A 6-member majority of City Council voted Monday night to ask Springfield voters on April 2 if they want the mayor to serve a four-year term, up from the current two-year term.
Two-year mayoral terms have been in place since reforms were made in the 1980s, during a period of uproar on Council. If voters approve the idea at the ballot box, it won’t affect current Mayor Ken McClure, who’s on his final term.
Councilwoman Monica Horton, representing Zone 1 in northwest Springfield, abstained from the vote.
She said, “I definitely believe that the voters should make this particular decision — just being aware of all the angles to this. Of course, all the positives are obvious to us, but the tradeoff isn’t necessarily as obvious.”
The tradeoff, Horton said, is that residents in Zones 2 and 3, northeast and southwest Springfield, will no longer be able to vote to change council’s majority by voting for a mayoral candidate along with their zone councilpersons. That’s because Council elections are staggered.
The next mayoral election is in 2025, but the next time voters in Zones 2 and 3 will elect councilmembers is in 2027.
Councilman Brandon Jenson, in Zone 3, voted against the idea.
"Accountability and transparency are key tenets for a functioning democracy," he said, "and this proposal serves to reduce the number of accountability checkpoints that citizens have on the most public-facing leader of our city.”
Council members supporting a longer mayoral term noted that Springfield’s peer cities typically have a four-year term for their mayors.
In a separate 9-to-zero vote, Council sent another question for city voters in April: Whether to add ethics reforms to the city charter for city employees, appointees and elected officials, in order to better define and prevent financial conflicts of interest. The new rules would require Council to set up and review a city code of ethics at least every other year.
