CHC 1979-03-06 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I just felt, again, based upon experience as well as just looking at it in a total context--separation would make it much cleaner. MR. ISHIDA: The difficulty I 'm having is that it seems to me you feel that if you go through the confirmation process you feel that you may havetwo masters. I, personally, don ' t see that and I 'm having some difficulty to accept that concept. Is this what you are saying? MR. FUKE: Well , I guess when I evaluated the whole thing-this is why I wasn ' t prepared the last time- I had to really think about it and I had to ask myself the basic question, initially, why council confirmation in the beginning? And I couldn' t come forth with a reason which was convincing in my own mind why the position needs to be confirmed. Or for that matter, any cabinet position should be confirmed. I see the Planning Director' s position as, essentially, to be no different than that of Chief Engineer or the Parks Director or the Finance Director where, essen- tially, we not only implement policy but we advise the Mayor, we advise the County Council in terms of different policy areas. Meaning the planning arena, the public works , the drainage and sewer, the finance director and the fiscal policies. I could not, necessarily, understand in reading the previous minutes, as well as just trying to understand broadly why council confirmation in the beginning. And, again , ILJ:Oting from practical kinds of problems, I just felt . maybe it would be better to just clearly make the separation. MR. ISHIDA: Would I be consistent in under- standing your position that you can ' t see, yourself, the distinctionin why the Planning Director should be confirmed and maybe the Chief Engineer should not be confirmed. Is that correct? MR. FUKE: Could you repeat that question? MR. ISHIDA: As far as I understand it. . .is that you have a. difficulty to establish any rationale as to why ( 1) the Planning Director must have council confirmation as opposed to the Chief Engineer having no council confirmation. MR. FUKE: That ' s right. Essentially, because I see the Planning Director, the Chief Engineer, and the Finance Director as having both policy implementation as well as advising in policy formulation functions. . MR. ISHIDA: Then my next question would be, do you feel that to be consistent you should take the position whether all the department heads should be confirmed or none at all? MR. FUKE: That is my feeling, right. As I had to preface my initial comments to say that if °you look at it purely from a detached standpoint, since the •Pl'an'ning Director' s position is merely to provide advice and to implement policies established by the legislative branch, then whether the position is confirmed or not is supposedto be immaterial. - 8 -