Taylor resolves dispute.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Eugene City Manager Dennis Taylor has provided a statesmanlike and workable solution to a dispute over who should supervise employees in the newly created police auditor's office. The City Council should accept it and move forward with the critically important task of creating the external police review system that voters approved last November.

The dispute focuses on whether the city manager or the yet-to-be-hired police auditor should be directly in charge of the auditor's staff. While that may seem like an arcane human-resources issue, it's actually quite important and has decisive impact on the office's perceived - and actual - independence from both the city manager's office and the police department.

The debate over who's in charge of the auditor's office and its staff goes to the heart of last fall's ballot measure, which asked voters if they wanted to amend the City Charter to give the City Council the authority to hire an auditor to monitor investigations of complaints against police.

In the wake of an officer sex scandal that undermined public confidence in the department, there was little public disagreement about the need for an auditor. Most of the pre-election debate focused on whether the city manager should hire and supervise the auditor, or whether the council should have that authority in order to ensure that the auditor would be independent of city administration.

By approving the charter change, voters made it clear they wanted the council, not the city manager, to hire and oversee an independent auditor. Through an apparent oversight, however, the city's ballot measure failed to specify who should have authority over the auditor's staff.

The election's outcome - and simple common sense - leave no doubt the new auditor should have authority over his own employees. Doing otherwise would virtually ensure bureaucratic confusion and inefficiency, and compromise the office's independence from city administration.

A city attorney's opinion last February complicated matters by concluding that the auditor could supervise his or her employees but that the city manager should retain the ultimate power of hiring, firing and disciplining the auditor's staff. A city task force that included Mayor Kitty Piercy and members of the City Council and Police Commission then urged Taylor to "go as far as he could go within the City Charter to delegate that power" in the interest of creating an independent police auditor.

Taylor did exactly that. Last week, the city manager issued an administrative order that committed him to accepting the auditor's recommendations on hiring, firing, transferring and disciplining the auditor's staff.

Before last fall's election, Taylor made it clear he preferred that the council place the auditor under his authority and not weaken the city's traditional strong city manager form of government. By making this concession, he has acknowledged the clearly expressed will of voters - and has resolved a dispute that could have undermined efforts to establish a police complaint review system that is impartial, transparent, accountable, fair and, yes, independent.