2000-05-10 Charter Commission Minutes

Home

Transcript of Meeting of May 10, 2000Page 20 of 62 RAY: Any other discussion on eliminating amendment number 13 in regard to the Special Counsel? This was brought forth by Corporation Counsel. SANTANGELO: Mr. Chair, is it appropriate for Mr. Yuen to refresh our memory on that for some of the group, maybe, because I see it a little different? YUEN: Presently the Charter requires that if the County is going to hire any attorneys other than Corp Counsel, that the hiring of that attorney specifically be authorized by the County Council. So Corp Counsel has to go to County Council to request that other attorneys be hired. There are situations where Corporation Counsel is definitely prohibited from representing officers and employees of the County because of ethical requirements of attorneys, and so they simply cannot represent those officers or employees. However, the County is required to provide counsel for them. There are situations where Police Officers are legally required to be represented by counsel paid for by the County, for example. What the amendment would do, if it were enacted, the Corp Counsel, in those situations where they have a conflict of interest, they would not have to specifically go to the County Council for the authorization as long as there had been a blanket appropriation of money for that purpose. They could use that appropriation and hire the attorney on their own authority without going to the Council. SANTANGELO: Thank you. And that’s where the conflict comes in with me. Former Councilman Ray and myself both sat on Councils that went into Executive Session. We dealt with things like this, I think it was in Executive Session, but it seems so confusing. It’s a matter of a technical thing, and if we have room going out to the people, I would support this being on because it does have merit. But I have seen most people misunderstand this and it is difficult to explain. RAY: Mr. Yuen, to the best of your knowledge, has this ever been a problem in the past? YUEN: Well, I don’t know if it’s been a problem. I don’t think that the Council has refused to hire Special Counsel where Corp Counsel had a conflict of interest. I don’t know how much debate and how much difficulty there was in getting the Council to that point, but I don’t think the Council actually refused to do it. RAY: That was my understanding from Mr. Wurdeman, that he thought this was a problem that might arise in the future, but it hadn’t occurred in the past, if that makes any difference. SANTANGELO: But just one more question. The reason that I did support this is we had something similar come up to the Council, as you may remember, Mr. Ray, in which we’ve never had pay raises disputed either, and we would have pay raises negotiated through binding arbitration even come before the Council and, as an elected body, we had to vote on that, which meant that we had the right to vote yes or no. And in one case we did eventually vote no which caused a huge problem. I’m totally willing to vote it down but my only problem with it was that should that arise, you need to supply Counsel for these individuals, you need to hire them, and you could get into a situation where we did. Now, if it’s never been a problem – But that was where I struggled with this. IRVINE: John, the present wording allows the County Council to hire counsel. We’re just saying that the Corp Council may employ Special Counsel. SANTANGELO: Just to explain. There’s situations in which Corp Counsel can’t defend, but the County needs to defend that person. And they need to hire that attorney. Okay? IRVINE: Right. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 05-10-00.html7/1/2011