I have I have trouble with arguments that avoid the substance of the problem. Heres the counter argument to the concern about section 2.6(B)(3) of the proposed county charter. See if you can follow it. Not sure I do and this isnt about comma placement its about giving meaning to words in a proposed law. This section starts out with something close to what is commonly found in city and county manager charters that prohibit council members or supervisors from interfering in city/county administration. But these systems have an exception that allows the elected official to make inquiries of staff. 2.6(B)(3)s exception is limited to matters pertinent to legislative deliberations or actions . Under the legal interpretation maxim of expressio unis est exclusio alterius (the expression of one thing excludes the other) this means a council member can only communicate with staff if related to legislation or making laws. Thus the council member can have no direct communication on constituent problems and restricted oversight that the laws are being implemented correctly. Ive never seen anything like that in a manager charter: I checked these manager counties: San Juan, Clatsop, San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Diego. It is not in the Vancouver or Fresno (where I worked in the early 90s) city charters and it is not in the RCW for general law city manager cities. It is unique. And it is significant. In response to this concern, we get this argument about comma placement which does not change the meaning. Pertinent to legislative deliberations or actions is there and its meaning is not changed by comma placement in this case. And it doesnt help the argument that the Freeholder chair told me they wanted a higher barrier than Vancouvers manager system (which generally allows inquiry standard in manager systems). This is not to say I oppose the charter. It has much good in it. But I think the proponents ought to fess up that they are drifting into unchartered territory in terms of manager power. If the voters want that, fine. It might be better than a troika of co-equal elected executives which has always struct me as bizarre for a county that passes 25,000 people in population. But lets describe the choice accurately.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 16:19:49 +0000
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