By Dan Moffett
Gulf Stream commissioners have given preliminary approval to a proposal that would put staggered commission terms on the ballot for the March election.
But the go-ahead comes with a stipulation that the town’s civic association, which requested the charter change in November, makes a case for final approval at the commission’s Jan. 10 meeting.
“I really don’t think there’s anything on the downside, frankly,” said Commissioner Bob Ganger, who called the proposal “a wonderful thing that the civic association has done.”
The proposed ordinance passed 4-1, with Commissioner Garrett Dering dissenting. Dering said he saw no compelling reason for making the change and thought it was a knee-jerk reaction for the commission to act without more consideration to the town’s entire election process.
“Look at the whole ball of wax, look at the whole deal,” he said. “To me, term limits are a lot more important than staggered elections. I don’t know what you accomplish with them.”
Dering argued that the “the real risk, the practical risk is that people move, or die or whatever,” not that commissioners are voted out of office in elections. None of the five commission members has ever won a town election, after all. They all were appointed and then returned unopposed.
Gulf Stream is one of only a few South Florida municipalities that elects all its officials in the same year.
Patsy Randolph, a member of the civic association, told commissioners that staggering the elections would improve continuity and also encourage more residents to get involved in their government.
“If you have an election, you learn how to get involved,” Randolph said.
Mayor Joan Orthwein, who in her 19th year on the commission ranks as one of the longest-serving elected officials in Palm Beach County, said that term limits don’t make sense in a small town.
“We’re talking term limits but we couldn’t fill a position on the architectural review board,” she said. “As we go forward, it’s going to be difficult to get people who are willing to serve.”
If commissioners give their final approval at the proposed ordinance’s second reading in January, then voters would get to decide in March whether the town should change its charter and allow the staggered terms. The plan also calls for putting the seats of all five commissioners up to a vote. The top three vote-getters would win three-year terms and the bottom two would get two-year terms.
Ganger said the proposed change could send a signal to residents that government officials are willing to do what they can to promote wider involvement.
“We’ll keep working at it and two years from now, we’ll probably have a different charter and probably have more people participating in the process,” he said.
In other business:
• Commissioners unanimously approved a 4 percent increase in water rates to help preserve the reserves for the town’s aging system.
• The commission also unanimously approved five candidates for the ad hoc committee that will review the town’s codes. Three members are not Gulf Stream residents — Richard Mouw, David Bodker, Benjamin Schreier — and were added to bring in perspectives from the outside. William Boardman and Patsy Randolph are the two town residents on the panel.
Comments