2000-07-12 Charter Commission Minutes

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Charter Commission - Transcript of Meeting of July 12, 2000Page 29 of 45 IRVINE: I felt that we had left it this way and I may not have looked at it quite as closely previously as I am right now. It says ‘demonstrable educational and/or professional experience as required of the office’. Now, we haven’t set any ‘it is required that you this; it is required that you that’. I think there’s wiggle room in this for professional experience as some kind of management. HIGASHI: The decision of that is going to be done by the County Council who is confirming the person. Not by us. RAY: Roland, that’s not true. The decision’s going to be done by the Mayor and it has to be confirmed by the council, but the Mayor makes every appointment for every department head in the present Charter and he will in the future. And the Council plays a relatively insignificant role in terms of those administrative appointments. It’s very rare that you have hardly any rejection. So I think the Mayor’s still – well, anyway, George. MARTIN: I believe Gary had his hand up first. RAY: Okay, Gary. YOSHIYAMA: Well, as I read this, I don’t see it as being restrictive. It could be related to public or private administration, being in the professional area, or even from the educational requirements. And I think I understand where Roland’s coming from about keeping people out or maybe restricting the local people from qualifying. It will be part of our record that this is a non-restricting kind of thing. RAY: George. MARTIN: I think on the lines of what Gary was saying and also what I heard a bit earlier about who is the one that is going to set the standard. It’s the Mayor, and if the Mayor feels that this person meets these qualifications, Roland, is what I’m saying, whoever this Mayor may be, then as John is indicating, I think all the times that I’ve watched, or interjected with the County Council, there’s only two times that they failed to go along with what the Mayor suggested in appointment situations. HERKES: I’m one. RAY: No, no, we’re talking about a department head, Marni, not a board or commission. That’s a whole different dynamic. MARTIN: So with that, I understand what you’re saying and I feel exactly like you, that if the locals are going to be iced because of it then yes, let’s take it out, but I don’t know that they are. RAY: Marni. HERKES: I’d love to get out of the feeling, get out of the discussion, of local vs. new or anything. I don’t think that’s an appropriate discussion. I think the discussion is the broad interpretation of qualifications for the managing director. We shouldn’t be in a position of designing for local people. We ought to be in a position, or I feel we ought to be in a position of designing a broad qualification. I agree wholeheartedly with Roland that we’ve had some excellent managing directors who have had very little administrative – Meg, I don’t think had any administrative experience, but he was a very unusual person under a very unusual Mayor. So, I think that is a concern that it might be a little bit too narrow and we might want to look at revising the language to broaden it, not necessarily just for local people because I feel local people can fill up more qualifications than anybody else. I don’t think we need to design file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 07-12-00.html7/1/2011