Should mayors serve 4-year terms? Voters in this SLO County city may get to decide
Pismo Beach voters will llikely get the chance in November to decide whether their mayor should serve two-year or four-year terms.
On Tuesday, the Pismo Beach City Council voted 3-2 to hold a hearing at a later date on a ballot measure that would extend the mayoral term from two years to four years, with Councilmembers Marcia Guthrie and Stacy Inman voting against.
Discussions on the idea started during a goal-setting meeting on Feb. 6, when the council directed city staff to bring it to the council at a later date.
Current Mayor Ed Waage, who has served as mayor for the past 10 years — or five two-year terms — said he supported the term extension even though he won’t seek re-election in 2026.
“Once you’re elected, then you have one year before you go into the silly season, which is campaign season, and it is disruptive,” Waage said. “Once you start campaigning, things change.”
Former mayors back term extension
Prior to 2004, the mayor was a position appointed by the City Council, before voters approved a ballot measure that made the role an elected position with a two-year term limit, according to the staff report.
Current Mayor Pro Tempore Mary Ann Reiss, the city’s first female mayor, was elected under the 2004 rule change and voted in support of the term extension.
“Having experienced a two-year term, it is very difficult, because you have one solid year, and then you’re campaigning the following year,” Reiss said. “I think it’s unfair to the mayor and to the community, so I’m in favor of going ahead with a four-year term.”
In public comment, former Mayor Shelly Higginbotham, who served three two-year terms from 2010 to 2016, joined Reiss in supporting the term extension.
She said the current term limits don’t give the mayor enough time to truly understand the scope of the job and enact policies they campaigned on, mostly because they have to focus on reelection in the second year of the term.
“I think longer terms can improve accountability in a more meaningful way,” Higginbotham said. “Voters can judge a mayor on actual outcomes versus promises.”
Council divided on term length
Changing the term limit from two years to four is relatively simple; with the council’s approval, the measure only needs a simple majority of voters to change the term limit.
If approved, the change will go into effect for the November 2028 general election.
Councilmember Scott Newton noted that Paso Robles currently has four-year mayor terms, following a growing trend in California cities, and said he was in support of the extending the term because campaigning can involve taking financial contributions.
He said he’s likely to support the extension but also wants the city to look at setting a donation limit. Not all members of the council were in favor of the term extension, however.
Guthrie said arguments that a mayor needs more time to develop a full understanding of the responsibility fall flat because most people who run for mayor have already served on the City Council, and she said the city has a “history of corruption” that should give the council and voters pause.
She understands that running every two years can be a challenge, “but every other city that I can think of in this county has a two-year term, and there’s a reason for that, so I don’t support changing this to four years,” Guthrie said. “The mayor sets the tone for the council, and if you get the wrong mayor in, it’s going to be a long four years.”
Inman, the other “no” vote on the item, said people she’s spoken with about the potential change overwhelmingly supported the current term length.
“We have had stability, and even with a two-year term, so I prefer to have a two-year term, and the people I’ve talked to prefer to have a two-year term,” Inman said. “Sometimes there’s a need for people to rise up and say, ‘I want someone else in.’”
