Last Spring the voters of Ozaukee County voted on that referendum. The vote was overwhelming - 83 percent of the voters in Ozaukee County asked their County Board to study the idea of implementing term limits.That's the problem with advisory referendums. Nobody in politics ever listens to good advice they don't like.
Last week, the Ozaukee County Board ignored the wishes of their constituents and decided to neither downsize nor implement term limits.
The full board voted on a resolution to cut the number of board members from 31 to 25, but the resolution would not have taken effect until 2012 - five years from now. The board voted the resolution down, with some supervisors using the fig leaf that they couldn’t predict what the county would need in 5 years. I can guarantee you this: Ozaukee County will not need 31 County Board Members in 2012 any more than they need them now.
The issue regarding term limits never made it to the full board. That idea was killed in the Executive Committee. According to the Ozaukee County Board Chairman, Robert Brooks, "We looked at all of those different options and discussed all the potential problems we have, and the committee decided we don’t want to have term limits."
Unfortunately Owen does not update whether the term limit would apply to the Ozaukee County Treasurer, and if the term limits in her case could be applied retroactively.
By the way, after reading the column I know Owen wanted as his headline, "Fat Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through county government."
