Saratoga’s effort to codify council term limits hit a roadblock at the city council meeting Wednesday evening after council could not reach consensus.
Council voted earlier this year to put a term limit question on the November ballot, which would cap councilmember’s terms at a maximum of eight years.
Wednesday, council attempted to approve the written argument in favor of the ballot question that would appear in the voter guide, but the group got lost in discussions about two proposed drafts, one from Mayor Tina Walia and the other from Councilmember MaryLynn Bernald.
After spending nearly an hour trying to schedule a meeting to rewrite the draft argument language, council ultimately voted to reopen the discussion at its Aug 3 meeting, with Bernald and Walia meeting to write a singular draft in the meantime.
“We have spent a half-hour discussing dates; we could have spent that half-hour prioritizing what we wanted. I’m finding this a total waste of time — period,” Bernald said. “I would have preferred, as I asked almost a half-hour ago, that you all tell us what it is that you want out of the term limits.”
Walia had volunteered to write the argument at the March council meeting, when they approved the ballot question. After her draft was submitted, Bernald submitted her own draft because she felt Walia’s draft was “negative” and contained incorrect information that most councilmembers serve on committees before serving on the council.
“We are speaking to the reasons why we support term limits, and I wanted to be sure that we were putting the term limits, as I said, in a positive light,” Bernald said. “I did it the way I did because it’s easy to read, it will catch people’s eye, and it reflected a positive input from our council.”
Walia responded, saying that her draft was simple and clear, and appealed to Saratoga’s immigrant population.
“This is exactly what I was not wanting to see,” Walia said. “All of you asked me to write a draft. In good faith I made the effort; I reached out to a lot of people. I am more than happy to work with both the drafts tonight.”
Walia’s draft contains three bullet points of several sentences each.
“We are a small city that delivers quality services to our residents,” Walia’s draft reads. “Having council members with new ideas and fresh perspectives are the best way to ensure that we keep moving forward. Saratoga does not need career politicians.”
Bernald’s draft had several bullet points with “power verbs.”
“Many benefits come with term limits, including but not limited to: fostering greater resident participation in local government; creating more competitive elections; providing voters more choice at the ballot box,” Bernald’s draft reads.
Vice Mayor Kookie Fitzsimmons said she felt Walia’s draft was “negative and judgmental and ineffective,” and that she “wasn’t clear what the point was.”
“I really appreciate the positive nature of MaryLynn’s, using words like ‘benefit, fostering, creating, providing, promoting, encouraging, improve, effective, accountable,’” Fitzsimmons said. “That’s what I want to see.”
Kumar voiced his support for Walia’s draft, and made a motion to pass that version, which failed.
“I’ve been very dismayed at how inefficient this meeting has been, and also some of the negative words that are being used,” Kumar said. “We trusted someone to do the work. … The tone of this meeting has been very not right, and very, very inefficient.”
Saratoga has been considering term limits for some time. In 1992, Saratoga voters adopted an advisory measure to limit terms, though it was “not binding,” staff said.
Council considered placing a term limit measure on the ballot in July 2020, but instead adopted a resolution stating current councilmembers should “voluntarily comply” with the 1992 advisory measure in future elections.
Earlier this year, council directed staff to draft a ballot measure for the November 2022 election to officially establish binding term limits. Council approved the ballot measure in March 2022.
Councilmembers Bernald, Kumar and Yan Zhao are in the last year of their terms, and Zhao is up for re-election. Walia and Vice Mayor Kookie Fitzsimmons are in the second year of their four-year terms.
Council also voted to keep its meetings virtual after its second, hour-long conversation on the topic this year.
Source: www.mercurynews.com