being able to put things on the ballot, but only with a super majority, only with six out of nine members voting for it, and that still makes it a little difficult. And there are just clerical errors in here. You know, just typos that should be fixed. IRVINE: I think they’re going to get fixed. PRANKE: Okay, good. There are some in there. Okay, that was that. Now, page 28, 13-4(c). I went before the Council the other day. The way Boards and Commissions are appointed right now is the people who are appointed are appointed by the Mayor. They go before the Council at a committee level, and then they, theoretically, go before the Council one more time to be appointed. Then there’s another step. They have to be sworn in, and we’ve never seen where they’re sworn in, and I assume Rudy Legaspi swears them in down in his office. But we ran into something here because the Charter talks about ‘appointed by the Mayor’. Now if a person were appointed, as soon as the Mayor accepts them and sends their name, if that becomes an appointment, then that person is an officer of the County right then because of the way the language is for Boards and Commissions. It talks about who is an officer and who’s not. Now, we got into some confusion, and I tend to agree with the Council, that these folks are not appointed by the Mayor. They are nominated by the Mayor. But the language in there is confusing and (a) it should be fixed, but (b) everybody who comes before the County Council, they should be required to come twice, once at the committee level, and once before the full Council because those are the only two times that the public gets to put questions to them. And we don’t do it directly. We talk to the Council, and then if the Council chooses, they ask them the questions. Those are the only two times. Then that person should be sworn in, if they’re accepted by the Council, before the County Council. And the reason is – This is a letter from Mr. Billy Friel, January 31, 1995, and he tenders his resignation effective February 28, 1995. He resigns. But he stayed on and he kept voting. We have a record of him being at the June meeting of the Police Commission. So, even though he resigned, he stayed on. Now when does a person resign? When are they actually a member? The Charter says that the Mayor is the only one that can ask to have the Council remove somebody, so I think the Council is the final arbiter. And the Council should swear these people in, and if somebody resigns, the Mayor should immediately send that resignation to the Council, and if they accept it, then the person is resigned so we know when they’re on or not on the Boards and committees anymore. It’s a confusing thing, and this isn’t the only time that this happened. Ms. Leithead-Todd, I think, resigned and when we tried to get a copy of her resignation letter, we were told by Mr. Legaspi, well, that’s up to the Mayor. Well, it’s not up to the Mayor. I would think that there should be a procedure where he has to send that to the Council for them to rescind that. Okay, I’m sorry, I’m going on here but I want to go through the summary of your proposed changes. Now, the Police Commission and the Reapportionment Commission both have nine members, and it’s said that they are appointed. BRILLHANTE: Excuse me. PRANKE: If you need to give your testimony, I’ll break mine. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 03-18-00.html7/1/2011