First in a series.
During Meghan Sahli-Wells’s high-spirited political career, voters have learned that while they usually can anticipate the direction of her progressive preferences, the reasoning often is stimulating, surprising and educational.
Take the matter of term limits. Three City Council seats are open for next April’s election, but Ms. Sahli-Wells is the lone incumbent competing. Mayor Mehaul O’Leary and Vice Mayor Andy Weissman are term-limited after eight years in office.
On the second day of her nascent campaign for re-election to the City Council, will she take a stand against term limits?
“That really is for the voters to decide,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said.
“It would be very awkward,” and she laughed.
“Term limits have been healthy.”
Then she firmly planted her feet. “I am not advocating for either side,” she said. “This is just part of our discussion.
“What happens on regional leadership roles, like SCAG (Southern California Assn. of Governments), or the Council of Governments, or even the Expo Authority Board of Directors, or the League of Cities, it is a little harder for Culver City to be on the Metro Board, for example, because we don’t have enough time to move up the ranks because of our term limits.”
Like Mayor O’Leary, Ms. Sahli-Wells has been an ultra-enthusiastic participant on these boards.
Plainly, she was torn.
While she maintains that voters must decide term limits, as an activist by birth, by training, by disposition, by desire, Ms. Sahli-Wells has thrived in advancing from board to board. Just when she accumulates seniority to qualify for the upper tier of leadership, daunting term limits will knock on her door.
She is having a debate with herself.
Modesty stands alongside term limits in knocking on her door.
She seems to be asking, without ever completing the question, is it appropriate for her to pursue a chair in the upper ranks of regional leadership?
“Is that…” was as far as Ms. Sahli-Wells got.
Then she turned the other way.
“There is value to being on these regional bodies,” she said. “Important decisions are made there. I know that because I am on the Energy and Environment Committee for (the Southern California Assn. of Governments).”
(To be continued)
