CHC 1979-04-10 - Laserfiche WebLink

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implies something more than mere power to advise and suggest and confers authority to oversee new acts and to correct the errors of those over whom the right to supervision is granted. In a nutsell, general supervision and control really means the right to oversee the entire operations of a department. MR. ISHIDA: Then you could have a conflict. When you take the police commission, for instance, would there be a conflict between the mayor ' s office and the police commis- sion as far as the powers and duties of the chief is concerned? MR. ODA: It does not have to be. It depends whether thereJwould be a conflict, let ' s say, between the mayor and the chief of police. First of all , it depends on how rules and regulations of the police commission give the police commission authority over what areas of the operations of the police department. If the operations of the police commission is given jurisdiction over limited areas of the police depart- ment, as I understand it, having been legal advisor to the police department and police commission one time, many, many years ago. The police commission has jurisdiction, primarily, over the general policy matters involving the police department. They don ' t get involved in the nitty gritty day to day opera- tional type of thing. Now, what would the mayor be doing on the other hand? The mayor would have some control over what the chief of police is doing on the, operational standpoint, whereas , the police would not, ordinarily. But the rules and regulations conferring, as"I say, and the charter provisions conferring the specific jurisdiction of the commission itself overseeing the executive department have to be pretty clearly drawn so there will not be a clash as to who has jurisdiction, over what. I think, oftentimes, you have that trouble because the charter_ and the rules and regulations conferring jurisdiction on_ the police commission are not very,-clear. They are very vague. I can ' t say whether that exists right now because I haven ' t looked at it recently. _ You__also have the additional problems of personalities. If you have a strong mayor vis-a-vis a weak mayor or a strong police commission vis-a-vis a strong or weak mayor then you have problems as to who has power over whom. Anytime you are talking about power you have some problems depending on the personalities involved. So the respective charter provisions on the jurisdictions over the various::-` commissions have to be very carefully looked at. They=_have _to- be' looked at in terms of what does this commission want the specific commission, let ' s say the police_ commission- or civil service commission to _have power_ over and in terms _of -what would be the mayor' s duty or obligation or control - at the same time. They shouldn ' t be clashing or overlapping too much. There would tend to be some overlapping, unfortunately, ,but as much as possible that should be minimized. So, as I am saying now, in a nutshell the phrase "general supervision and control of the mayor" seems to give the mayor pretty much of a hand over how the executive department operates. - 27 -