Redondo Council Gives Ballot Issues Initial OK

Redondo Beach voters could face a grab bag of ballot questions this fall, including term limits for elected officials, campaign reforms, and the size of the city’s library commission.

Scrambling to meet the county’s Aug. 10 deadline for placing propositions on the Nov. 6 general election ballot, the City Council tentatively voted Tuesday to put five questions to residents. The measures will be considered in final form on Aug. 7.

The most controversial are a pair of competing measures dealing with term limits. One, sought by Councilman Ron Cawdrey, would abolish the existing City Charter provision limiting council members and the mayor to a maximum of two terms.

The immediate beneficiary would be Cawdrey, who is completing his second term on the council. He admits his main goal is to get the chance to run for a third term next March.

“Otherwise, I can never run again,” Cawdrey said during a break in Tuesday’s meeting. “I like doing this job, and I think I do it well.”

A competing ballot question drafted by Mayor Brad Parton, who opposes Cawdrey’s proposal, would broaden the two-term limit so it applies not only to the mayoral and council posts, but also to the city’s other elective offices: city treasurer, city clerk and city attorney.

The measure would bar reelection bids next year by Treasurer Alice De Long, now nearing the end of her fourth four-year term, and City Clerk John Oliver, who is completing his third term. City Atty. Gordon Phillips would be prohibited from seeking a third term in 1993, when his position will come up for election.

The decisions to put the two-term measures on the ballot came in tight 3-2 votes, with council members Barbara Doerr and Stevan Colin dissenting each time. Colin and Doerr said they voted against Cawdrey’s measure because they firmly oppose abolishing the two-term limit on the mayor and the council.

They said they fought Parton’s proposition because the offices of city treasurer, city clerk and city attorney require expertise and could suffer if they have to have new leadership every eight years.

“It’s city finance, litigation and record-keeping,” Colin said after Tuesday’s meeting. “Their jobs are more specialized than ours. The only way you get better in those fields is with experience.”

In interviews on Wednesday, De Long, Oliver and Phillips agreed. De Long said the job of treasurer, though an elective position, is more akin to a city department head than to a policy-maker. Phillips said two-term limits would ruin continuity in the city attorney’s office.

“It’s going to take a lawyer four years to understand the job and then they’ll have to spend the last four years looking for a new one,” Phillips said. “It’s just one of the worst proposals I have yet to see go on a ballot.”

Phillips said that, because the city attorney job pays less than litigation work in the private sector, a key attraction to the post is that a young lawyer can make municipal law into a career.

“Nobody young and vigorous is going to take a job that can only last eight years, no matter how well you perform,” he said. “You’re going to get people with no interest in the job looking for a source of income.”

Oliver, the city clerk, said he believes council members are secretly hoping for passage of Parton’s proposal so they can run for clerk or treasurer when they reach the end of their two-term tether. The posts, although lower in rank, are full-time positions with higher salary and retirement pay, he said.

“They’ve just created three vacancies for ex-incumbents to run for,” Oliver said angrily. “If I’m an incumbent, and I can’t run for reelection, you can bet your ‘bippy’ I’ll run for treasurer or clerk.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Parton argued that voters should have the opportunity to weigh both measures. A majority of council members--Cawdrey, Kay Horrell and Terry Ward--agreed.

But Parton said he will campaign hard for the measure to extend the two-term limit to all the city’s elected officials, arguing that it will benefit city government.

“I think it holds government more accountable. . . . I believe that change or that disruption can be very helpful,” he said during the council debate. “If we (the mayor and council members) are going to have it, then I think all elected officials should have it.”

Among the other measures approved for the Nov. 6 ballot are propositions requiring the post of mayor pro tem to be rotated among the five City Council members and expanding the library commission from five members to seven.

The proposed campaign reform measure includes several provisions. One would prohibit contributions from individuals who contract with the city during the 12 months after an election. Phillips said the language of that measure would probably have to be changed to cover donors who already have city contracts.

Another ballot measure would bar elected officials from voting on issues affecting contributors who have given them more than $250. A third would require candidates to disclose campaign contributions of $50 or more. State law calls for candidates to report contributions of $100 or higher.

A fourth provision would require campaign committees spending more than $500 in a Redondo Beach election to register with the city clerk.

Although the council voted unanimously to place the reform package on the ballot, there was debate over the provision requiring candidates to report contributions of $50 or more.

An earlier version of the proposal called for a $25 reporting limit, but Ward and Horrell argued that candidates would be burdened with too much paper work if they had to fill out forms for such small contributions.

Said Horrell: “When you start making these things out, boy, let me tell you, that takes time.”