Term Limits Will Go Before the Voters

Residents of Lake Forest are going to get an opportunity to vote on whether term limits will affect the leaders of their city. 

By a 4-1 vote, council members agreed to put the topic on the ballot in 2014, and if passed, would begin with the elections of 2014. 

The dissenting vote was cast by Peter Herzog, who has been a councilman for 19 years. He was actually in favor of a stricter term limit than the one OK'd by his colleagues, three of whom have been on the dais for less than one full term. 

He reasoned that if the prevailing theory really was to restrict the amount of time a citizen could serve, then there should be some permanence to the limit; his proposal of two four-year terms in a lifetime was rejected.

Instead, the consideration that will be undertaken by voters will be a limitation of three consecutive four-year terms, meaning once a council member finishes a 12-year run, he would have to sit out two years before resetting the clock with another run at office. 

At the heart of the argument was the removal of the so-called power of incumbency.

During public comment related to the matter, former longtime councilwoman Marcia Rudolph said term limits already exist in the form of elections, citing she had been beaten twice as an incumbent.

And Jim Gardner, who was defeated last year in a bid for a seat on the dais by Adam Nick and Dwight Robinson, pointed out that a councilman could hold office for 24 of the next 26 years, which isn't really an effective term limit.