Evolution isn’t just about science. Flip flops are not only for the beach.
Toward the close of Tuesday night’s Chula Vista City Council meeting Mayor Mary Salas made the surprising proposal to limit the number of years a person could serve on the City Council. Surprising because just last year when she was running for mayor Salas said she thought it was to the city’s advantage to have experienced people return to City Hall.
At the time Salas was a councilwoman serving her third term after having taken advantage of the city’s term limits loophole which allows people to return to City Council after taking at least one year off. (She had originally termed out after eight years in 2004.)
Now, however, Salas wants voters to decide if would-be retreads must wait four years before running again or if there should be an absolute limit on the number of years a person can serve.
Councilwoman Pamela Bensoussan also was running for mayor last year as a city councilwoman in the middle of her second and sort-of final term.
“I think that once you’ve done eight years, or two terms, in any position I think it — I would be in favor of a hard term limit as opposed to soft,” she said at the time.
But on Tuesday the relative short-timer was singing a different ditty.
“I feel the system, the way we have it is fine. I’m not typically … in favor of term limits. I don’t think that we are able to maintain a high degree of institutional memory when we have council members unable to run after two terms,” she said.
Especially, presumably, when yours is part of that institutional memory and your gig is up next year. Maybe that’s why she went as far as suggesting that perhaps council members should be allowed to serve three terms — 12 years — and then be prohibited from running again.
Clearly philosophies and attitudes toward term limits have changed. Some more dramatically than others.
Mayor Salas used to like the idea of having a revolving door to City Hall but now wants to explore bolting it shut. Councilwoman Bensoussan used to be in favor of hard term limits but is now open to the idea of 12 years on the council. Councilman John McCann last year said voters should decide the issue but this week pointed out that other cities don’t have term limits; while appointed councilman Steve Miesen doesn’t like term limits and is worried about the cost of sending a measure to voters. And councilwoman Pat Aguilar? Last year she was in favor of hard term limits and to date it seems her mind has not changed.
But you still have to wonder whose minds will flip or flop or evolve — and why — once it’s time for the issue to go before the Charter Review Commission and, eventually, voters.
