CHC 1979-07-11 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MR. MOSS: Well, first, let me say that it would be a more satisfactory one than the tentative decision. However, we still are very much opposed to any at-large - election. Even if you take some of the sting out of it by saying they have to live, be from the district. However, at the same time, in setting up this charter, you have taken some of that out because you have practically eliminated the residency requirement. . .any time frame that the man has to have lived in the district before he can run from it. I realize there were a lot of different proposals. I also would like to apologize slightly for some of the language in the letter. When this letter was written, we did not have the minutes of the meeting at which you voted on the tentative proposal and adopted it. As a matter we get of fact, didn 't them until four days after this letter was on its way. I realize that at that last meeting, there was some brief discussion of our 9 district proposal, at that time. But to us it seemed, even reading it, that it was kind of cursory and that our proposal never really got properly discussed in either the subcommittee or the commission, itself. MR. TRULSON: Another thing that I recall from the past minutes and that was on the one-man, one-vote and your feelingwas that and I can ' t really :recall just what group, but they were looking at how many councilmen each individual voter could vote for like in Mr. Schutte' s proposal each voter, theoretically, is voting for five councilmen, or a majority. I believe that was one of your concerns. . . MR. MOSS: Yes, we had some advice when we were formulating our policy that at this level of government, the county council level of government, a figure of about 10,000 population per member was a rather commonly accepted figure. Obviously, you don 't get exactly 10,000 per member. We have a population of say roughly 80,000 in the county at the present time. Nine members says that you will have about 9,000 per representative if you have nine members. That was one factor in our recommendation for a council of nine. The other is that it gives a sufficient number of people to properly man.. the necessary council committees. . .the planning committee, the committee on public works, the parks and recreation committee. Those and the finance committee. So . that a few councilmen aren ' t burdened down in serving on all committees but there are enough people and they can be distributed through the committees and do their homework with- out being unduly pressured by the amount of work that they are expected to do. After all , the council members are not full time employees. They have their own business and their own activities to look after as well as those of the county. MR. ISHIDA: Mr. Chairman. Mr. Moss, as far as your proposal is concerned, are you basing it on the fact that the registered voters should be taken into consideration? -7-