Queen’s City Hall

On the Enquirer Politics Extra Blog, there was a remark that Cecil Thomas was investigating support for changing the length of council terms from two years to four years. According to the report from Jane Prendergast, it was spurred by the hectic nature of having to campaign so often.

What do you think?

I admit that in some ways I agree with him. How much can be accomplished in two years when a couple months of that is trying to get re-elected for the next two years? Raising money for a campaign is an effort. Trust me, I know first hand. And I tend to think that a truly civic minded individual could channel those efforts in to actually campaigning for a better city. Now I am sure though that some will not use those two years productively and just use it as a ‘free pass’. They will continue to be as ineffective in four years as they were in two.

I think it does make the election even more critical. Getting the right mix of people in November is important because we potentially will be stuck with them for the next four years.

I’d be interested to see the term lengths of council member in other US cities of similar size. Heck, I’d be interested to see what other cities our size do in terms of voting for candidates by both ward and at large and electing a strong mayor and eliminating the City Manager altogether. (I am not saying I support any of these but I’d be interested in the data to maybe build a case either way.)