Dougherty splits from board in asking voters to consider cut in council terms

An issue that seemed to come out of nowhere this summer stole much of the Town Board’s show Friday when it heard pros and cons on a proposed law to cut the terms of Town Board members from four years to two, subject to a public referendum. The board adopted the law, 4-1, with the public vote to take place on November 8.

“It would be a disaster,” said Town Clerk Dorothy Ogar of the possibility of an all-new board after the law takes effect. The popular Ms. Ogar is the longest-serving elected official in town government and has never been one to voice opinions on any political issue before the Town Board.

But she had been asked a direct question by Town Councilman Peter Reich, who said he opposed cutting council terms because it would disrupt the board’s continuity. He favored letting the public vote on the question, however.

What, he asked Ms. Ogar, would she feel about finding five new faces on the Town Board after an election in which all four council incumbents and the supervisor had been ousted?

Ms. Ogar repeated that the situation would be a disaster. There was a “need for continuity,” she asserted. “You need people who know what’s going on to overlap” their terms on the board, she said.

All members of the board said they agreed but most favored letting the public decide this issue at the polls. With the exception of Supervisor Jim Dougherty, they voted “yes” on putting the question before the public for a vote even though they roundly criticized the idea of two-year terms like the supervisor’s.

Mr. Dougherty voted against the proposed local law to cut council terms in half, he said, because “we have a very full local ballot this year which is complicated enough as it is.” He said he had been a “very strong advocate for two-year terms” a year ago, when the board debated the merits of extending the supervisor and highway superintendent’s terms from two to four years. It was important that voters had a “lemon law,” he said, so they could oust “bad” performers serving in those two posts. But “I don’t think one councilman out of four is that serious a matter. There is continuity,” he said, if the board maintained staggered four-year council terms.

The referendum was requested this summer by resident Richard Kelly when he submitted a petition to the board signed by 162 people.

“We can say ‘no’ to it. Then it  doesn’t look nice,” quipped Councilwoman Chris Lewis.

She asked Mr. Kelly why he wanted to “fix something that isn’t broken?”

If all incumbents lost re-election bids after a two-year term, Mr. Kelly asked, “Why would that happen? … If the entire board were replaced, there’d be a damn good reason why that would happen.”

Mr. Kelly commented near the end of the hearing that he’d called 40 or 50 of the people who had signed his petition to come to the hearing. Few, if any, responded.

Only one speaker in the audience besides Mr. Kelly defended the cut in council terms: Vincent Novak said it would be “very healthy” to have two-year terms. “I don’t know why you’d be afraid of losing an election if what you are doing up there is good,” he said.

Not only did Friday’s discussion echo last summer’s heated arguments and public debate when the board set a referendum by the same 4-1 vote on doubling the terms of supervisor and highway superintendent to four years; it also resonated with election-year politics, as Councilman Glenn Waddington vies to oust Mr. Dougherty as supervisor and five candidates run for two council seats. (A third candidate for supervisor, Bob DeStefano, was at Friday’s hearing but did not weigh in on the topic.)

“This is about getting it on the ballot,” said Mr. Waddington. Of the vote last year on extending the supervisor and highway superintendent’s terms, that, too, had been “the right thing to do.” The term extension proposal was soundly rejected by voters in November.

He said that he didn’t “have a dog in this fight” for a council post “but I’ll lobby hard to keep it a four-year term.”

He said he was against cutting terms for council members because running for election was a “demanding” process “that takes your focus way from what you’re doing here if you’re not careful.” It was also expensive, he said, and it could discourage some people from seeking office.

“We want to open this to as many people as we can,” he said. If a working person considered running for the board, “a guy that’s out there working a regular job, that job is going to suffer. Trust me.” There may be fewer people willing to run for a two-year term, he said, because a person would have to “walk away” from a job that is putting “meat on his table before he decided to run,” he said.

Mr. Dougherty challenged Mr. Waddington. “I have to say as a matter of principle,” he said, that last year Mr. Waddington and others had “made that same argument” to defend the board’s proposal setting a vote on extending the supervisor and highway superintendent’s terms from two to four years, “that we can’t find people to run and they need the security of four-year terms to run,” he said. “Now suddenly it’s the opposite argument,” he said.

“Not really. It’s the same argument,” Mr. Waddington said.

“He didn’t say that. That’s not what he said,” said Councilwoman Lewis to Mr. Dougherty.

“No, you’re saying they will run if it’s a shorter term,” Mr. Dougherty insisted. “Last year … you were saying they wouldn’t run” if it were a shorter term.

“I don’t get it,” Mr. Waddington said to him.

“Again, this is about getting it on the ballot,” Mr. Waddington said. “I have no problem telling anybody anywhere, in front of the post office, wherever, where I’m coming from … Four of us voted to put it on the ballot last year. I have no problem putting it on the ballot this year.”

Among others comments made at the hearing were those of:

• Hoot Sherman, who drew applause when he said people should be allowed to vote on the question and “I think they’ll be smart enough to keep it the way it is” with four-year council terms.

• Mr. Kelly, who argued that candidates were more likely to be willing to commit to a two-year term than a four-year stint in office.

• Town Board candidate Will Andserson, who said that “as a candidate I’d be horrified to be on the board with people who don’t know any more than I do.”

• Councilwoman Christine Lewis, who said when she first was elected it took at least two years for her to begin to feel she had enough knowledge to feel comfortable as a board member.

• Emory Breiner, who asked Mr. Kelly what the need was for the issue to be put to the voters. “For retribution,” said council candidate Paul Shepherd. “It’s not retribution,” Mr. Kelly said. “That degrades this thing.” He said his petition had “a higher standard in the area of public opinion than what you had” with last year’s public debate and referendum on extending the supervisor and highway superintendent’s terms; no one petitioned for that idea, he noted. Mr. Kelly was a vocal opponent of the Town Board’s decision to put that question on the ballot last year in a 4-1 vote, with Mr. Dougherty in opposition.

“That’s the point you’re trying to make,” Mr. Shepherd replied.

Mr. Kelly said he had two goals only: to see the issue put to the voters and for the town to hold a public debate on its pros and cons.

Mr. Breiner complained that the debate would distract people from other pending public issues.

• Council candidate Dan Fokine asked what organization had proposed the cut in council terms. Supervisor Dougherty replied there was no organization, only Mr. Kelly “and a few volunteers” who carried his petition.

• Mr. Novak, who said, “A lot of people here think more elections are healthier than fewer.”

• Ms. Lewis, who with Mr. Waddington was a proponent of last year’s referendum on lengthening the supervisor’s and highway superintendent’s terms, said there were no local elections pending then. This time “there is a local election and I can see Emory’s point; it’s a distraction from the rest of the issues.”

• Mr. Waddington, who said to Mr. Dougherty, “I bet you didn’t hit the ground running knowing exactly what you were doing.” Mr. Dougherty replied that he had needed his four colleagues on the board. “They helped me a lot.”