1 Excerpt from the Minutes of the January 25, 2017 Special City Council Meeting

Transcription

1 Excerpt from the January 25, 2017 Special City Council Meeting Item 8.D (verbatim) Mayor Waldeck: this is one that Bridget Morgan gave to me and it has to do with term limits and I thought long and hard about it, but I think it is a very good idea. The idea goes like this, we have committees that are wanting people to join, we have vacancies on several committees, about half I think, some are full with people trying to get in to them, and the proposal went something like this: should we employ term limits for people with two terms or more if there are other candidates and if someone has a three-term tenure on a committee, but there are two or three vacancies, why would you want to toss them out. The proposal goes like this, if you have a committee that is full and if you have people who have served more than two terms and you have people who want to get into the committee, so you wouldn't have any vacancies, should we impose term limits on people who meet that criteria? It is one of the nice things about government that we have elections or appointments periodically. It s a mix of people, a changing of the guard and I think that is important in every form of government we have and it certainly applies to our committees. Not everybody will agree with that, on the other hand, it seems to work pretty doggone well. That is the proposal I wanted to put out there and looking for feedback from this council. Councilmember Wu: one the things I think term limits are great for government officials, like councilmembers, our town has so many great volunteers and they volunteer, they do things, I also think that we are constantly looking for volunteers; we don't have enough volunteers on many, many committees. I think the term limits need to be considered that these are the volunteers who contribute to the town and that has to be structured appropriately. If you have a term limit, say you have one person contribute 8 years, 12 years, I think you want to keep that volunteer around, maybe shifting to a different role or different committee, but not on the same role for three terms, or five terms. Don't lose the volunteer. Mayor Waldeck: this proposal would allow that. Councilmember Corrigan: you have already heard from me on this topic, multiple times and I am in complete support. Councilmember Spreen: has no comments to add. Mayor Waldeck: this discussion has possible action on it, do I hear a motion to do something like that. Councilmember Corrigan: moved to establish two year term limits for all town committees with the exception of the committees that I have identified over the course of the last four years that require specific skill set or expertise. Those committees are the FIC, I don't have my notes in front of me, ECC and that may be it. Other than that, I fully support it. 1

2 There was no second. Councilmember Spreen: asked if we are talking about a two-term limit that one term would have to go by and you would have to go back if you wanted later on? Mayor Waldeck: yes, that is the standard. Councilmember Spreen: I am not convinced necessarily that if we are going to do it, that we need to make any exceptions. Are we worried having people, and maybe the FIC is a special case, are we going to have a plethora of people not really qualified. Mayor Waldeck: the FIC for example has very finite criteria on who can participate and so even if we did have expertise there because other people want to come on board, we aren't really losing it, we are changing the knowledge base. Councilmember Spreen: you could say that for open space for example, expertise that you can't get anywhere else and are we willing to... if we are going to do it, then do it. I am not sure any exceptions are that important. I am just taking it to the extreme. Vice Mayor Radford: so now I am going to get myself in trouble because I am going to try to embrace the dichotomy of your position here Gary. Back in December, and we have the examples out of the audience, two of the councilmembers voted for two pathway committee members for their fourth terms and now you are bringing up term limits a month later, I am a little confused. Mayor Waldeck: that is because I know how to learn. Vice Mayor Radford: it seems, sorry, I am once again trying to embrace the dichotomy of this position versus simply a month ago. Because I am strongly in favor of two term limits for all committees. I believe you have an option to go associate member, go to another committee or come back after a specific period of time and I think I made a point about that at our last meeting and it fell on deaf ears to tell you the truth. So, my only question, if we are really going to do this, are we then going to look at all the committees and sunset people that have already passed the two-term limit? Mayor Waldeck: the requirement I set out was, if you have a full committee and if you have served two terms and if there are people who would want to take that seat applying for the role, then yes, you would have to give up your seat and sit out one term and then you can come back. But, if you didn't have those conditions, then term limits really wouldn't apply. That is the proposal. Councilmember Wu: I am a little bit skeptical. You have too many ifs. We just had the clean rule it is easy to follow. When you have so many ifs, and so many assumptions there are going to be a lot more processes and very complicated and will 2

3 probably cause more negative consequences. Mayor Waldeck: I am not convinced. Do I have a motion one way or the other? Councilmember Spreen: That probably makes sense; I understand what you are trying to so by saying, look if no one else is there to fill it up, but someone who has been there, the reason why it doesn't make sense, and I am just thinking out loud, terms come up at different times. And we have to say when you are termed out, are you termed out for one year until the next time a position comes up? Or is it four years when you last on it? Trying to figure out how that would work. Let s just say you are termed out. Period. And let s say no one else comes to take that position, now your committee doesn't have enough people. Mayor Waldeck: no, no, that is not what I said. Councilmember Spreen: I think we could get in to some weird games where one person only had to sit out, one didn't have to sit out and then someone else had to sit out. Mayor Waldeck: that's the function of timing Roger and that you can't predict per se. The point is, you need to turn over people on the dais; and bring different thoughts in. I know we have at least two people who want to speak on this topic. Councilmember Spreen: I want to get rid of the exceptions as well and keep it simple. Public Comment: Eileen Gibbons, Los Altos Hills, respectfully requested that the Council not vote at this time as the functioning of the Town relies on the volunteers. Weegie Caughlin, Los Altos Hills, said that term limits should be mandatory. Allan Epstein, Los Altos Hills, said that if there are other people who are qualified to serve on a committee, they should be given an opportunity to serve. Judy Nagy, Los Altos Hills, said this is not a new topic. Mayor Waldeck: These past two weeks I had a meeting with all of the committee chairs and this is a topic I told them I would be raising. Kjell Karlsson, Los Altos Hills, said that you are here to make tough decisions and said term limits is a bad idea. Councilmember Spreen: I think that I am not opposed, having been a long-term committee person, and a committee chair for far too many years, I am not opposed to it, because I think there are some details that should be worked out. I would like to see it without exceptions to specific committees and have committee requirements for applications have those specific qualities we need. For example, the FIC, should say xyz, that way you don't have to make determinations. 3

4 Mayor Waldeck: I support that too and I will tell you why. Councilmember Spreen: that is one thing, I think we need more details on how long is the waiting period and I think these are all easily worked out. I would like to put the decision off until next month, not that I believe, by the way, that I think this is something the committee folks should decide upon and agree or disagree. Is this a policy for us? This sounds weird, but the committees are there to work for us and we need them to work effectively for us and so this is our statement for how we want them to work. I do think it is respectful to not just inform the committee chairs, but also inform the committee members to let them know that the council is talking about this and we can afford to wait a month on this so that every committee could have this on their agenda for one full cycle to talk about it and to see if it affected them or see if there was anything they want from us. I just think it is respectful. Councilmember Corrigan: I stand by my motion. I don't mind waiting. If the votes aren't there, I am happy to reagendize in February, but my feeling is I have been talking about this for four years. I have asked this Council before Councilmembers Spreen and Wu were seated, three years ago to consider this topic, and I think the time has come. I don't think I need to keep rehashing my personal point of view on this and I have made myself abundantly clear. But I think I would take Kjell's argument and turn it around and say it is appropriate for us to make the tough decisions on the exceptions when we want to grant somebody a third term. Rather than not having the hurt feelings and the politicking around let so and so sit there for another four years when there are multiple applicants. It is a totally different beast when there is no one standing in line and we are having a hard time populating the committee. Councilmember Spreen: I am not opposing the thing. I just want to see the details written down, which I think we can do just to make sure. I would like to have the committees see this because it does affect them. Councilmember Corrigan: Okay Councilmember Spreen: It is respectful to all the members. They may come up with something we haven't thought about which would be another detail. Personally, I would like to see exceptions written into the charters of the committees if we have specific requirements if a certain number of positions need to have requirements to make sure when the application is done we have the right people. Mayor Waldeck: that is in the committee charters. Councilmember Spreen: and then again I am not opposed to this, but I would like to give it a month so people don't say "did you see what they did at 10 O clock last night" even if there is no reason to. I will tell any committee member that it is our decision to make. I am not listening to any poll of committee members on whether they think this is the right idea or not, but I think they should have a chance to weigh in through their committees on this. 4

5 Councilmember Wu: I think that definitely, I didn't know the history and if you have waited three years, than one more month is probably okay. Councilmember Corrigan: it won't kill me. Councilmember Wu: one more month; we really need to inform all the people and have them prepared if they come up with any more good ideas or brilliant suggestions, I think we should take it. Otherwise, one more month, I think term limit is definitely is favorable. The other thing is, we are a small town, a very small town, and we have very dedicated, great volunteers; keep the rules simple. Easy to comprehend, easy to follow, not too many exceptions. Keep it simple. Vice Mayor Radford: I agree Courtenay that we should make a decision as soon as we can, but I am more than willing to wait a month. I would like to see the details written out so that we address some of the areas that we raised and what are we going to do here and here and all that. I think we can wait a month. February, we can make a decision on this. Mayor Waldeck: I am going to make a suggestion. I think we (Waldeck and Corrigan) can work together and bring something back next month. Councilmember Spreen: What will we report out from here so that the committees can deal with it. Mayor Waldeck: Basically, what we can report out from here is that the Council is considering term limits for those positions who have people standing in line for their committees. In a nutshell, that is it. If no one is standing in line, then there is no reason not to reappoint. It is that simple. Councilmember Corrigan: Withdrew her motion. 5