2000-04-29 Charter Commission Minutes

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Transcript of Meeting of April 29, 2000Page 13 of 64 would like that manager to be appointed by an independent, nonpartisan committee of professionals who might submit three names of three candidates to the County Council, and then they might vote. And then the County Council might be able to remove that person with at least, say, a two-thirds majority of the vote. The question of the at-large delegation has been adequately discussed and I agree with, what I think, you’ve all heard on that. Let me say that to take a unicameral system and further load it, does not make it a bicameral system. So, again, I agree that if you want a bicameral system, that’s fine. But it’s not the same as a stacked unicameral system. I think that’s basically what I had to say. Thank you very much. RAY: Thank you. Sue. IRVINE: Could I just make one comment? Several people have talked about us lowering standards for our appointed Department Heads, and that’s absolutely not what we had in mind when we were trying to say we wanted managerial expertise rather than the engineering, which I think John addressed. But I just wanted to make it real clear that we thought we were helping things become more professional rather than less. We do not have, according to what we understand, the ability to incorporate cities in our County. The State has to allow us that power. As far as the County Manager situation, we looked into that at great, great length and a county of this size and this unwieldiness does not, apparently, lend itself well to a County Manager form of government. BLANN: I think I would agree and that’s why I’d like to see the cities incorporate because that’s the way you’ll get responsive government. On the other point, I mentioned that I hadn’t done a national survey, but I noticed that Bill Gates is the head of Microsoft and Andy Grove heads Intel and they both got the professional qualifications for the businesses they’re running. KUROZAWA: Can I comment on that? Just to let you know, actually, that Bill Gates did not graduate from college. I was going to make a quick comment because we’ve heard for weeks about getting this certificate, being a registered engineer, and being a physician, I can knock doctors. Let me give you a quick example. If they’re board certified, doesn’t mean that they’re a good physician, and that was the issue with the engineer. Just because they have a certificate doesn’t mean they’re a competent engineer. So, just keep that in mind, and I think what Sue was saying is true – it was more a business manager issue and I think the argument of saying that they have a paper in hand would make them a better manager, or better engineer, isn’t totally true. BLANN: Your brain surgeon may not be board certified but wouldn’t you like him to have a degree from Medical School? PRANKE: Mr. Ray, could you summarize what Mr. Pavao said at the Hilo meeting? A lot of people didn’t hear him. I think I was the only one there. You were there. Mr. Pavao was talking about this and he said that most of the job that he was is administrative, not that he doesn’t have to know about the water system. My father-in-law put in the water system in our subdivision and Milton came to him for advice when they had a recent problem out there with the well. I think that’s where these folks are going on this. I understand that we don’t want to get people that are less competent, but I really have to side with them on this. It doesn’t mean that we couldn’t get a board certified person. It’s just that if such a person was not the best person to administer this, it might be. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 04-29-00.html7/1/2011