City voters support two terms for mayor

Voters overwhelmingly approved allowing a Naples mayor to run for a second consecutive four-year term, voting 70 percent in favor of the referendum.

The referendum had generated little controversy because council members already can serve two consecutive four-year terms. A total of 3,192 voted in favor of changing the city’s charter, while 1,341 voted against it. The turnout was 4,579 voters, so 46 didn’t vote for the referendum.

Mayor Bill Barnett, who hasn’t decided whether he will run again in 2008, but thinks he is doing a good job, said he was pleased.

“I’ve said all along that it just makes sense that a mayor be able to get the same number of terms as a council member,” Barnett said as he stood with his wife, Chris, at the Collier County Supervisor of Elections office, where he had just finished a City of Naples Canvassing Board meeting.

“This really makes a resounding statement that the voters agree.”

Proponents of term limits say four years is enough. But critics say cutting a mayor’s tenure short after four years takes away voters’ freedom to choose, means a new mayor will begin a four-year stint with a severe learning curve, and hinders a mayor from completing projects or long-range plans. Although City Council members all support Barnett, two were against extending terms.

Council member Penny Taylor was against it because she said the Naples mayor has too much power while council is not in session and can make all decisions for the city. Council member John Sorey didn’t believe a sitting mayor should benefit from the charter being changed and thought that should be in the referendum. Other council members supported changing the charter.

Barnett has said that adding four years will bring continuity, minimizing the learning curve for whoever takes the city’s helm. Barnett, a 33-year Naples resident, was elected in 2004 and served a previous term from 1996 to 2000. Prior to that, the retired car dealership owner was a two-term councilman.

The last time reforms for mayor were written into the city charter was in the 1980s, when the mayor’s tenure was expanded from two, two-year terms to one, four-year stretch.

The issue arose again in January 1998, but City Council voted it down, 4-3. Barnett, who was a council member then, voted yes, while Johnny Nocera, who also was a council member then, voted against it. Then-mayor Bonnie MacKenzie had supported the measure. The issue came up again last year because council members wanted to tighten up and clarify charter ambiguities.

The issue of term limits dates back to at least 1851, according to a 1995 study on term limits, the most recent nationwide research that exists. Since then, term limits have spread steadily across the country, passing a vote about 70 percent of the time, according to the study by the U.S. Term Limits Foundation. It found that eight of 10 of America’s most populous cities have term limits.

In 1992, Florida’s term limits law was passed by nearly 77 percent of voters, limiting state legislators and members of Congress to no more than eight consecutive years in office. But the issue will be up for a vote again this year, with legislators pushing for an additional four years, or 12.

A 2005 survey by the League of Florida Cities shows that of the state’s 408 cities, mayors serve four-year terms in 136; seven cities didn’t respond. Fifty-eight have mixed terms, with a mayor serving a different term from council members.

On Tuesday evening, at Precinct 462, St. John’s Episcopal Church on Park Shore Drive, mayoral term limits didn’t raise eyebrows. A half-dozen people interviewed all were voting for it.

Maggie Phillips, a Park Shore resident, said she and her husband Don voted to allow a mayor to run again.

“However, I think it should be presented in a different way,” Phillips said. “I don’t think the sitting mayor should get the benefit.”

She noted that President Clinton didn’t get the raise approved while he was in office. “We’re from the D.C. area, so we scrutinize things more,” she said.

Trish Williams, a Park Shore resident who lives on Venetian Bay, said she believes a mayor should be allowed to run again.

“If it’s a qualified candidate, let him continue running,” said Williams, whose husband Michael ran for mayor in 2000. She added: “And that would include Barnett.”