Term limits ordinance to appear on ballot

WASILLA -- The Wasilla City Council voted Monday to send an ordinance repealing council term limits to the voters in October 2004. Mayor Dianne Keller acted to break a 3-3 tie vote among council members and uphold existing term limits.

The council first addressed the issue of whether term limits should be repealed immediately as proposed by Council Member Noel Lowe at its Nov. 10 meeting. Lowe spoke in favor of a council ruling on the subject without a popular vote, stating that Wasilla voters are informed and active enough to take the initiative with their own representatives rather than automatically being given a new batch of candidates. Responding to the assertion that limitless terms would encourage special interest groups and finance contributions to influence incumbents, Lowe said "if any council member or former council member has an example of somebody attempting to sway them with campaign finance contributions, I'd like to hear it."

Keller agreed, saying "you can't do stuff like that in Wasilla and get away with it."

Lowe went on to assert that retaining term limits would create potentially unfillable gaps in the council, noting that after the last election, two empty seats were left after council members' terms expired, and the council had difficulty filling them. Lowe stated that there is no reason to remove popular council members from their positions without cause, reminding the audience that "we have the opportunity to vote out of office people who are not doing a good job representing us."

Lowe is in his second consecutive term as a city council member, but does not intend to seek re-election next term.

Deputy Mayor Howard O'Neil spoke in support of Lowe, stating that he had experienced support for repealing term limits from voters, but Keller noted that "I haven't had anyone calling the mayor's office saying one way or another what they would like to do."

Several members of the public commented that they supported public voting on term limits.

"We have term limits built into our government," said Dan Kelley of Wasilla. "I am glad to see at the least that [the issue] will come to the voters."

Council Member Diana Straub called for investigation of the origins of the existing term limits, saying that if the voters themselves instituted the term limits, they should be allowed to decide whether or not to keep them. Records showed that voters had originally proposed council term limits in 1994, but the decision had been made by the council itself and approved by the electorate.

Straub cited this fact as support for a popular vote on the issue: "If [the term limits] were put out by the council alone, I would be more in support of handling it here at the table." Council Member Colleen Sullivan-Leonard agreed, stating that the current ordinance on term limits "has been voiced to us by the public and it should go back to that process."

Council Member Lowe responded by stating that term limits had originally been imposed to forcibly remove council members when opposition was insufficient to vote them out of office. Lowe argued that currently term limits serve merely to prevent voters from supporting popular incumbents. He cited the expiration of former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin's term as an example, arguing that Palin would have been a viable candidate for a third term if she had been allowed to run.

The council then voted on whether to repeal term limits immediately or set the matter to the voters in the October 2004 election. The vote resulted in a tie, with council members Lowe, Straub and O'Neil voting in favor of immediate repealment and council members Ron Cox, Sullivan-Leonard and Rob Sande opposed. The decision was thus deferred to Keller, who upheld the existing term limits in favor of placing the matter on the October ballot.

"If we are going to do away with the term limits, it should go back to the people who originally voted on this issue," Keller commented.