Morgan Hill puts term limits on the ballot for November

After dozens of messages and public comments and a debate stretching over two meetings, the Morgan Hill City Council has agreed to let voters decide in November whether to place term limits for city councilmembers and the mayor.

Currently, the city is one of only two in Santa Clara County without term limits, according to a report by Morgan Hill city staff. Gilroy is the other. Morgan Hill is also one of a handful of cities in the county with a directly elected mayor. City councilmembers serve four-year terms and the mayor serves two-year terms.

In a second ballot measure approved this week, Morgan Hill voters will decide whether to extend the mayoral term from two years to four.

“While it’s unreasonable to assume term limits is going to change anything overnight, my hope is that over time, term limits will encourage more people to run. I’m hoping that more candidates will end up having their commitment to public interest,” said Morgan Hill resident Joe Baranowski. “I’m confident that this will make it to (the ballot on) November, it’ll pass by a wide majority.”

The ballot measure that will go before residents in the November general election sets term limits at twelve consecutive years, allowing city council members or the mayor to rerun after a hiatus of 12 years.

The allowance for candidates to return to office after a four-year break led to some public ire.

“If you’re gonna say term limits, it’s 12 years and that’s it: they can never come back,” resident Brian Sullivan told the council. “You’re kind of defeating the purpose by putting hiatus in there.”

However, some expressed opposition to the concept entirely. “I want to voice my strong opposition. I haven’t heard anything from anybody relative to a problem with term limits,” said Councilmember Gino Borgioli.

“Twelve years, I look at that as a compromise. Personally, I don’t see the need for the hiatus but if you want to have a four year break in between and the voters accept you and send you back (to office) that’s fine with me,” said Councilmember Rene Spring – who first proposed term limits and ran on the promise of implementing them. “I think we should simplify it to 12 years lifetime, period.”

After reaching an informal consensus on term limits, the council debated increasing mayoral terms to four years. However, the council was split over details as to whether the ballot measure should be amended to align the mayoral term with the presidential term.

Councilmembers Spring and Yvonne Martinez Beltran argued that since voter turnout increases during presidential election years, a four-year mayoral term should align with the presidential election cycle to encourage voter participation. However, that proposed change was not included in the final measure.

At the end of the debate Wednesday, the council voted 3-2 on the two ballot measures, with Spring and Martinez Beltran dissenting.