WESTMINSTER : Voters to Decide on 2-Year Council Seat

Voters will decide Nov. 6 whether one of the winning candidates in the 1992 City Council election should serve two years in office instead of four so that council terms can be evened out.

In the latest round of a two-month controversy, the council voted 4 to 1 this week to place an ordinance on the ballot that would designate a specific council seat in the 1992 general election as a two-year seat.

If the ordinance passes, the candidate who wins the seat will only be elected for a two-year term instead of the usual four years. This would correct the current imbalance in which three council seats are open at one election and only one is open in the next election. The mayor is elected by the voters every two years.

A majority of the council views the proposed ordinance as a solution to legal questions stemming from a 1986 ordinance that limited the winning candidate with the least number of votes in the 1988 election to a two-year term.

Councilwoman Lyn Gillespie, the third highest vote-getter in that election, asked the council in January to repeal the 1986 ordinance because she said it might be unconstitutional. The council repealed the ordinance, giving Gillespie a four-year term, and then decided to put the entire matter before the voters.

Councilwoman Anita Huseth voted against putting the ordinance on the ballot and also voted against repealing the

Huseth suggested “collusion” among Gillespie and council members Frank F. Fry, Joy L. Neugebauer and Mayor Charles V. Smith, who voted to extend her term.

“The voting rights of the people were taken away when the council gifted her with two more years,” Huseth said. “It’s like getting away with a little less than murder.”

Neugebauer, who voted in favor of placing the ordinance on the ballot, denied any claims of collusion.

“I feel that placing the issue on the ballot and giving the people the opportunity to make a decision on how the terms will be balanced is the fairest thing to do,” she said.