School Board Rejects Term Limits on Ballot

The school board this week rejected a plan to place term limits for trustees on the November election ballot.

By a 4-1 margin, Tustin Unified School District board members said they were against spending a minimum of $5,000 to put the question before voters.

“I don’t really think people are all that concerned about it,” board member Merlin L. Henry Jr. said. “I’d rather see the [election] money go into classrooms.”

Board member Todd Ferguson cast the dissenting vote.

“People are very concerned about it,” he said. “It’s an issue that’s sweeping the country.”

Ferguson said his plan was not to support term limits for trustees but to allow voters to make the choice.

“I don’t think term limits for Tustin are necessarily a good thing,” Ferguson said. “But it’s not a decision the school board should make. A government body shouldn’t be in a position to determine their own lengths in office.”

Under the proposal, trustees would have been limited to three terms of four years each. No school board in the state currently uses term limits, officials said.

Henry, however, said that voters already have a choice in the matter.

“With regard to term limits, we’ve had them in place for 500 years--it’s called the ballot box,” Henry said. “If voters are dissatisfied with their elected representatives, they can turn them out.”