Laguna Beach residents will decide whether to limit City Council members’ terms

An initiative seeking to impose term limits for members of the Laguna Beach City Council has qualified for the ballot in next year’s general election.

Laguna Beach voters will be asked to decide whether council members should be allowed to serve more than two consecutive four-year terms.

The council Tuesday adopted a resolution to place that question before residents during the election scheduled for Nov. 3, 2026.

That action comes in response to a group of residents that began circulating a petition in June. Michael Morris, a proponent of the ballot initiative, said the required signatures were delivered nearly 30 days before the deadline.

Petitioners gathered 2,543 signatures and submitted them to the City Clerk’s office on Oct. 27. The document needed 10% of the city’s 18,179 registered voters to back the initiative in order for it to qualify for the ballot. The Orange County Registrar of Voters verified 2,227 signatures.

Timing the effort with next year’s general municipal election will cost up to $55,000, according to the an estimate provided by the Registrar of Voters.

The nonpartisan support for the initiative, Morris said, “underscores the appeal that the idea of term limits for elected office holds as a means of fostering greater democratic participation, reducing cronyism and backroom dealing and leveling the playing field for newcomers at election time.”

Morris characterized the term limits proposed as “mild,” noting that they call for only a two-year hiatus before a termed-out incumbent could run for office again.

Councilman Alex Rounaghi, one of three council members currently serving their initial terms, asked City Atty. Megan Garibaldi to clarify when the clock would start, should the ballot measure pass.

“There is an attorney general opinion that says, effectively, that in the event a term limit matter is on the same ballot as the election of council members, that the term limit will apply to the council members that are elected at that election,” Garibaldi said. “If someone is elected in November 2026, and if we’re to assume for this discussion that the initiative passes by the voters, then that would apply to the council members elected in November of 2026.”

Garibaldi added the term limits would apply going forward, meaning it would not count any prior term that has been served.

If the public comments portion of the agenda item at Tuesday night’s meeting was any indication, the community is set to have further discussion on the topic leading up to the election. About half of the speakers were in favor of term limits, while others said they did not believe such a restriction was necessary.

Resident Mary Clifford did not see the need, stating that she reviewed City Council elections going back 55 years and discovered only two of 33 council members in that time had served at least four consecutive terms.

“If we could just not [initiate term limits] at all, I’d love it,” Clifford said. “I find the democratic process is to allow people to vote for who they want to vote for and to not limit the pool.

“We don’t live in an Olympic pool-sized city, like Irvine. We live in a kiddie pool. We don’t have that many people who are able to step up and do this, so let’s just let the people that can do and will do it [take on the job] and not limit it.”