Trying to tie voters' hands even tighter rarely works

TROXLER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published March 18, 2002

TARPON SPRINGS -- Let us set down our glasses of retsina, that pine-flavored refreshment served in the Greek restaurants around the Sponge Docks, long enough to discuss Tuesday's municipal election in Pinellas County's oldest incorporated city.

Candidate-wise, the Tarpon Springs ballot will not be crowded. One of the two City Commission races was settled with no opposition. The other race features an incumbent who has drawn three challengers of, shall we say, varying degrees of colorfulness.

That incumbent is Jim Archer, an auto sales manager and a reasonable bet for re-election. His opponents are Peter Nehr, owner of a flag shop and a kite shop, Norm Augustinus, a self-employed writer and inventor, and Joseph Pisani, owner of a hair salon.

The phrase "self-employed writer and inventor" should be a clue as to which of the challengers is the most, uh, different. Augustinus, who reports no income from the past year, is the proud inventor of a toy flying saucer, and maintains a Web site that features cartoons, essays, short stories and fairly steamy adult fiction.

Augustinus proposes to be the "fly in the buttermilk" at City Hall. Recalling his experiences of removing expired cats from beneath his house, he likewise vows to "investigate the crawlspace under the city." By his own description he is "different, eccentric and definitely unique." Vive la democratie! Sorry, wrong language. I blame the retsina.

Unless Augustinus pulls off a miracle, the big news angle Tuesday will be the proposed repeal of term limits in the city. City Commission members now may serve only two consecutive three-year terms. Like so many other elected officials before them, they are of the opinion this is a bad idea.

The city has taken upon itself to urge the voters to abolish term limits, using the taxpayers' dollars to try to influence the outcome.

First the city mailed out a fact sheet in utility bills. Then it set aside $2,500 for a followup brochure discussing term limits and four other amendments on the ballot.

The brochure makes a hard-sell pitch:

Term limits cause a loss of stability and continuity in government. . . . Frequent turnover of election officials causes a lack of experienced leaders. . . . Term limits impose a limitation on voter choice. They prohibit the voters from returning an effective leader to office.

As it so happens, some Tarpon Springs voters have organized to oppose the term-limits repeal and five other matters on Tuesday's ballot. Figuring that fair is fair, this group asked if the city would mail out its literature, too. No dice, the city said, that would be supporting a political action committee.

I asked the mayor, Frank DiDonato, a chiropractor, about this.

"Most cities, and certainly Tarpon Springs, have tried to educate about their positions on referendum issues," the mayor said. He agreed that the city's brochure "may sound more pro than con," but he said both sides have had chances to get their message out.

In a small- or medium-sized town, term limits are hardly necessary for the citizens to keep politicians on a short leash, DiDonato said. "On the level of most of the cities in Pinellas County, they are small enough that the politicians are in the limelight all the time."

Maybe so. However, it is rare for voters to repeal term limits. Every attempt I know of locally has been stomped at the polls. That bodes ill for this effort, and might even spill over into voter resentment of the other issues on the ballot.

The city government also is asking voters to lessen the referendum requirements for buying land and entering into leases, to make it harder to hire and fire the manager, and to allow nonresidents to serve on some city boards.

Taken as a whole, you could argue that the general theme of the ballot is to reduce direct voter control of the government. This rarely is a successful election strategy. If the definition of news is "man bites dog," then the big news Tuesday will be the voters repealing term limits. More likely, they will instruct the city to do the same thing with the proposal as should be done with a fine grape leaf, namely, to stuff it.

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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