CHC 1979-02-20 - Laserfiche WebLink

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now and say it again later. I don ' t blink it makes a damn bit of difference what form you people decide on or what form we decide on, it is people that makes things tick. You could have taken the old form of governm'ent that we had and with different people it could have worked beautifully. You can take the existing form that we have and with different people it can work beautifully. It is more people than it is form 'that really determines the kind of government that you have. I 'm not knocking anybody, I 'm just stating a simple fact. Now, any other questions concerning anytl{in'g in here? -(Held up the County Charter booklet) MR. ISHIDA: Regarding the confirmation of department heads the charter provides for the confirmation to department head of the corporation counsel and the planning. department director by both the mayor and the county council. Was there a specific reason for this? - MR. KOEHNEN: Yes, we were rather cognizant of the adminis 'rative versus policy functions. It was felt that the planning director really represented two bodies. He ';' represented the administration as an administrator and he also represented the legislative body in view of the fact that your county plan is a legislative document. It is the intent , it is enacted as e'kpress: ng the intent of the legislative body as to which way the county is going to go. Because of the fact that he really had the responsibility then for two functions we did feel that he should be confirmed by the policy body. He was an administrator and he had to work on the mayor's team as an administrator. So he had to be accept- able to the mayor and at the same time he had to also be • acceptable to the county council because he was in effect carrying out their legislative intent. That was the rationale;, as far as the planning director is concerned. What was the other one that you were asking about? The corporation counsel? The same reason really. He represented both and we felt that he should be approved by both. We didn ' t frankly envision some of the problems that Councilman Garcia here was just saying. At that . time we just thought. . .well , too many of us just view the law. . .and you are a lawyer, Richard, and you know that too many of us view the law as black or white and as you know it is mostly shades of grey. And that is the problem you are . running into now. The thing about Councilman' Garcia's proposal that struck me was that you are going to have an awful lot tied up in litigation a lot of times. Because you are going to have opposing opinions a lot of times if we go with. . . MR. ISHIDA: Was the proposal made by Councilman Yamashiro that all department heads be approved by the council ever proposed in the other charters? MR. KOEHNEN: When we worked on the charter of course we were constructing the br;g'anizational thing department by department and the question came up with every department should we require confirmation by the council. -14-