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Print This PageSarasota’s Republican Party offered a sharp rebuke of Sarasota County commissioner for considering a plan to scrap the county’s two-term limit for commissioners.
GOP leaders voted 97-2 for a resolution that calls on the county commission to abandon the idea of putting a new longer term limit proposal on the Jan. 31 ballot that would effectively get rid of the current 8-year limit.
The people voted 13 years ago to have 8 year term limits and the county commissioners – all five of whom are Republicans – need to abide by that, Sarasota Republican Party chairman Joe Gruters said.
“They need to do the right thing,” Gruters said. “We support our Republican county commissioners, but we hope they reject putting this on the ballot.”
In 1998, 68 percent of Sarasota County voters approved an amendment limiting commissioners to two four-year terms.
But those limits have been in limbo ever since 2005 when Circuit Judge Deano Economou ruled that the Florida Constitution does not allow communities to impose term limits on county commissioners.
The term limits remained in the county charter, but have been ignored.
The conflicting rulings has the Florida Supreme Court now looking at the issue to determine once and for all if county commissioners can be term limited like state legislators.
But before Sarasota’s limits are re-established, political allies of current county commissioners are trying to pass a new term limit law that would give future commissioners three terms. Current commissioners would not have their terms count against them, meaning they’d be eligible for three terms starting in 2012, even if they have served three or four terms previously.
Leading advocates of the longer terms are Eric Robinson, the husband of present county commissioner Christine Robinson, and Bob Waechter, a close political ally of commissioners Nora Patterson and Carolyn Mason.
Waechter said he’s not pushing the longer limits to protect Patterson or Mason. Instead, he said he worries shortened terms will shift the balance of power in the county to the unelected administrators who will have more institutional knowledge than commissioners.
“We just want to ask voters do you still feel the same way,” Waechter said.
I think there a lot of Sarasotans who are wondering if there is a coherent thought in your post. Good thing neither Guiluani nor Bloomberg are running for Sarasota County Commissioner. The people voted in 1998 to impose term limits. Serve for two consecutive terms and then you must have a two year waiting period before you can serve again. That’s about all there is to say.