Voters in the city of Marthasville are being asked to consider extending the term length of the city’s mayor. Under a ballot proposal filed Jan. 26, Marthasville’s mayor would be elected every four years, instead of every two years.

The board of aldermen voted on Jan. 25  to place that question on election ballots for April 6. The proposition will appear alongside this year’s elections for mayor and two alderman positions.

If approved, the new mayoral term length wouldn’t take effect until the 2022 mayoral election, current Mayor David Lange said.

The Record asked the board of aldermen in January why they are seeking to change the term length of the mayor’s office. West Ward Alderman Chris DeVore answered that the mayor functions as the city’s project lead for long-term projects. Current such projects include park improvements a major upgrades to the city water system.

DeVore said having the mayor’s position change hands every two years could hamper such projects by bringing in a new leader who is unfamiliar with them, or has different priorities.

“You don’t want, every two years, someone coming in and flipping things around. ... You don’t want to say ‘We’re going to undo everything they just did two years ago,’ ” DeVore said. “There’s a whole lot that needs to be done in two years, and it might not get done (in that time). ... Four years gives them an adequate amount of time to get something accomplished.”

DeVore added that the board of aldermen has more stability with two-year terms because the board has multiple members, who are elected on a rotating basis. But the mayor’s office, he said, should be elected for longer terms in the same way that executive positions in the state or federal government are.

Ballot hiccup

Mayor Lange commented that aldermen had actually approved a vote on the mayor’s term to be placed on last year’s April election ballot. However, there were issues with the election documents submitted to the Warren County Clerk’s office that prevented the question from being placed on the ballot then, Lange said.

A similar inconvenience almost happened for this year’s election. 

The county clerk’s office, which serves as Warren County’s election authority, can only place items on a ballot at the direction of a political entity’s governing body — in this case, the Marthasville Board of Aldermen. When city officials were requesting this election for April,  they initially gave the county clerk a copy of the ordinance passed by aldermen last year, directing an election to be held in April 2020. They asked for the language from that ordinance to be placed on the ballot in April 2021, said County Clerk Denise Stotler.

Stotler replied to city officials in early January, stating that she couldn’t hold an election in 2021 based on an ordinance calling for an election the year prior. She told the city that she requires an election ordinance specifically written for April 6, 2021.

The board of aldermen called a special meeting Jan. 25 to approve an updated ordinance. The ballot item was submitted to the county clerk Jan. 26, the last day for such items to be submitted.