Dear Ron Letter

This is in response to the Ron Davis column suggesting that we may

want to consider paying for our council members (“Maybe it’s time to pay

for our council members,” Oct. 11).

I agree with this proposal and have been in favor of it for some time.

Ron has stated the essence of the issue correctly.

Our city is an enterprise that has more than 1,000 permanent employees

and an annual budget that is approaching $300 million. It’s a highly

complex business. We need to be able to attract the most capable people

to help us manage the business of the city in the most effective manner.

We pay our employees very well but compensate our council members

essentially nothing. The responsibilities and time commitment required to

serve on the City Council are awesome. The current compensation policy

that we are operating under dates back to a time when the city had a $10

to $20 million annual budget and the job demands were commensurately

smaller.

While we are thinking about changing some outdated policies, we might

consider whether our form of government best suits our needs. We have

seven council members operating in the role of the chief executive. Our

mayor is a rotating position, with a one-year tenure, with added

responsibilities that are solely ceremonial. The city manager carries out

the programs and policies approved by the council; he/she is in charge of

a lot of what takes place at City Hall but is not responsible or

accountable for leading our city.

My experience at senior levels in industry taught me the principle

that “whenever more than one person is in charge of anything, no one is

responsible.” Under our current form of government, no one is clearly in

charge and no one can be held accountable for leading (or failing to

lead) our city.

In its Oct. 2, 2001 report to the City Council, the finance board

noted that the city is facing an annual budget deficit of approximately

$40 million per year over the next 20 years. This deficit is likely to

get worse in the near future as the state of California attempts to deal

with its forecasted deficit. It is reasonable to attribute some of

Huntington Beach’s inability to anticipate, and deal with, its financial

problems as being the result of our “committee” form of executive

leadership.

To make this lack of executive responsibility even worse, Huntington

Beach has a legal structure wherein the city clerk, attorney and

treasurer are separately elected and therefore do not have to follow the

directions of the city administrator or the City Council. Prior

initiatives to change this situation have been defeated by the voters --

apparently on the basis that there is “virtue” in having this degree of

independence.

Unfortunately, the price of this added “independence” is an increase

in the difficulty achieving the clear leadership required to bring

Huntington Beach back to long-term financial health.

The proposal to compensate our council members, commensurate with

their responsibilities and the job demands, represents a constructive

step to address the substantial challenges that Huntington Beach will

face during the next decade. We need to expand the potential pool of

candidates to attract the most qualified and talented people to lead us.

The cost to compensate them adequately will be repaid many times.

CHUCK BOHLE

Chairman, Finance Board

Huntington Beach