Lantigua Seeking to Remove Mayoral Term Limits
Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua is seeking to remove the mayoral term limit restriction within that city’s charter. Lawrence currently prohibits individuals from serving more than two four-year terms for mayor. The proposal currently is on the City Council agenda.
City Councilor Marc Laplante is concerned that should Lantigua be re-elected, that the 2014 City Council will be asked to change the City Charter to allow the mayor to serve without restriction.
“I have been told by my city council colleagues that Lantigua has personally asked them to support removing term limits,” said Laplante. “If Lantigua wins re-election, he will likely sweep in a City Council that will support this agenda. The prospect of Lantigua serving another term, never mind three or more terms, should send a chill to any concerned citizen.”
The Lawrence term limits restriction resembles the term limits found for other executive branch positions such as the U.S. Presidency and Massachusetts governor.
“I was never a big proponent of term limits,” said Laplante. “But after witnessing the Lantigua train wreck for the last four years, my fear is that a victorious November election for Mayor Lantigua will grease the skids for an imperial municipal executive that will further divide our city and make city successes that more elusive.”
Laplante has represented District F in Lawrence since 2010.
Lawrence Charter Review
When I received the press release from Marc Laplante announcing that the City Council would be discussing term limits during the Tuesday night agenda, I sent him the following email message: “Can you send me a copy of the proposal before the City Council?” His response was, “Ask Councilor Moran. He is the council sponsor. I don’t have a copy.”
I did what he suggested and contacted Council President Frank Moran via email. His answer was very brief saying there was no truth to that so I sent another message to Laplante: “I did and he responded that it is not true. How did you find out?”
Instead, Laplante asked me to call him on the telephone and my response was, “Marc, at this point, I want you to respond in writing. Michael Graham was talking about it on WCCM and even Jimmy Carter on his newscast. I don’t want to be misunderstood.”
A sure give-away was that The Eagle-Tribune has not reported on it. Maybe they found out the same I did. But, when the Boston media saw an official-looking press release from the City of Lawrence, they had no reason to doubt it although they should have noticed the discrepancy in the first two paragraphs. First it said that “The proposal currently is on the City Council agenda” and the second one says, “Should Lantigua be re-elected, that the 2014 City Council will be asked to change the City Charter…” I now have a copy of the agenda and it’s not included.
Since I know that in order to be placed on the agenda, someone had to submit a document, I found his response strange. I called City Clerk Bill Maloney and City Attorney Charles Boddy and they had no idea of what I was asking.
Frank Moran then called me and explained that the City Charter must be updated every ten years and the issue of Charter Review was on the agenda since 2010 when the committee was discussing many changes and mayoral term limits was one of them. The Charter Review was tabled and it has not been touched since.
Eileen Bernal was the Charter Committee Chair so I asked her if it was scheduled to be discussed on Tuesday and what happened to that review. Her response was as follows:
“Short Answer: no. This is not getting voted on this Tuesday.
“The Charter Review has been tabled since June 2011 when it went up to the full Council.
“The Charter Review is a tabled matter at the full Council and can be taken off of the table by any Councilor at any time. From now through the end of our current term, though, we are in what is basically a “lame duck” session, which means we should carry out items in the normal course o business, but I believe we are prohibited from making any major modifications to our finances or policies. I think any action on this item before the end of the year would be prohibited as part of the State’s restriction.
“I know the Mayor reached out to several Councilors, myself included, to ask us to support the removal of the Mayoral term limits from the Charter as part of that review. That change would require the support of six Councilors.”
Hopefully, this clarifies the past. Let’s watch the City Council meeting to see if anyone mentions it or if any of the councilors demands an explanation from Councilor Marc Laplante for sending out that press release.
