Term limits

I got an interesting letter tonight from a resident here in town, Ray Squier. I haven't read the entire letter yet (it's three pages), but did read the beginning... including the question:

"Is it time to again look at the town Charter for review, revisions, improvements?"

That question brought something to my mind... something that I had been considering for a while now, but had not really discussed publicly.

Term limits

I think we (the town) ought to seriously consider term limits for the Council. Personally, I think we ought to have term limits for all levels of my government: Washington, Hartford & Cheshire. But I can only have a direct impact on Cheshire.

How could we impose term limits?

We would need to revise the charter. Hence, the timing of this posting. (Btw, the last Charter Revision was completed in 1996. And I think it began in 1994. So I agree with Ray. It's been over a decade since we opened up the Charter. Regardless of term limits, I think it may be worthwhile to consider revising the Charter.)

Some general thoughts on how I would define "term limits?"

I wouldn't want to preclude someone from office forever. However, I don't see a need for someone to stay in office for more than say, six to ten years continuously. Then they could leave office for one term and return thereafter. However, in the meantime, we would have gotten some new people into office... people who may very well not run for office if they were to face an "incumbent." As well, I wouldn't want to backdate this rule. To simplify things, we could just "start the timer" today.

As for the much broader idea of "Charter Revision," for those of you who are unaware, Charter Revision is a significant undertaking. And most importantly, it means EVERYTHING is "on the table." That means we could:

1) move from a Council/Manager form of gov't to a Mayor... either strong (New Haven) or weak (Meriden, I think).

2) pay our elected officials (ha! I'd love to see how that goes over in the voting booth! It'd go over even better than Wooding Caplan did in Wallingford... I think that went down something like 6600 - 400!).

3) allow for split referendum votes... bifurcating the town budget from the school budget. (Personally, I think that would be great because it would be handing more power to the voters. Right now though, we can only have one "up or down" vote on the entire $90million budget. Splitting out various line items would be good for the town.)

4) revise the Council election cycle. (For example, we could change from four to three districts, change from two to three year terms and have three Council members up for election each year... putting all these changes together would help us comply with minority representation rules, as two at-large members would always be up for election.)

5) split the roles of Council Chairman and Honorary Mayor (I see no need to combine the roles.)

6) do all sorts of things.

I have some other ideas to broach if we revise the charter, but the single most significant idea I would support is term limits. (I don't like the idea of going to a Mayor. By having a Mayor, you centralize power. And that's fine with a good person in office. But I think Corrupticut has proven itself to have too many people who start to believe that they themselves are special, ultimately succumbing to temptation. Nope... I'd rather skip that possibility.)

Please comment on this. I really would like to hear if people like the idea of term limits or, more generally, a Charter Revision. (I found this Wikipedia page to be very useful in reviewing the supporting and opposing arguments.)

Tim White
Town Council, 4th District