Councilmen term limits will stay

Councilman Bob Harbicht‘s suggestion that term limits for City Councilmen should be abolished was shot down at a study session tonight (Tuesday, Jan. 18) prior to the City Council meeting. It never even went to a vote when it was clear after a brief discussion that none of the other four Councilmen were in favor of the idea. A change would have required general voter approval.

Councilman Bob Harbicht

Other than Mayor Peter Amundson, the other four Councilmen have all been subject to the term limit at least once — a maximum of two consecutive four-year terms — and all four sat out the required two years and ran again successfully for at least one and potentially two more terms. Mayor Pro tem Gary Kovacic and Councilman Mickey Segal said the two years away from the Council re-energized them. All felt the term limit was a good way to encourage fresh new candidates so that it wouldn’t get to be an old boys’ club, though four of the current Councilmen will have served at least 12 years – 16 years or more each when their current terms expire, and the least tenured of them — Mayor Amundson — is heading into his sixth year and will have served eight when he is termed out in 2014. Councilmen Kovacic and Roger Chandler are both up for re-election in 2012 should they decide to run again. In fact, Harbicht, the longest tenured on the Council, who was just re-elected last year with the largest number of votes among all six candidates despite spending the least on his campaign, said the current hybrid term-limit situation actually defeats the intent of the original concept. No Councilman ever served more than two terms prior to the introduction of the term limits in the 1970s, he noted. — By Scott Hettrick