CHC 1979-01-16 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I don' t want the Charter Commission to feel that I'm taking a real strong position on all of this, in fact, I was asked to present my views and that' s exactly what I'm doing. If you think they' re correct, after you research them, then you accept them. If not, you just discard them. But I'm giving you what I feel is my honest judgment and opinion. MR. TRULSON: Mr. Silva, No. 3, you said the statute gives the commission the authority to set the director' s salary up to May, then repeal that. What is the reasoning for this? Removing the authority from the commission and apparently left it up to the counties. At this time, your salary is set the Mayor? By the County? How is it set? MR. SILVA: My salary is set the same way as with all of the other departments, the mayor makes a recommendation to the Council and the Council accepts or rejects, if they want to, the recommendations made by the mayor. Up to 1977, the Civil Service Commission was supposed to set the salary of the director of personnel service. And I say supposed to because prior to the implementation of the present charter, the civil service commission did set the salary of the personnel director, and when the charter came in, the mayor we had at that time, advised us that if there were any conflicts between the charter and any other laws, we were to follow the provision of the charter. And in good faith, we accepted that guidance. So then the Mayor made the recommendations to the council. The salaries were set that way from the imple- mentation of the present charter to this amendment in the law. For that period of time, we were really not following the statute and it was brought out during the Maui case. This case, well, I'm not a lawyer, but this is the first case I know of where the charter was tested to this extreme. It was made very clear that the statutes should prevail over the charter. I guess that the other directors, feeling that they wanted to have the salary set in their own jurisdiction, that that particular section of the statutes changed, so it' s now left with the counties. There are other things. If there' s anything that you don' t like about the civil service law and you want that change, then you go to the legislature and get it changed. MR. TRULSON: So you feel better if yoursalary was set by the commission who appoints you instead of the mayor. MR. SILVA: Yes, definitely. The reason for that is I would like to think that I have one boss and one boss that' s going to influence me in everything that I do. If I don' t do the work well, these are the people sitting on me. They appoint me, they can fire me, they should set my salary, also. MR. YANAGA: Mr. Silva, in other words, in the previous report we had by the police department, they' re recommending to delete that administrative supervision. Are you saying the same thing? To delete your section 7-1. 6? MR. SILVA: Well, I would say eliminate supervision and control. I think that should be controlled by the civil service commission. - 27 -