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IRVINE: • RAY: No, he can't create a department. No, that would be something significant to look at. SANTANGELO: What I wanted to add, John, is that if you look at the Charter, even if you look at the Department of Public Works, which is just a real little bit, in it's duties and powers, as prescribed by ordinance. We're not going to write that ordinance. As a Commission, as I understand it, could establish a Department of Environmental or Department of Utilities, but then that ordinance would then be written, or brought together, by whom? Would that be the Council? HERKES: Ordinances are written by the Council, right? SANTANGELO: Yes. So, whether it's going to address recycling, this or that, or the other thing, would become a process unto itself. We would just simply make the decision whether we felt it was important to have a department. We can't tell it that it's going to recycle. We can't tell it these other things, right? HERKES: We can say Environmental Services Department will manage solid waste, wastewater, recycling and sewers, or whatever we want to say. I mean, as an example, that might be the kind of wording that you can put in the Charter, and then you can put managed by an administrator, and you can actually describe. Some of • them describe fairly well the kinds of things that they do, some of the descriptions that are in the Charter now, of the departments. IRVINE: And certainly, the information 1 have does say Environmental Services is a city owned utility providing Portland residents with wastewater quality protection, sewage treatment, wastewater collection, sewer installation, solid waste collection, and recycling services. You could make a statement something like that. I have not yet found actual enabling legislation on these websites, or with anybody that I talked to. SANTANGELO: But I think the point being is if we put that before the voters, they voted that, then it would be incumbent upon the government, then, to go ahead and do that. HERKES: It would be in the Charter. They'd have to do it. Sue, what's the definition of a utility? 1 don't have my dictionary with me and I don't really know. IRVINE: It seems to me it varies. Like with San Luis Obispo, that has a Utilities Department, and to me, that is the same department that usually is called, sort of, Environmental Services in Portland. The Utilities Department here has responsibility for citizens' water and sewer systems, as well as for the administration of the refuse franchise and the recycling activities.