CHC 1979-07-18 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

MR. ODA: That ' s part of the rationale that we took out the reference to the council. But we somehow couldn ' t avoid the word "advisory" in two provisions. We just had to put it there. As I was telling Mr. Bess, earlier, with the legal staff if it is created for the county council , I think 99.9% of the legal advice and research that ' s necessary for the council never, never again will probably be seen by the corporation counsel ' s office. Seen in a sense of having to be done by them. There might be a couple of occasions, I don ' t know, that I can think of. Initially, there might be some problems of transitional kind of things where people don ' t really understand their role, you know, that kind of thing. I think once the thing gets going, if it ' s approved. . .and the other .-'thing there is a provision in the legal staff provision that gives the council , I think , some authority to implement it by ordinance so if there is any cloud on it I think they can do it, fix it up by ordinance. At least they should. MR. BESS: Mr. Chairman. I 'd like some explanation on that. Where is ;the provision that talks about the implementation by ordinance?- I see the salaries of the staff is fixed by ordinance but are you refe"rring to this 3-8(c) ? MR. ODA: Oh, I 'm sorry, I thought we had a provision. . .salaries and duties of the staff. But nevertheless in spite of the fact that it is not there the county council always has authority to pass ordinances to carry out the dictates of any charter provision , as I understand it, so. . . right? MR. BESS: Right. I think that clarifies it, M . Chairman, but the only thing is that just so the minutes are complete to help the next corporation counsel, whoever he may be, to go ahead and read the thing right, my concern was that some corporation counsel in the future is going to look at the deletion of "council" and say, what was the intent of the charter commission? Was it to delete council even though the term all agencies would include council. So as long as that ' s clear I 'm satisfied. The other, point is on the first phrase of Section 5-2. 3 I 'm still a little bit confused as to why the commission feels `itis_=necessary to put "except as specified" in Section 3-8(c) of this charter. The corporation counsel shall be the chief legal advisor because it seems to me that there is nothing in 3-8(c) which would indicate that the council ' s legal counsel is the chief legal advisor*, To MR. ODA: the council . MR. BESS: Yes , but he' s the chief legal advisor to the council but still there is a conflict and if an opinion, a formal opinion needs to be rendered which will control. . . MR. ODA: Then your folks ' office would. . . MR. BESS: Then our office would control. -25-