Aaron Starr term-limit measure put on Oxnard's November ballot after court battle

Oxnard residents will vote in November on a measure that would put additional term limits on some elected officials. 

To comply with a court order, the City Council adopted a resolution Tuesday placing a ballot measure that would enact stricter term limits for the mayor and council members.

“It’s unfortunate that it required a court to order the council to restore the rights of voters by placing this measure on the ballot," Aaron Starr, who initially introduced the ballot measure in 2019, said in an email Wednesday.

Voters will decide whether to limit the mayor to two four-year terms and prevent an individual from serving two terms as mayor and then transitioning to the City Council or vice versa.

If the measure passes, anyone who served as mayor, council member or a combination of both for two terms would have to wait two years before serving on the panel again.

The voter initiative would replace portions of Measure B, a separate term-limit measure passed by city voters in March 2020. Measure B, which was put forth by the city, extended the mayor’s term from two to four years, limited mayor and council members to three consecutive terms, limited campaign contributions and banned elected leaders from accepting gifts.

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Several councilmembers argued Tuesday that the voter initiative would prevent experienced mayors and councilmembers from running for reelection.

“When you lose historical knowledge of what has happened, you hurt yourself and then you call upon city staff to call the shots,” Councilman Bert Perello said. “That isn’t always a good thing."

Five council members — Bryan MacDonald, Gabriela Basua, Vianey Lopez, Gabe Teran and Perello — volunteered to write the ballot argument against the voter initiative in coordination with city staff. Mayor John Zaragoza was absent.

The argument will serve as the city's official stance, said Kenneth Rozell, chief assistant city attorney, on Wednesday.

Starr and his supporters will write the ballot argument in favor of the measure.

Starr has been working to place the voter initiative on a ballot for years.

He began collecting signatures for the measure in May 2019. In October that year, before Starr could submit the petition, the City Council put Measure B on the ballot for the March 2020 municipal election. 

Measure B was the result of a survey the city commissioned seeking public input on city governance.

Two weeks after the council's move, Starr delivered a petition signed by 12,245 Oxnard residents in support of his term-limit measure. 

The City Council adopted Starr’s measure as an ordinance in January 2020, but Starr's measure was superseded when voters passed Measure B.

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"Of course, they only 'adopted' robust term limits in order to surreptitiously overturn them several weeks later with their own ballot measure — an action the court said was illegal," Starr said.

In October, the state’s 2nd District Court of Appeals ordered the city to place Starr's ballot measure before voters. The ruling was later clarified in January.

 State law allows the council to either adopt an initiative petition as an ordinance, without alteration, or to put the ordinance to a vote of the people. 

State law also requires voters to approve an initiative that replaces an ordinance previously approved by voters.

Those rules impacted the course of Starr's initiative, since Oxnard voters had approved the mayor’s two-year term in November 1973.

Starr had argued in a June 2020 lawsuit his initiative should go before voters in the November 2020 election, but a Ventura County Superior Court judge denied the request.

The appellate court later found the initiative should have been placed on a ballot since it was aimed at replacing the 1973 ordinance adopted by voters. 

Brian J. Varela covers Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Camarillo. He can be reached at brian.varela@vcstar.com or 805-477-8014. You can also find him on Twitter @BrianVarela805.