Standing on the Curb

Finder, I moved this from the "BCC pay" blog because I wanted it to be read.

Looking at the Charter, the Chair is not a "ceremonial" position, but rather one of the duties of the Chair is to carry out ceremonial roles. Verbatim, "Serve as the official and ceremonial representative of the government."

The Chair has been described as a "weak executive" to show that the Chair has a little more power over county government than any of the other single members of the BCC. I do not believe that "weak executive" is accurate; it is my impression that the elected Chair for a four year period carries out the same duties that are now carried out by the rotating chair for a single year period. As the pro-chair position was explained to the Fleming Island Republicans, making the chair a four year elected position provides continuity in the county agenda.. I would also point out I don’t consider the "continuity and accountability" aspect of the creation of the chair to have been proven to my satisfaction.

The Chair has only one vote, the same as any other commissioner. The advantages the Chair has over other county commissioners are to:

To appoint other commissioners to serve...on other bodies external to county government.

Place items on the agenda of the meetings of the BCC

Appoint committees and committee chairs of the BCC, and with the advice and consent of the board, appoint the chairs and members of advisory boards and committees internal to the County government.

I consider the ability to appoint members to advisory boards to be the strongest quality of the Chair. After all, the CRC was BCC appointed. As for making appointments with the "advice and consent of the board," the Chair would only need to get three out of six other members for a quorum.

The Chair is what it is, and someone is gong to fill that position, either you or Bradley. The person who wins the Chair position is going to have more ability than any other member to steer the direction of the BCC. That’s what the CTLAC has been saying all along, as in, "it’s all about the Chair." The Chair might just have one vote, like all the other commissioners, but the Chair should not be characterized as being just another commissioner.

The new chair is not an executive anything. Unless we've been sold a bag of lies by the CRC. We have a government that is divided the County Manager is the executive branch of our government. The Commissioners are the legislative branch of our government.

The chair has no power, his is as impotent as the rest of the Commissioners. The only difference we get to vote on the chair. Before the Commissioners picked the chair.

Well that is if we can get lucky enough for someone to stand up and run like Mike Heemer did to give us a choice. Otherwise we would have had a selected chair.

Felix;

You are correct. The Chair is what it is and unless the CTLAC appeals and is successful and the voters do away with the +2 (and Jupiter aligns with Mars) it is going to be a 4 year elected position.

Appointing committee members is an important part of what the chair does. And that is a two edged sword or ax. With the chair being a new person each year you have more of a mix of people. But with a new chair each year you get more of a mix of people. Good and bad there. But I prefer the new chair each year.

There have been a few that I think spoke out of turn about the 'weak executive'. I think that is the first step they want to take. Make it a 'weak executive' position and then a 'strong chair' position. I believe they may have given away their desires but many have not picked up on it.

One of the things that really concerns me is this statement:

Duties of the County Chair. The office of the County Chair shall have all jurisdiction and powers which are now and which hereafter may be granted to it by the Constitution and laws of Florida, this Charter, or county ordinance, provided that such powers shall be exercised in a manner consistent with this charter.

The part about county ordinance is new. It was added by the CRC when they created the position. No one has really been able to explain that to my satisfaction. It sounds to me like a simple ordinance could add to the duties of the Chair, and I don't like that. It makes it way too easy. Like making it into a 'weak executive' which it was never meant to be nor would it have been able to be under the old 5 SMD.

And yes the CRC was BCC appointed. 3 members from each district. They didn't do this out of the goodness of their heart. There has to be a CRC by charter requirement. The next one will form up in 2010 if I remember correctly. Again, I have some problems with this. The charter says the CRC will have 15 members. It does not specify who will do the appointing or how they will be divided. The last one appears to have been divided up as 3 members per SMD.

Even with a split of 3 for the Chair and 2 for each of the other 6 commissioners you could easily end up with 9 of the 15 coming from OP and FI. That doesn't do much for the rest of the county does it? The CRC portion of the charter really wasn't thought out too well from what I can see. It looks to me like the Chair could just appoint all 15 if he wanted to.

You see Felix that is my problem with some of what I see going on. In 4 years that chair is too well entrenched. In 8 it could be an entirely different ball game. And that concerns me greatly. It is far too open for setting and achieving personal agendas and making a profit off the backs of the citizens of Clay County. You have to look further down the line than this November. What about the candidates in 4 or 8 or 12 years? What are their motivations going to be?

As for pay, if they want to give up all other jobs and do this full time, great, I'd say pay them a living wage. Actually we are paying them a living wage now, the problem is they are only working part time. Even 70 and 80% is a living wage. $37K is a good part time wage. Again, it is more than many make for working their butts off at a full time job. Just ask a teacher.

Many of these are reasons that I feel make Ron Raymond from D3 a good choice. It makes for a better balance of ideas.

Mike Heemer

This is what the voters approved (sad choice in my opinion) per the charter.

Shall Section 2.2.A and 2.2.C of the Clay County Charter be amended to provide for a legislative body of seven rather than five county commissioners, consisting of a County Chair and one Commissioner,

Now how do you get executive out of that statement weak or strong. It ain't happening. If you believe they have any executive role. Then you are wrong.

The power of the new Board of County Commissioners chairmanship, whether Rob Bradley or Mike Heemer is elected in November, will reside in control of the gavel and the agenda. To a lesser extent, it also depends on the natural role of the chairmanship as a consensus-maker. That's exactly where the power of the current BCC chairman, and each before him, has been.

It's that way at every board and council, or legislature and even Congress, though refined to multiple levels and divided along party lines there.

Both Heemer and Bradley are bright men. We should expect that each would improve their skills with the gavel and agenda over time, and become more adept at knowing when and how to have the Commission reach a consensus.

How county government uses its volunteer advisory committees, I believe, is based on faulty core philosophy, even requirement.  It virtually eliminates the common sense of regular citizens in favor of committee advice that is, by nature, going to be self-serving.  As long as the committees are designed incorrectly, they won't properly serve the general public.

Michael S. Mann

michaelsmann@comcast.net

Finder, from your earlier comment on Baxleys blog, I just wanted to make sure I understood what the powers of the Chair consisted of.  I had forgotten the part about the Chairs power being liable to increase by ordinance, which I take as being a vote by the BCC.  I don't know the ramifications of this.  On the one hand I consider as being just a contingency plan for new situations, a kind of "catch-all" for what may come up.  On the other, it could mean an increase of the Chair's authority in the BCC.  I doubt, though I cannot be sure, that the Chair would ever gain power over county government outside of the BCC.  The judiciary is not under the county, it would seem illegal for the BCC to gain authority over the constitutional offices, and it would require a charter amendment for the Chair to gain any more authority over the county manager.  Of course, I could be wrong.  It is my impression that the BCC as a legislature directs the county manager, and so is in charge of the county manager, but that there is a non-interference clause (or something like that) barring BCC members from directly giving orders to county employees.  I understand the need for this as part of a chain of command.  However, I've sometimes felt that two meetings a month causes a bit too much separation between the BCC and the county manager so that the BCC isn't exactly on top of everything that is going on.

Angela, I promise I will never use the term "weak executive" You are of course correct that the executive of the county is the county manager and that the BCC is legislative.  I picked up "weak executive" somewhere, either from CTLAC or from CRC or CPVR to describe the Chair as being stronger than the other commissioners.

Oneman, you said this:

How county government uses its volunteer advisory committees, I believe, is based on faulty core philosophy, even requirement.  It virtually eliminates the common sense of regular citizens in favor of committee advice that is, by nature, going to be self-serving.  As long as the committees are designed incorrectly, they won't properly serve the general public.

I think you know a lot more about the BCC than I do, I've been to one meeting and watched two on tv, everything else I know is from the paper, the blogs, and looking at county documents.  My impression, and correct me if I am wrong, is that advisory committees basically give advice to the BCC, and that in this role they have a great deal of influence on the vote of the BCC.  It seems to me that if a Chair had an especially strong opinion for or against an issue, they could stack a committee with like minded people to advise they way that the Chair wanted, and the only thing that would stand in the Chair's way would be if four other commissioners dissented on the committee appointments or on a vote.  On the matter of agendas, as I read the Charter only the Chair or the county manager can put items on the BCC agenda, it seems to me that a Chair could go a long way towards killing an issue by refusing to put it on the agenda, and could promote an issue by putting it on the agenda.  As far as I read, there is no oversight on the Chair in this regard.   I do question your comment about committee advice overriding the common sense of regular citizens.  If the BCC doesn't represent common sense, and the committees don't represent common sense, the only other way I see for common sense to have a voice is to hold a referendum on important issues.  That seems like a slow and expensive way of reaching decisions, (year, like the BCC isn't slow and expensive already) You'd get a very small percentage of voters, but still, something like that might be the way to go on some issues.

As a final comment, I don't get the CRC thing at all.  The reason why is because i compare it to the Florida Budget Committee.  You would think something that happens once every 20 years would be staffed by only the best and brightest, yet, 3 out of 7 amendments struck down by the court.  Aside from issues of special interests, that is just embarrasing.  As for the CRC, they are appointed by the BCC, the BCC has just as much power as they do to put items on the ballot, if the BCC wanted a Chair and at large they could have just voted for it themselves rather than appoint people to do it for them.