Adams County Board of Commissioners, in a 2-1 vote, has placed a question on this year’s ballot that would extend the terms of the commissioners, sheriff, clerk and recorder, assessor, surveyor, treasurer and coroner from two terms to three. Voters, in one single ballot question, can determine whether to extend the terms for all of those offices. Months ago, we warned against putting all the offices together in one question. We still think it’s a bad idea.
First, by placing all offices in one question, it pairs the political office holders with the professional office holders. Some of the offices, such as the sheriff, require extensive training and knowledge. The voters should have the chance to acknowledge that some jobs require much more training than others, and should be able to capture that knowledge in a third term.
Another problem with the question is its wording. As the question stands, voters are asked “Shall your rights, as an Adams County voter, be restored to elect candidates of your choice to the offices of . . .” The wording implies that the rights of Adams County voters have been violated, when in fact county voters supported the constitutional change to term limits, and have shown in the past they are generally in support of term limits.
As a publication, we have been on record as opposed to term limits.
If the office holder is bad, they should be thrown out. But, by the same right, the voters also have the right to impose term limits.
We don’t like this question or the way it was brought to voters. Should the Adams County Board of Commissioners take another run at the term limits question, we hope they’ll go about it differently and receive true community support.
As it stands now, we can’t stand behind it.
We say vote “no” on Adams County Question 1.