National City Mayor Ron Morrison will be termed out once he completes his term in two-years after the City Council downed an effort to overturn term limits for the mayoral seat.
A discussion to repeal term limits was brought forward last month by Councilman Albert Mendivil. But on Tuesday night he proposed removing the item from the agenda without future discussion to restore peace in the council chamber.
“I wanted to diffuse the situation,” Mendivil said about pulling the item off the table. “There seemed to be a lot of emotion that was generated.”
The potential discussion to overturn term limits for the mayor caused a series of attacks and arguments on social media against the mayor, council members and supporters and opponents of the item.
Councilman Jerry Cano, who also seconded the motion to bring this item for discussion last month, seconded the motion. The council approved 4-1 to remove the item without future discussion.
Councilwoman Alejandra Sotelo Solis voted against pulling the item because she said she wanted to hear the arguments from the public speaking for and against.
Sotelo Solis, who is running for a second city council term, after the meeting said she supports term limits because it holds the city’s decision makers accountable.
“With term limits, leaders are more responsible toward their constituents because they recognize that they will soon be constituents themselves,” she said. “They will have to live under the laws they have created while in office.”
Term limits for the mayor came into effect in 2004 when voters overwhelmingly supported Proposition T. The ordinance sets a limit of three consecutive terms on the office of the mayor. After successfully completing three consecutive terms, an individual could run for city council. The individual would have to sit out one election cycle before running for mayor again.
“I’m just glad that the council listened to the will of the people – 70 percent of the people- and that we will continue in that name,” said councilwoman Mona Rios.
Mayor Ron Morrison said council members feared that voters would over turn term limits for the mayor.
“It’s interesting because they want transparently and everything else but they seem to be deathly afraid of the
National City voters,” he said. “They don’t want the voters to vote on it.
Morrison added that he does not want to be mayor forever.
“I don’t need the job, I don’t need the ego,” he said. “It wouldn’t matter if this thing went on the ballot and passed or not, if there was someone two-years from now that I look at and I say ‘That person is really confident and they actually demonstrate that they love the city’, and not just going around and saying it, I would have no problem getting behind that person and say ‘let’s put that person in there.”
In National City, there are no term limits for members of the city council or the city clerk.
