Council nixes term limits

Local News

October 20, 2011

By Joyce Miles Lockport Union-Sun & Journal The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Thu Oct 20, 2011, 02:16 AM EDT

LOCKPORT — Andy Chapman’s term limits proposal for city office holders was downed Wednesday in a 2-4 vote by Common Council members.

Chapman, 4th Ward alderman, and Jack Smith, 2nd Ward alderman, cast the two “yes” votes for the proposal, which would have required the mayor to take a break from the office after serving two consecutive terms, and aldermen to take a break after three consecutive terms. The proposed law did not prohibit former officers from running again, so long as they sat out one term.

Seven residents, five of them from the 4th Ward, addressed the council to argue for or against term limits.

Fourth-warders Doralyn Marshall and Pat Schrader argued against term limits, saying limits effectively limit voters’ choices in elections, while Jean Kiene, George Kugler and Tony Sammarco argued for limits, espousing the view that change helps keep a governing body from getting stale or complacent.

Sammarco qualified his support with a suggestion for broader limits — say, three consecutive terms for the mayor and the alderman at large, and staggered terms for the other aldermen — to prevent a case of all newly elected representatives coming into office at once. “There is danger in having all neophytes,” he said. “The total lack of experience ... could be devastating.”

Former alderman Phyllis Green and current 1st Ward alderman candidate Shirley Nicholas chimed in on the pro-limits side too. Green, who served eight terms, suggested her two-year break from the office, after she was “unelected” by 2nd Warders in the late 1990s, was good for her and the city because she took the time to learn where she went wrong and how she could “come back a better alderman.”

Chapman, who is leaving city office in December, followed the up the residents’ comments with an impassioned speech about the promise he’d made to his constituents two years ago to pursue a term limits law, and his sincere belief in the virtues of term limits. Putting limits on incumbency would help combat voter apathy, enable change and produce a true “citizen legislature,” he said.

Smith, who also is leaving city office after one term, said he felt there’s merit in both the arguments for and against term limits and he personally had no strong feeling about the question. He voted for term limits because polling of 2nd Ward residents showed a solid majority favor them, he said.

Those who voted “no” on the term limits proposal — 1st Ward Alderman Richelle Pasceri, departing 3rd Ward Alderman Flora McKenzie, 5th Ward Alderman Ken Genewick and Alderman at Large Joe Kibler — did not offer comments during the public hearing. In prior debates with Chapman about the proposal, Genewick and McKenzie both said voters in their wards have not asked for a term limits law; and Kibler has insisted there are already term limits on city offices.

“They’re called elections,” he says.

Kibler is running unopposed for his sixth term as alderman at large.

The 2-4 vote against the term limits law mirrored voting in early 2010, when Chapman introduced a proposed law, was backed by Smith, then saw the proposal “tabled” by a Council majority after a public hearing. Chapman tried to get the old proposal out of its tabled state and up to Council vote last month and was thwarted by the same 2-4 vote.

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