Bangor limits

The last time Bangor City Council took up the question of term limits for the School Committee, in 1994, it put off a vote on the issue indefinitely because, as one councilor said at the time, “Why should we preclude someone who’s doing a good job from continuing to do a good job?” Given the limited pool of interested residents in the elected positions, the commendable performance of the city’s school system and, especially, the timing of a potential order for a term-limits vote, it is a question that applies even more now than it did then.

Councilor Dan Tremble says he will introduce an order Monday that would limit School Committee members to two, three-year terms. He says he is restarting this debate because he had been approached by a citizens’ group about the question and thought voters should have the chance to decide it.

Term limits may be appropriate, for instance, if incumbency gives an insurmountable advantage in campaign fund raising, if party politics excludes outsiders from gaining office or if an out-of-touch legislative body is unable to function without new membership. None of these elements is reflected in the School Committee, which, in fact, has a balance of turnover and longevity: Three of the seven-member board are in their first terms; 18 different people have served on it in the last decade. (Nor, for that matter, are they particularly reflected in the City Council, which has had term limits – also two, three-year terms – since 1976 but hasn’t profited from them noticeably and could well function better without them.)

Making a rational discussion about term limits even more difficult are the events during the last 18 months in Bangor, in which city leaders fought loudly over the question of whether a methadone clinic should be sited here. The City Council, after a lot of doubt and many questions, generally accepted the idea; the chairman of the School Committee, Martha Newman, vigorously and persistently opposed it. The bitterness of the debate remains today.

There is no reason to doubt Councilor Tremble when he says his term-limits proposal has nothing to do with the methadone debate. But there is equally little doubt that Mrs. Newman, who has served for 17 particularly successful years on the committee, is a target for term limits in the minds of some, though she presumably still would be able to serve another six years if they were to pass in November.

The wounds of the methadone battle are still keenly felt in Bangor even as the need for local policy-makers to work together grows stronger. Constituents may indeed have asked that term limits be brought before voters, with a council member naturally feeling an obligation to respond to such a request. But councilors also have an obligation to lead and to heal, to say when the time is wrong for a referendum question, to bring the city back together rather than prolong its division.