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policy making and legislation. And it can only act as a body, as
<br /> all of you know, nine members , and act upon the majority vote.
<br /> And whenever they take official action, they have to convene , just
<br /> like this Commission. They cannot take official action outside of
<br /> a meeting and their official action consists of , number one,
<br /> passing an ordinance, a law, or passing a resolution. And the
<br /> Charter prescribes that resolutions do not have the force and
<br /> effect of law unless under certain circumstances. Generally , the
<br /> laws that are passed by the Council are called ordinances. And
<br /> we. . .it ' s important to make the distinction, because ordinances
<br /> require two readings and a resolution requires only one to pass .
<br /> But , the. . .certainly , you can ask, what is public policy. And I
<br /> analogize it to like a corporation' s board of directors . You
<br /> know, you have the board that meets and sets the policies of the
<br /> corporation. And the executive branch, the mayor, is the one that
<br /> implements or carries out the directions of the policy makers.
<br /> So, under the Council, if you see , is a County Clerk. Also , I
<br /> didn ' t break it down further but there ' s also , the County Clerk
<br /> then appoints the Legislative Auditor. Okay . And the clerk is
<br /> responsible. . .is the is the a. . .is responsible for the elections
<br /> and he ' s also responsible for keeping the legal documents of the
<br /> County, executive orders that are sent from the Governor' s office
<br /> or other agencies. The clerk also. . .also is like a department
<br /> head on the legislative side. The clerk under the Charter hires
<br /> the. . . subject to the Civil Service laws of the state , hires the
<br /> necessary personnel for which appropriations have been made.
<br /> Now, when I say this is the organization chart pursuant to
<br /> Charter, as far as the executive branch, under the Charter, the
<br /> Charter also authorizes the mayor to delegate certain
<br /> responsibilities as he sees fit to various departments. So , if we
<br /> look on the executive branch, which is on the mayor ' s side , you
<br /> see under the mayor there is the managing director; and he seems
<br /> like the managing director has supervisory powers only for Public
<br /> Works, Parks and Recreation and Fire. And that is correct under
<br /> the Charter. And the rest of the agencies , by Charter, comes
<br /> directly under the mayor. However, I don 't know what Mayor Akana
<br /> is doing , but when Mayor Carpenter was in office , he. . .he
<br /> authorized the managing director [to have] supervisory control
<br /> over the other departments, as far as the day-to-day activities.
<br /> But , this is strictly Charter organization. I don' t think the
<br /> present administration is also following this. I doubt that they
<br /> are following this. Because I understand that the managing
<br /> director also is having day-to-day supervisory control over the
<br /> other staff departments[*] .
<br /> *The Carpenter administration named supervisory departments
<br /> "staff" departments (i.e. Finance , Corporation Counsel, Civil
<br /> Service , Safety, EEO , Information, and Planning for CIP purposes
<br /> only) . The other departments were referred to as "line"
<br /> departments (i.e. Aging, Civil Defense, Fire , H.R.A. , Housing,
<br /> Liquor , Mass Transit , Parks , Planning , Police , Public Works and
<br /> Water) .
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