ANAHEIM : Council to Consider Term-Limit Measure

For the third time this year, the City Council on Tuesday will consider whether to place on the November ballot proposed Charter amendments limiting the number of terms that elected city officials can serve and the amount of campaign contributions candidates may receive.

Also to be considered for the ballot is a proposal to elect council members by district rather than at large.

The decision to place the measures on the ballot has been put off twice previously. Councilman Bob D. Simpson missed an April meeting because of a death in his family and the others said they wanted him present for the vote. In February, Mayor Fred Hunter and Councilman William D. Ehrle said they had not had a chance to read the proposals before the meeting. The council has until August to decide if it wants to put the measures on the ballot.

The council members are looking at three proposals that would limit the number of terms they and their successors could serve. One calls for limiting officeholders to two consecutive four-year terms as either mayor or council member. An officeholder would then have to sit out one election before running again.

A second proposal would allow someone to serve two four-year terms as mayor and two four-year terms as a council member, in any order. After 16 years in office, the officeholder would have to sit out one election.

The third proposal would limit council members and mayors to eight consecutive years in an office. But officeholders could serve indefinitely as long as they switched between council member and mayor every eight years or less.

Another proposal would limit campaign contributors to donating $1,000 to each candidate in an election. The council could amend that figure up or down, and it could adopt the limit itself as an ordinance rather than putting it before the voters as a Charter amendment.

The proposal to divide the city into districts originally was broached by the Orange County Hispanic Committee for Fair Elections and it has since received the backing of several multiethnic neighborhood groups.

While no specific plan has been drawn up, the concept calls for dividing the city into four districts, with each electing its own council member. The mayor, who is also a member of the council, would continue to be elected at large.

Latinos believe that by creating council districts in the city, they would have a better chance of electing a representative to the council. Despite the city’s having a population that is one-third Latino, no Latino has ever been elected to the council.

Opponents of the plan, including former council members Ben Bay and Miriam Kaywood, say that district-elected members would be concerned primarily with their own districts and would not put the best interest of the city first.

The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd.