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Health & Fitness

Are Term Limits Coming to Lake Forest?


Tomorrow night the City Council takes up the issue of term limits, thanks to a request from Councilman Nick. Almost everyone who ran in the 2012 campaign and almost everyone who sits on the current council have come out publically for term limits, so it’s about time the topic surfaced.

The idea of term limits dates as far back as the ancient civilizations of Athens and Sparta. Pennsylvania was the first state to introduce the concept, in 1783. In 1951, the 22nd amendment established term limits for the President. Thirty-six states limit the terms of their governors, and 15 states limit their state representatives (in California it’s 12 years). In 2010 our neighbor city, Laguna Hills, established term limits for their council. Other cities with term limits include Irvine, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Garden Grove, Los Angeles, etc.

Here in Lake Forest, a small cabal ruled the city for nearly 20 years, using their positions as incumbents to garner hundreds of thousands of dollars in “campaign contributions” from companies and people who did business with the City. More recently, the “incumbent money” has been displaced by “Republican Tea Party money”, and the amount of money needed to get elected has skyrocketed from $30,000 to $75,000 in just one election cycle. This brings a new set of rulers who rely on the brute force of the dollar to get into office. But regardless of whether the money source is incumbency or Tea Party affiliation or sucking up to developers, the plain fact is that term limits are good because they limit the ability of incumbents to use their votes to favor endowed clients who return the favor with the bucks necessary for the incumbents to stay in office and provide more favors, resulting in more contributions, etc.

Term limits are also good because they bring “new blood” and “fresh ideas”. In the past 6 months, with a new council, we’ve had more new ideas introduced than in the past 4 years - a concerted move to true transparency, more business friendly attitude, procedures, and regulations, a dog park, etc.

Enacting term limits will not remove the corrupting influence of money, but it will reduce it. It’s not a perfect solution, nor a complete cure, but it’s a good start. We’re now more than 6 months after the recent election, and still waiting for some word from a council that, as far as I can tell, unanimously approves of the concept.

What do you think about term limits? If we have them, how many years should someone be able to serve? There are many approaches. Some limit it to two or three consecutive terms, and some avoid the “consecutive” issue and merely limit it to no more than 8 or 12 years. Personally I prefer a combination of the two approaches – no more than 2 consecutive terms and no more than 12 years total service.

And while the council discusses term limits, they might also consider the benefit package that goes along with council membership. This includes not only the stipend but also such things as retirement benefits, health insurance, etc.

And if this were a perfect world, since we’re talking about enacting laws that govern the council, why not stiffen the code of ethics so that the types of obvious violations of ethical behavior we’ve seen in the past will have some real consequences.

If you want to see the other topics on the agenda, click here 

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