Carlos Gimenez Proposes Term Limits for County Commissioners

​Getting a majority of Miami-Dade County commissioners to discuss term limits is like trying to convince Julian Assange to get tested for a venereal disease. Unless someone threatens them with arrest, they won't consider it. But give Commissioner Carlos Gimenez credit for at least trying to broach the subject of term limits.

Gimenez is asking his colleagues to consider allowing a special election next year to change the county's home rule charter to implement term limits. So far, Gimenez has gotten a chilly response.

He presented his resolution at the commission's government operations committee this past November 9. None of the other commissioners seconded his proposal, so it failed to go before the full board for discussion. Gimenez will try again at the committee's December 14 meeting.

This time he is presenting his original resolution and an alternate version. With the recall against five commissioners and Mayor Carlos Alvarez a likely possibility, Gimenez says voters should also have an opportunity to institute some reform.

"I'm not optimistic any of these measures will pass or be considered by this commission," Gimenez says. "But I think we need to see who is going to vote for it and who is going to vote it down. We need to keep pressing for reform. We have to keep trying."