Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A Quandary: Could HB 2826 Extend Terms Of Council Members?

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In our posting Monday, we noted that the Arizona State Bill to combine local elections with statewide elections is now law.  Effectively, implementation will move the 2014 Mayor and Council elections from March to September, for the Primary, and from May to November, for the General Election. This would mean that new Council Members would not be seated until January, 2015. This is six months after date on which they are would have been seated.  This would mean that there would be six months in which only continuing members would be on Council or in which there would be three council members.

The Council would have three members seated to continue Council activities from June through December, 2014.  Would it be illegal for exiting council members to remain on Council beyond their elected term? There were elected to serve four years, not 4.5 years.

The issue is further complicated because the Oro Valley budget for 2014-2015 would be approved during this time frame, effectively adding a budget cycle to the purview of the existing Council.

Confused?  We are too.

However, this is not going to be a "simple" conversion from one voting time frame to another.   There are those who do not wish to see the current Council Members remain in office one minute past their elected time. There are also those who don't care one way or the other.

It will be interesting to watch this develop.
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