Beverly Hills voters may decide on council term limits in November

Beverly Hills voters may decide whether they want city councilmembers to have term limits in the upcoming November 2 election.

If approved, the ballot measure would impose a three term lifetime limit for councilmembers. According to City Attorney Larry Wiener, the Attorney General has stated term limits could only take effect prospectively, meaning that it would only apply after November and would not count previous terms toward the limit. Most cities have followed this procedure.

“That’s an opinion of the Attorney General. It’s persuasive to the courts, it’s not binding on the courts,” Wiener said. “So I would say the majority of cities have taken that position, but it is not the law. It is one interpretation of the law.”

Councilmembers John Mirisch, Lili Bosse and Julian Gold are serving their third terms on the council, while Mayor Lester Friedman and Vice Mayor Robert Wunderlich are serving their first terms.

Former Beverly Hills City Treasurer Eliot Finkel, who ran for City Council in 2017, said he sent a letter to councilmembers that expressed support for term limits. The letter had around 18 signatures, including former Beverly Hills mayors and both local newspaper publishers.

“I think the point is that all of these people felt that it would be good to have additional members of the public participate on the city council,” Finkel said.

Bosse said councilmembers need to allow for new leadership if they love the city.

“I don’t believe in career politicians for our city specifically, because I think what we love most about our city is that we’re a small town and we all know each other – which is great,” Bosse said.

Wunderlich said he’s generally not a fan of term limits, but he’s supportive of letting voters decide.

“It seems to me that if you have term limits, then you’re denying the opportunity for people to retain somebody in a position of service that they like. If they really like somebody, why shouldn’t the people be able to continue to have that person be elected to a position?” Wunderlich said. “There are advantages to new blood. If people want that, they would be free to vote for it.”

Mirisch said he supports moving forward with the measure, but that it should appear on a major election ballot. He also said the city should consider implementing district voting to improve representation on the council.

“We should look at district voting because my concern has been that certain parts of town, including the part of town that I live in, have not been well-represented over the past numerous decades,” Mirisch said. “If we are going to talk about reform, then we should ensure that all parts of town are represented.”

The council majority also expressed interest in having term limits apply retroactively to the current council. Gold said term limits offer an opportunity for others to serve, but it wouldn’t be fair if it didn’t apply to the current council.

“Candidly, if this did not start sharp with us I think it would appear self serving,” Gold said. “We would get potentially six terms, where everybody else that followed could only get three.”

Friedman said the issue should go to the voters.

“I think that if we don’t include ourselves as part of the limits that we are really setting ourselves aside and giving a preference to ourselves,” Friedman said.

Mirisch said he would strongly oppose applying the current term limit retroactively to the current council and would like further legal clarification on it. He had previously expressed interest in running for a fourth term.

"Whether we think it should or shouldn’t encompass us, that could be a personal decision. But quite frankly it doesn’t seem like there’s any legal basis to do so,” Mirisch said. “To do something that’s unprecedented, quite frankly, it does seem to be a little bit discriminatory.”

The Los Angeles County Registrar would oversee the election results for the ballot measure, as it usually does. According to the agenda report, the cost of developing the ballot measure is not fully known but is estimated to be around $140,000 for elections administration, voter guides, staffing and education announcements.