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Council oversee the termination of Directors on a case by case basis and not give blanket approval to the Mayor to terminate at whim. While new Chapter 133 of the Administrative Code may well be legal in form it is definitely contrary to the intention of the voters of this City. It, in fact, allows the Mayor to ignore Article III, Sect~n 5 as kmg as the termination is done within a year. It has always been my belief that Article II, Section 5 was an attempt by the City to create a certain degree of independence. If the Mayor has the ability to fire at will the Director must always make decisions based on job security. Under our current laws, if the Mayor insists on actions so substantial that the Director can not carry them out, Council de#ermines what should be done. During the 1980's this happened twice. On one occasion Council sided with the Director and on the other with the Mayor. With the proposed Chapter 133, the Director can be fired with no appeal to Council. I believe this places the citizens of the City at risk. As a manager and soon to be former Mayor I know that this position of Mayor requires firm decision making abilities. If the new Mayor, whoever it will be in the future, can not make a decision regarding important employees, how will they make decisions regarding the health, safety and welfare of North Olmsted? Please do not overlook this point just because it is near the end of my memo. Making decisions is the most important aspect of the job. In my opinion Ordinance 97-122 can easily open the opportunity for inconsistency at the Director level. As it is written now, North Olmsted could very vwll find itself in a situation where four or more people hold the title Director of Public Safety and/or Director of Public Service at different times within every term of a Mayor. There is absolutely no prohibition against this and Council will be powerless to stop it. If it is still the decision of Council to pass a law which will all~nr interim appointments at the beginning of a term, as I believe was your original intention, I ask that you uphold my Veto and pass a new law at your first meeting of January. In the new legislation I would suggest changing 133.03 to include words referring to the beginning of a new term. This should not cause a problem as the first meeting of January closely follows the beginning of the new term. You may also consider making the change retroactive to January 1, 1998. With all of this said, I hereby place my VETO on Ordinance 97-122.