County of San Diego
Proposition B
Proposed Term Limits Amendment to San Diego County Charter. Shall the San Diego Charter be amended to impose a limit of two terms for persons serving on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors?
Election Day is June 8, 2010, but the actual election process begins in May when the Sample Ballots and those registered to vote by mail start to receive their ballots. This means that ballot recommendations start a bit earlier than in the past.
We kick off our recommendations with Proposition B which wants to apply term limits to the County Board of Supervisors, to eight (8) years or two four year terms. At present the Supervisors have served unabated for decades with the exception being Greg Cox who will have only served 16 years at the end of his fourth term in office.
The argument against term limits is that we have experienced Supervisors and that term limits can be applied at any time by the voters via the ballot box.
The idea that the voters can just vote out the Supervisors sounds good, but in reality it just doesn’t work that way. With only five Supervisors they accumulate a lot of political good will from the power structure, developers, and through the generosity of the $2 million dollars that each Supervisor has at their disposal to hand out to whomever they want. They have become so entrenched and with the realization that they are as close to a sure thing as there is, often times the candidates run unopposed or with only token opposition. Rarely is there a viable candidate challenging an incumbent.
As to the argument about experienced legislators – being an elected official was not meant to become a lifelong career move. To have Supervisors serve 24, 28, 32 years only serves to stifle the political process and concentrate the power into the hands of a few. But even more important is that the Board of Supervisors does not reflect the community. What we have are five white Supervisors. There is no diversity, no Hispanics or Blacks. This is not San Diego County.
San Diego County is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural community and its Board of Supervisors should reflect this community, without term limits this diversity will not occur on this Board anytime soon.
Serving as an elected official is not a life long career opportunity but an opportunity for citizens to serve their community and the County Board of Supervisors should reflect the diversity of their community. For these reasons we support and endorse Prop. B.
Vote Yes for Prop. B Term Limits for the County Board of Supervisors.