Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Charter review, commish, term limits

I was out a few days, so I'm catching up on returning calls, emails, etc. To the person who called once and then the next day told an editor that I haven't returned your calls, you are last on my list.

Anyhoo, we ran a story Monday about county officials prepping to appoint a charter review committee. It didn't get much reaction. (Click right smack here for the story.)

Lot of rumors going around about what could happen. I doubt any of it will, but a few folks are talking about increasing the county commission and doing something to term limits – either eliminating them or clarifying them. (Different suggestions depending on who wants to weigh in.)

So, I got a couple documents if you're interested. The first – click right smack here – is the resolution that the commission will vote on when it appoints members.

The second – click right smack here – is a (at this point) primer on term limits. You see, there's been some debate about whether someone who was appointed and then won the office can run again. Right now, the answer is “yes.”

1 comment:

Brian Paone said...

From the linked article on the charter commission:

"Any recommendations that the commission signs off on would be put on the November ballot."

I'm not entirely certain the commission's approval is necessary - I remember that the charter review process was the subject of an attempt by Mike Mitchell (through William Daniels and Elaine Davis, appointed 4th District commissioners at the time) to make it so that commissioners had to sign off on the charter review committee's recommendations before said recommendations hit the ballot.

I remember this because this was the beginning of the end of my reporting career - I got up from the media table and joined Richard Beeler in speaking out against the concept. (The motion failed and William Daniels still won't speak to me. Oh well.)

So, while I can't say you're wrong with certainty, I can say that I'm not sure you're 100% correct on that sentence... and frankly, I hope you're not.