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Margate Commissioners to Oppose Term Limits
• Margate City Commissioners have sat on the dais for a combined 90 years
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Sunday,
March 7, 2010
Each year Margate city officials send a wish list of issues they want state lawmakers either to support or oppose during the spring legislation session in Tallahassee. The list is compiled by the city manager and put before commissioners for approval.
This year, city officials in Margate are requesting that Governor Crist and the Florida Legislature oppose Senate Bill 598 and House Bill 495 intended to mandate Term Limits for elected officials at the municipal level.
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In the absence of term limits, city commissioners can run for office as many times as they like, essentially making a career out of what is intended to be a few years in office serving the public.
Retired developer and reigning Mayor, Arthur Bross, was first elected to the Margate City Commission in 1988.
Acting Vice Mayor, JosephVarsallone, a semi-retired self-employed insurance agent, has held on to his commission seat since 1985.
Frank Talerico, an audiologist by trade, is enjoying his fifth term as a Margate Commissioner after first elected to the commission almost 16 years ago.
With the exception of losing her seat for one term in 1997, Commissioner Pam Donovan, the acting Public Information Officer for the City of North Lauderdale, has been on the Margate dais since 1991.
A newbie to city politics compared to the others, Commissioner David McLean is enjoying his second of two consecutive terms as commissioner since serving his first in the 1980s.
Advocates of term limits insist that they’re a means by which fresh blood and new ideas are infused into the political process and are a way to discourage political careerists.
Critics of term limits, mostly politicians, lobbyists and the special interests they represent, will tell you that the election process is the ultimate ‘term limit,’ in that taxpayers decide by majority vote who will and who won't be ‘termed out’ of office at election time.
Resident and former Margate City Commission candidate, Le Peerman, spoke in favor of term limits at a recent City Commission meeting. Peerman told commissioners now would be an ideal time in Margate history to bring term limits into the picture.
Commissioners refrained from commenting other than to thank Peerman for her input. Bross and Varsallone were not present at the meeting.
Florida enacted term limits for elected officials in the both the House and Senate in 1992.
This spring, lawmakers could potentially mandate term limits for cities across Florida like Margate.
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