CHC 1979-05-01 PH - Laserfiche WebLink

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Of course, in the charter, there is the provision that the mayor cannot serve for two consecutive full terms. So, in that sense, I may be leaning toward a limited number of terms and the reason would be that let ' s have the public and more members , more leaders be given the opportunity to run for office. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Mr. Nagasako, you are advocating here that we should have more people running for public office and taking part in the political process. Do you, personally, feel that in order to get good people in office we should have some sort of a campaign spending :law? MR. NAGASAKO: My answer would be, yes, definitely. I feel that, unfortunately, too much of our resources and dollars are; being spent in the election process. Definitely too much, so I would support a campaign spending limitation. CHAIRMAN SAKATA: Thank you, Mr. Nagasako. I would like to call upon Mrs. Janet Silva as our next speaker. Mrs. Silva, are you representing yourself? MRS. SILVA: I am representing myself. I 'm rather nervous but I will try my best. What I am concerned about is,.,I really believe the 'mayor should have the total jurisdiction over every department in the county. By that, I mean that he should be able to select and fire all department heads in the county. But, in order not have a political patronage sort of thing, the council should confirm each appointment. I 'm really concerned about the police department, board of water supply, and personnel services. I say this, because I believe that they don ' t feel now that they have a commission , they don ' t feel that they are a part of the county. That they are apart from other agencies and they act accordingly. They are terribly arrogant and I don ' t think that they run the business in the best intej estv of'r the :public. Since all the department heads come underi- the mayor, I think since he is the executive head, those commissions should be abolished and just have him run the whole thing. You would just eliminate the bureaucracy where a member of the public when you have a complaint you don ' t have to go through the bureaucratic procedure where you go to the commission , then to the mayor and what have you. I didn ' t have too much problem with the police department when Ernest Fergerstrom was there. I don ' t know Guy Paul too well , but I had dealings with the board of water supply. They were extremely arrogant many, many times. And personnel leaves much to be desired. They are exceptionally arrogant, and I really believe because they feel---the comment was made to me by one of the department heads that, well , the mayor can ' t fire me. He can ' t hire me and he can 't fire me. -9-