Term limits back on Tampa ballot

The City Council - pleasing backers of a third term for the mayor - decides to see if voters have changed their minds.

By STEVE HUETTEL

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 26, 2000

TAMPA -- His unopposed re-election last year might not be Mayor Dick Greco's political swan song after all.

City Council members voted Thursday to put a measure on the November ballot to repeal term limits that now prevent Greco, and themselves, from seeking more than two consecutive four-year terms.

Tampa voters in 1983 overwhelmingly approved term limits. But most council members said voters might have changed their minds and deserve a chance to be heard again.

"I am not opposed to letting the people express what they want," said Council Chairman Charlie Miranda, one of five votes for the referendum. "I will not be a candidate for City Council in 2003, so it has no effect on me. Who am I to stand in the way of democracy?"

Council members Bob Buckhorn and Shawn Harrison voted no, saying they hadn't heard a peep from the public about eliminating term limits.

"This was initiated by lobbyists and people with vested interests," said Buckhorn, who makes no secret of his ambition to run for mayor in 2003.

"We don't need any Boss Tweeds," he said. "We don't need any Tammany Halls. This is about democracy."

The city's legal department will likely have an ordinance with the ballot language for council members to vote on next week, said City Attorney James Palermo. They would then vote again after a public hearing held at least two weeks later.

Members said Thursday that the referendum isn't about opening the door for Greco to run again in three years.

But in the audience were active Greco supporters who pledged to campaign for an end to term limits.

"Certainly that this would facilitate Dick Greco running for another term is something I'm interested in," said David Mechanik, a land use lawyer who worked on the mayor's campaign and was appointed to the Tampa Sports Authority by Greco.

More than 100 people approached him about a campaign to repeal the charter's term limit provisions, Mechanik said. Many of them wanted Greco to run again.

Greco, 66, said Thursday he doesn't know if he'd run for mayor in 2003, even if he could.

People ask him the question every day, he said. The Tampa firefighters' union conducted a poll this year that asked voters their choice for mayor in 2003. No one got even 20 percent, and union leaders said more people than that asked why he wasn't a candidate, Greco said.

"It's a very nice feeling," he said. "But will I positively run again? I couldn't honestly say that's what I'm going to do."

Greco is philosophically opposed to term limits. But he said he won't take any role -- publicly or privately -- in a campaign against them because it would look like he was trying to extend his political career.

"I personally don't understand why we have term limits," Greco said. "There's been enough discussion about it to warrant seeing what people want to do."

That's precisely the logic Miranda used to bring up the question Thursday.

Newspapers and television stations picked up on the issue in March after Mechanik met with Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Pam Iorio to explore the other route to getting the referendum on the ballot: collecting signatures of registered voters.

That would have been a steep climb. Supporters would need 13,638 signatures, probably before Labor Day so the U.S. Justice Department could review the proposal, Iorio said.

Miranda said he noted that local newspapers published editorials on the issue -- the St. Petersburg Times was against it, the Tampa Tribune was equivocal but supportive -- and he recently received a letter from a national group that supports term limits.

Council member Rose Ferlita said she supported a referendum on eliminating term limits but only if it included both council members and the mayor.

"I'd be opposed to it if this referendum had someone's face on it," said Ferlita, who pledged to stick by a campaign promise not to run for more than two terms. "All we are doing is giving it back to the voters and letting them decide."

Harrison said if there was a groundswell of support against term limits, supporters should be able to collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot.

Buckhorn said voters support term limits as much now as they did 17 years ago.

"I'm confident voters will do what they did in '83, and in '92 when they approved term limits at the statewide level," he said. "Clearly folks (on the council) were more concerned with their longevity than their legacy."

University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus also said the referendum faced an uphill battle. "It will be a real test of whether voters have gotten over their distrust of lifetime politicians," she said.

But Wayne Garcia, a local political consultant, cited a wild card in the election: Greco.

"Back then it was a throw-the-rascals-out issue," he said. "There's a different person in the mix now -- that's the mayor. The key to the campaign will be how much Greco allows himself to campaign for it or be linked to it."

-- Steve Huettel can be reached at (813) 226-3384, or at huettel@sptimes.com.

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