Stow voters will decide a charter amendment updating term limits in November

Term limits for key Stow politicians are on this November’s ballot as a campaign group seeks to fix what they see as a glitch in the city’s charter.

The Stow charter currently limits the mayor, law director and finance director to two consecutive, four-year terms of office, a rule voters overwhelmingly approved in 2018. The wording of the charter does not allow any exception if an official was appointed to complete a predecessor’s term of office.

Grow With Stow, a political action committee, is leading the ballot initiative to update the law, which will appear as Issue 25 to Stow voters. It would allow a person to fill an unexpired term and also serve two elected terms for a maximum of 10 years in office.

The charter’s current wording became a problem, supporters say, when previous Mayor Sara Kline resigned from office partway through her second term to take a position with Cuyahoga Falls as director of parks and recreation. Current Mayor John Pribonic, then a council member, ran unopposed to fill the last 13 months of Kline’s term, swearing in on Nov. 30, 2018. He again ran unopposed a year later.

But as the charter is written, this counts as Pribonic’s second term, and he will be out of office when it expires at the end of 2023.

“The people of Stow really like term limits,” said Annie Hanson Hilaire, Grow With Stow’s treasurer. “They believe that elected office is something you do to serve your community but that it is good to have fresh eyes coming in to renew things and keep things fresh, and I wholeheartedly agree. But no one considered what would happen if an elected leader resigns, or passes away and cannot fulfill their elected term.”

In fact, this issue is not so new. In June 2018, then-interim Mayor James Costello proposed a referendum similar to the one that will now go to voters. Stow City Council rejected the proposal at the time, and it did not appear on the ballot.

The proposal promises to be controversial again this year.

Stow City Council President Jeremy McIntire said the law seems designed to accommodate a particular elected official: Pribonic.

“For a lot of people, this is about Mayor Pribonic, which is when this is about fixing it for one person,” he said. “The term limits were in place in 2018 before every official here today was in place. We all knew the limits when we filled in our forms. To be asking for them to be changed now is simply political gamesmanship.”

Stow voters have a long history of repeatedly supporting strict term limits. The eight-year limit was first approved in 2010. In November 2018, voters added a clarification limiting the number of terms by 11,994 votes to 2,563.

“Since 1998, term limits have been on the ballot 13 times and the voters have overwhelmingly said they want term limits in this city,” McIntire said.

Hanson Hilaire disagreed the change was about any individual and said voters have the ultimate choice when it comes to keeping an official in office or not.

“To fulfill an unexpired term is the greatest act of community service, as you are stepping into a role that was vacated,” she said. “Term limits are also known as elections, and any time citizens are unhappy with the person in that role we encourage them to run themselves or make a different voting choice. There is nothing saying the appointed (person) would even get elected.”

For Stow voters wishing to pass and amend the city charter to allow up to two years as an appointed official before serving up to eight subsequent years if elected, you would vote “yes” on Issue 25 on the Nov. 8 ballot. Those wishing to keep the charter as is would vote “no.”

“I haven’t spoken with anyone who is opposed to the issue, though I am sure there will be as with any political issue, there are pro and con sides,” Hanson Hilaire said. “There are constitutional purists who dislike issue campaigns that make amendments to charters, but the whole idea of Grow With Stow is to make changes that bring common sense into politics.”