Voters may get chance to decide on term limits
2011-02-10 / Front Page
Petition comes in just under deadline
Long debated in coffee shops and barrooms across Thousand Oaks, term limits may finally find their way onto the local ballot.
On Monday, former Planning Commissioner Al Adam submitted 11,533 signatures to the city clerk’s office in support of an initiative that would prohibit a person from serving more than three consecutive terms on the Thousand Oaks City Council. The deadline to submit the petition in time for the November 2012 election was Tuesday.
A minimum of 7,655 valid signatures, or 10 percent of the registered voters in Thousand Oaks, is required for the measure to be placed on the ballot. The signatures are now in the hands of the county clerk, who has the task of verifying they came from actual T.O. residents.
If the initiative is passed, Thousand Oaks would be the first city in Ventura County to enact term limits.
Adam, who twice ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the City Council (2008, 2010), started the petition in August, just before his most recent run for office. Volunteers have been collecting signatures for the petition since then.
“It’s the only way this was going to happen; I had to go the initiative route,” Adam said. “It’s tough. Trying to get the entrenched incumbents to vote for term limits is like trying to get chickens to vote for Colonel Sanders.”
Though Adam didn’t name names, his comments may have been directed at Councilmembers Dennis Gillette and Andy Fox, who just began their fourth and fifth terms respectively. Adam came up short to the two in the November election, and in January their votes denied him reappointment to the planning commission.
But Adam, who funded the petition himself, said the term limits measure “is not aimed at any individual. It’s not retroactive.”
Regardless, Gillette said, it’s hard not to see the initiative as a personal attack given the actions of some of the signature takers.
“You can’t help but take a certain amount of it personally when you stand there and listen to the paid signature gatherers say that you’ve been on the council for 25 years, you have a million-dollar pension and you’re dishonest,” he said.
“I was actually chased down by (a signature taker) in front of Ralphs,” Gillette continued. “I’ve heard those stories back from any number of people.”
Gillette said he’s not sure term limits make sense for Thousand Oaks.
“As I’ve said before, I always thought we had term limits— they’re called elections. And I’m always concerned about the system creating ways to relieve individual citizens of their responsibility to vote,” Gillette said.
“But that being said, if this is something that the voters of the city of Thousand Oaks feel that benefits them as residents, I have no strong feelings one way or the other.”
While the measure limits persons to no more than three consecutive terms on the council, it is not a lifetime ban, as is the case with term limits in the state Senate and Assembly, passed by voters in 1990.
The local initiative states: “No person shall serve more than three consecutive terms as a member of the Thousand Oaks City Council, either by election or appointment, until at least four years after the expiration of the third consecutive term in office. After a four-year absence, a new three-consecutiveterm limit applies.”
Therefore, all seated City Council members would be eligible for three more terms, or 12 years, on the council.
Adam said his initiative— which barely fills two sheets of paper— is unlike those found on the state ballot in that it is “forthright.” He also says it’s necessary to “reduce the power of the special interest” and “open the field” in T.O. city elections.
“Our founding fathers envisioned a rotation; we’re not getting it here in Thousand Oaks,” Adam said.
But City Manager Scott Mitnick, who’s been with the city for 10-plus years, said he doesn’t think that’s necessarily true.
“I’ve seen three incumbents endorsed by a local paper lose their seats. I’ve seen challengers come out of nowhere and win,” Mitnick said. “We’ve had 10 or more incumbents with name recognition lose (in the city’s history). The track record in T.O. is there is no shortage of new blood.”
On Tuesday, Mitnick asked City Clerk Linda Lawrence to compile a historical review related to Thousand Oaks council members and their terms in office.
Her findings: In the 47-year history of the city, only four persons have served more than three terms—Fox, Gillette, Larry Horner and Alex Fiore. In addition, a total of nine incumbents have been defeated in the city’s 23 general elections since 1966, the last being Bob Wilson, who was unseated by Jacqui Irwin in 2004.
Nevertheless, Adam said the data is on his side.
In a press release he sent to the media on Tuesday, Adam stated that the Center for Government Studies “finds that incumbents are reelected over 95 percent of the time by outspending their challengers at a 20- to-1 rate.”
“Money is a big factor. Money wins races,” said Adam, who raised around $25,000 this past campaign. “Money buys you recognition. Money buys you mailers and big political gatherings.
“If you’re a can’t-lose incumbent, you’re going to attract campaign dollars.”
If the initiative makes it to the ballot, Fox told the Acorn, he’ll respect the will of the voters, but he doesn’t think term limits are “very effective.”
“Certainly it’s created a nightmare in Sacramento with the inability to get anything done,” Fox said. “As far as for local government, the public expects long-term vision from its elective leadership, and that’s very difficult to get when you have short-term people.” —Michelle Knight contributed to this story.
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