LAGUNA NIGUEL : Official Seeks Limit on Top Posts’ Terms

City Councilman Mark Goodman is proposing to limit the number of terms a person can serve as mayor.

Goodman said this week that he and Councilman James Krembas will ask the council at its Jan. 4 meeting to consider devising a formal rotation system that would ensure council members are allowed greater opportunity to serve as mayor and mayor pro tempore.

“We need to open up the process,” Goodman said. “This will open up the (two positions) to all the people that the voters voted for.”

Before Councilwoman Janet Godfrey was elected mayor Dec. 7, council members Patricia Bates and Thomas Wilson had been the only ones to serve as mayor since the city’s incorporation in 1989.

“Is it a fair system for two people to have the mayor and mayor pro tem seven out of 10 times?” asked Goodman, who was elected to the council in 1992.

In the most recent election, Goodman was nominated by Krembas for mayor and mayor pro tempore but lost on 3-2 votes. Godfrey, nominated by Bates, was voted in as mayor.

Voters elect the city’s five council members to four-year terms. The council members then vote each year on which of them should serve as mayor and mayor pro tempore.

Goodman’s council colleagues said they support the idea of a formalized, yet flexible, rotational process for selecting the mayor--an idea they have discussed previously.

In a related issue, Goodman said he also plans to propose that the council sponsor a November ballot measure asking the city’s voters whether they support term limits on City Council members.

State law does not allow term limits on city council members. The measure could either be approval of an ordinance in anticipation of the state Legislature changing the law, or an advisory vote asking legislators to change the term-limit law.