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minutes 03-25-00Page 31 of 34
<br />Department Heads should have that standing.
<br />With the Impeachment situation, I mentioned earlier that I think the number of signatures should be something around 1%. If
<br />it’s a district person that needs to be impeached, per somebody’s belief, then it should be 1% of the registered voters in the
<br />district. I don’t think that any district office should be subjected to harassment from outside their district. I just don’t think
<br />that’s fair. We could just make chaos out of all of our district offices by having impeachment filed if I didn’t like something
<br />Dominic did over in his district. I don’t think that’s right.
<br />I’ve already talked about the Commissions being one for each Council district.
<br />Number 19, the Cost-of-Government Commission. This may, or may not, need to be here, in my opinion. I think we need a
<br />separate Auditing Department. And if we have such a department which we desperately need, this Cost-of-Government
<br />Commission could be feeding information into the Auditing Department. But even if we didn’t have a Cost-of-Government
<br />Commission, we desperately need an Audit Department to track what is going on and where this money is going. We are a
<br />small county. We have a lot of demand on our resources, and we need to make sure that our money is being used efficiently. I
<br />would also like to have a way that the Council members could forcibly, I don’t mean physically, but by vote, get money out
<br />of the Mayor’s hands that he’s holding up for things that have been appropriated and ready to go, but the Mayor is punishing
<br />a particular district because he doesn’t like their Council member, by sitting on the money and withholding it. I think that is
<br />such a malfeasance of duty on the part of the Mayor that I think when something like that happens, that we need to have a
<br />way to have the Council be able to vote to extract that money from the Mayor’s pocket, if you will, and put it where it needs
<br />to be to do the job that it’s supposed to do, which is to help the citizens of this county, the taxpayers of the county.
<br />The other thing, and I don’t know if you can deal with this. This is in view of the Police situation, the lawsuit that was filed
<br />and County justifiably lost. I know there’s an indemnification clause that says that we have to provide counsel for people
<br />who are operating in the capacity of government functions, and I think that’s reasonable. What I don’t like is the fact that
<br />they go to trial, and they’re proven to have criminal intent, and criminal actions, and they’re convicted, and then when the
<br />civil or the punitive trial comes up, then the County has to legally either provide the representation or pay for it. It seems to
<br />me that we should have something changed that says that if you’ve been convicted of a criminal act, you’re going to pay for
<br />the civil trial yourself, and any penalties assigned to that. The County should not be responsible beyond the initial trial for the
<br />criminal actions, and beyond that, it seems to me, that the criminal should be paying for the rest of it. And I don’t know how
<br />to do that, but it’s something that I’d like to see changed. Thank you.
<br />HERKES: John, I have a quick comment.
<br />RAY: You had a comment?
<br />HERKES: Yes, I did. EMS is a State and it’s mentioned under the Fire Commission. We put it under there. Also, I was
<br />pushing very hard for a Department of Public Safety, so that we could not have these little fiefdoms that people seem to want
<br />to create, with the Police, the Fire, the Civil Defense, even building inspectors, Detention, Animal Control, EMS, and
<br />Industrial Safety under a Department of Public Safety. That didn’t fly, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.
<br />FORD: Good for you.
<br />HERKES: It all will go under the Managing Director, and I’ll start working on the Managing Director the minute he or she
<br />gets appointed.
<br />FORD: Thank you.
<br />RAY: You need to talk to your Councilman about that. Just one comment in regard to the Mayor releasing funds. I think
<br />you’ve got to realize that the County Council folks grossly over-appropriate money. If the Mayor spent all the money that the
<br />County Council appropriated, then we’d be bankrupt by ten times over. So, I think you need to look to the reality of what
<br />kind of money, or how irresponsibly Councilman, just out of the sky, appropriate money for this or that, or whatever, and the
<br />total sum is grossly beyond the County budget. So that’s a completely distorted picture. In other words, the game they play in
<br />the Council is, gee, I’ll have a swimming pool here, and a gym here, and roads here, and this and that, and whatever, and the
<br />total sum is just way beyond the County’s capabilities. That’s just something to keep in mind.
<br />FORD: I understand what you’re saying. I even agree with what you’re saying. We have a situation in this county where we
<br />have inappropriate actions on both sides. However, as we all know, the West side of this island has taken hit after hit after hit.
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