In the City of Lakewood, our mayor lives in a gated community.
Over half of our council members live within a mile of each other in an affluent suburb.
One senior council member makes about half of the meetings.
Recently, Lakewood laid off 20 City personnel, then next year the council accepted the largest raise ever.
How many have lamented about the influence of money in politics.
I have a plan to eliminate that dark money.
Elections and re-elections are what introduce money and influence into politics.
No re-elections = no money woes.
And why should politics be a career, furthering the divide to the represented?
Introducing “ONE TERM; YOUR TURN”
If you do the job right, you should be exhausted at the end of that term. Still, why shouldn’t a community say ‘we want to hear from more voices’?
Isn’t it time that representatives represented? Stopped spending so much of their time begging for money? Stop couching their answers in the politically expedient to grease the track to their next term?
Stop letting somebody else decide for you. If change is going to happen now, it’s going to happen here. It’s going to come from us. “One Term; Your Turn”.
Demand accountability, from the inside.
No more status quo. No more politics as usual. Let’s change the scourge of politics.
I’m Charles Ames. I’m running to be a Lakewood City Council member for ONE TERM.
Let the revolution begin.
(next time; Who is Charles? And how will he use a moneyless campaign?)
Paul Nimmo says
I will never… ever support term limits. We have them already, they are called elections. Why punish a person who may be very affective doing their job, simply because they filled a specific period of time?
However, having expressed that sentiment, I do believe that Lakewood should elect representatives of the community. Lakewood should be divided into districts so there is representation of the many areas that make Lakewood what it is. It is time to stop only the wealthiest will represent.
Mark Pfeiffer says
I appreciate Chas. Ames silly, self-serving comments. I’ll know who not to vote for if/when that name appears on any ballot.
Gary Turney says
Paul Nimmo – I agree completely, at least in principle. Why limit a good government representative (be they a city council member, US senator, or anything in between) to just one or two terms? As you say, we can use elections to boot out anyone we don’t like for what ever reason. However, as a practical matter I am starting to think that term limits would be useful when locals continue to inexplicably re-elect some extreme representatives (think your favorite wacko Congress-person or Senator). Term limits would force out those extremists.
As far as members of the current council living in an “affluent suburb”, Charles, I’m not sure which suburb or members you are referring to. However, I live right next door to one council member, and while our neighborhood is pretty nice, it is far from affluent.
Marty says
Oh good. Yet another person who’s going to change the world. Good luck Chas.
becki says
I know two of our city council members personally. I know them both to be kind, intelligent, people who deeply care about the City of Lakewood and making it better for all.