This past week, Q-line asked: Should there be term limits for City Council members? If so, what should the length of one term be, and how many might an elected official serve before stepping down? Here are your responses: ✆ “All I can say is something has to be done to check the cavalier and disastrous decisions of our city council members. Length of term is one thing, accountability is the other that needs to be looked at. We have a “do nothing” Congress in Washington and “do nothing” council in Santa Monica. They may do a little something, but it is all mostly a disaster and costs taxpayers a bundle. Time for change.” ✆ “As far as term limits for the city council members are concerned, I believe that’s up to the voters to decide who stays and who goes, that’s what it’s all about here... gee whiz.” ✆ “The best form of time limits for political office holders is when those limits are determined by the voting constituency. That is what voting is all about. The incumbent office holder is either voted to stay or to leave. On the federal level of presidential term limits, we have seen good presidents replaced by poor presidents, as we are experiencing at the present time. There is an old adage: If it is not broken, do not fix it.” ✆ “They did impose term limits on the city council; they’ll probably just try to extend them like those shifty ones in Los Angeles are doing. Better to have a limit of one term. Or even better, abolish the city council completely — they never do anything anyway.” ✆ “Definitely. Two four-year terms, three at the most. The incumbents will all be re-elected because they have name recognition. The others, with one exception, have had no visible campaign at all. We have now an unusual system, where an appointed, non-elected city manager actually runs the city. We do not elect the mayor. The title is rotated among the council members.” ✆ “Should there be term limits for city council members? Yes, two years at most. In over 200 years, we have hardly advanced democracy one whit — the Civil War and the 14th Amendment basically advanced states’ republicanism and the rights of inanimate objects — Corporations. I advocate enlisting all voting age citizenry to serve in all elected, appointed and civil service positions for a maximum of two years. Since all such positions, except in rare circumstances, are on-the-job training learning experiences, all should be permitted to accept bribes, compromise their basic beliefs and/or advance democratic principles, while earning the same salary and serving two years at max, having their names chosen at random. Pull them from a hat. This will end pay-for-play, infringe political corruption and bribery, and afford our society an opportunity for advancement.” ✆ “I think we should have term limits. These people that are sitting on the city council, some of them for 12 and 16 years, and just driving this city into the mud. I mean, O’Connor and Holbrook, and the other one who’s been living in a rent-controlled apartment for 30 years, what do they care about Santa Monica? So just give them four years and shoot them out the back door like you do your trash every morning.” ✆ “I don’t believe term limits should be imposed on city council members. City council members that stay in touch with the constituents they are serving are of value. City council people are traditionally nonprofessionals in the area of politics, and I believe it takes a couple of years to really understand how all those moving parts work. So I think probably an effective city council member only ramps up after three years. People that keep in mind the needs of the city, individuals like Kevin McKeown, are an asset to our community. Alternatively, I think council people like Robert Holbrook and Pam O’Connor, who only listen to the moneyed interests, don’t care about the residents and are willing to sell the city to the highest bidder, should absolutely be thrown out.” ✆ “I don’t think they should do any more than four years. It’s been proven in the past that they’re all crooked. We don’t need these people anymore in Santa Monica — they destroyed it, completely destroyed it. Pam O’Connor does nothing but mutter four-letter words all the time. So give them four years, and after four years, just boot them out the back door. And we’ll have a wonderful city like we had years ago.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 6, 2006. Read the original PDF.