2000-01-15 Charter Commission Minutes

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minutes 01-15-00Page 14 of 59 RAY: My sense is the only thing that would pass would be leave it at the eight-year term limit. HERKES: On the County Council, period. RAY: Right. But, that’s just a personal opinion. HERKES: I understand that. I’m just trying to figure out the phrasing. RAY: So that means that you could serve no more than the 2 two-year terms to run for - HERKES: Or 2 four-year terms. RAY: Yes, you could. IRVINE: John, does Chris feel that we would need to put in here that the term limit applies to an individual rather than a given office within the County Council? YUEN: I need to know exactly what the Commission wants on this, and it’s good that we’re having this discussion because it does have to be spelled out. Basically, there are two ways to do it. You either count them together or you don’t, and it’s not really for me to decide which, but it needs to be spelled out. Otherwise, these people are going to have this big argument when they finish their eight years. They’ll say, well, I’m going to run for another office, and then people will be digging out our minutes from January, 2000, and they’ll say, what the hell, and why didn’t they spell this out, and where was Yuen. RAY: John. SANTANGELO: And, that’s consecutive. YUEN: Right. I think under the present Charter, it’s consecutive, and you can start over again after a break. And the reason I say that is that the general rule is there isn’t a limit unless there says there’s a limit. So, if it says there’s a four consecutive two-year term limit, then it doesn’t say anything against running again after a break, so you can do that. SANTANGELO: The reason I bring that up, for fun, you run for eight years. Now you go to the at-large, and you run for four. Can you go back to the two-year and run for another eight? YUEN: It depends how you write it. There’s two, if you want to call them, proposals, or two alternatives, that have been put out, and one is eight years, and that’s it, no matter whether you’re at-large, and I guess everybody seems to be on the idea of the at-large as being four years. I’m getting body language that that’s where people are at, so let’s talk about that rather than confusing it. SANTANGELO: So, for me, what I’ve heard here today that appeals to me, that’s new, is you keep it at eight years because I personally feel that 6-3 works better for all people, and so you run 2 two-year terms, and if you want to run at-large, go for the four, but you’re limited to the eight. And that wasn’t something that was in my mind when I came in here today, but that seems to be something that maybe people understand, that nobody’s trying to pull a fast one. RAY: Roland. HIGASHI: Since we have committees, you want to form another committee and work together with Chris and come up with several languages for, probably, two meetings from now? YUEN: I think it’s clear in everybody’s mind what the alternatives are. I think, if we want to discuss it more, but I think people should come to a decision. I don’t know that there’s much more to be said about where this goes. I would say that the reasoning does become a little bit different when you have two separate offices. I mean, the outcome of having term limits, if you’re in a district, is that you do have the turnover. There’s two ways of looking at it. How long do you want the same person in. And then there’s also, do you want to have a vacancy so that somebody else has a chance on the spot. If the person runs for a different office, say they go to at-large, they are opening up the district, and in that sense, that one aspect of term limits has been fulfilled that nobody is just going to sit there in their district, representing that district for 20 years or so, or 16 years. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 01-15-00.html7/1/2011