City Council Approves Charter Amendment Ballot Language

The City Council on Monday voted on ballot language for several City Charter amendment items that will appear on the November ballot.

Locally, the stakes could not be higher.

Local residents will have the chance to vote on a number of items that could impact the City Council.

The City Charter reform measures include term limits, campaign finance contributions, and an overhaul of the city’s appointment process.

A majority vote on the November ballot would limit local Councilmembers to three terms. After that, they would be forced to take four years off and be limited to serving just two additional terms.

Currently, there are no term limits in council races.

But even as the item prepares to go to the ballot, some Councilmembers were not sold on the idea of a three-year break, a four-year break, and a potential eight-year comeback.

Vice Mayor Steve Madison floated the idea of three consecutive terms being the limit and ballot language reflecting that no one could serve more than that at one time.

Then, Councilmember Jason Lyon pushed the idea that elected officials at City Hall should be allowed to serve 12 years and be finished.

One member of the community accused Madison of trying to make changes while “catching the community off guard.”

“I’m not persuaded by the idea that we shouldn’t try to get this right,” Madison said. “City Charter reform is something that doesn’t happen every day… So I do think we have a legitimate interest in trying to improve it.”

Madison pointed out that there was no precedent for any of the matters being discussed.

“Nobody’s gone three years and come back after four and wanted to do more than two or three terms,” said Madison.

“We did have this one situation because of the tragic passing of John [Kennedy], but hopefully we would learn from that.”

Mayor Victor Gordo repeated his stance against term limits.

“I’ve made my position known on term limits. I don’t support them. I don’t see where they’ve worked in Sacramento,” Gordo said. “I don’t see where they’ve worked in Los Angeles or anywhere else for that matter. The institutional knowledge then becomes separated from representatives and only with staff. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I think there’s something lost. And we’ve seen evidence of that in Sacramento, where term limits just become musical chairs. In LA City, same thing. You just have musical chairs… we’re kidding ourselves to say that it’s borne any benefit to any of the communities where it’s been adopted.”

Madison and Lyon voted for the item, which eventually passed 5-2.

Tyron Hampton was absent for a portion of Monday’s meeting.

Finally, if a council seat becomes vacant and has not been contested in an election for at least two years, a special election would be held.

If there was less than two years, the City Council could appoint a replacement.

Applicants would be required to live in the District for at least 30 days.

Originally, the City Council voted to place a six-month residency requirement on appointments, but City staff learned that residency requirements beyond 30 days violate the 14th Amendment, according to the state Supreme Court.

“We took a look at the matter after the prior Council meeting and there’s some case law talking about some problems with the six month residency requirement, but another later case that upheld a 30-day residency requirement,” said Chief Assistant City Attorney Javan Rad. “And so we think 30 days would be supportable under case law. And this is including California Supreme Court case law. So that’s where staff came back with the 30-day residency.”

Madison said he appreciated the work staff did on the matter, and then said the Council should either return to a District residency requirement or drop the residency requirement.

“I mean that’s just a fig leaf,” Madison said. “I can’t imagine that’s ever going to be a serious issue. And I think we should either return to the commission’s recommendation, which was that for the council districts, the person should be a resident of the District.”

“If you’re saying it’s a 30-day limit, then so be it. And I don’t know if that would mitigate things in the eyes of the other Councilmembers or not or just drop the whole thing. It is just in a crowded ballot,” Madison said.

That item passed 5-2 with the Mayor and Vice Mayor voting against it.

Another change to local elections would limit campaign contributions to local candidates.

Currently, contributions are capped at $5,900.

The change would limit contributions to $1,000 contributions in City Council races and $2,500 in mayoral races.

However the City Council would vote to change contributions by limit. There have been discussions to lift the limits if candidates self fund above a certain monetary limit.

The council was forced to take a brief recess after it became apparent that early exits from the special meeting that began at 4 p.m. left the City Council without the required quorum needed to take a vote.

And Madison, who participated telephonically, had to leave at 5 p.m.