Rose: Time to Bury Term Limits

Ari L. NoonanNews

Phil Tangalakis welcomes Steve Rose, Culver City chamber president, a longtime supporter of the Culver City Rotary 10K. Photo: Culver City Rotary Club

Eight years in office were enough for him, but not necessarily for other elected officials, says Steve Rose.

A fascinating and rare dichotomy.

“Term limits take away a right of me voting someone back into office whom I feel is doing a good job,” the Chamber of Commerce president and CEO said this morning.

A two-term former City Councilman, Mr. Rose first declared his opposition to term limits a quarter-century ago when Council members Jim Boulgarides, Albert Vera and Steve Gourley voted them in.

Lately, the community debate was reopened almost three months ago when Councilman Jeff Cooper announced he favored taking another look at the restrictions that became a fad, rhetorically and otherwise, in the ‘90s.

Mr. Rose, who left City Hall in 2008, returns to the noblest, safest territory in American history for personal validation.

“George Washington set the precedent of two terms,” said one of Culver City’s few conservatives.

“Eight years of public service is a long time.”

Unlike, for example, Mr. Vera, who stepped aside and then returned to the dais, Mr. Rose said that from the night seven years ago that he left office, he never once considered returning.

One reason may have been the uniqueness of Mr. Rose’s professional life.Unlike colleagues who returned to traditional private lives when they left office, Mr. Rose’s profile, arguably, remained as high out of office as in – because of his longtime role as executive head of the Chamber of Commerce.

(To be continued)