BOULDER — If Boulder County voters sign off on the idea this fall, Sheriff Joe Pelle can run for a fourth consecutive four-year term in 2014.
Boulder County commissioners on Tuesday referred the question of relaxing term limits for the county’s sheriff to the countywide Nov. 1 ballot.
Boulder County sheriffs now are limited to three consecutive four-year terms.
Pelle, who would have to leave office after 2014 under the current three-term restriction, said in a July interview that “I would love to have the opportunity to run again” but that he wouldn’t take an active role in getting a term-limits relaxation measure passed.
County commissioners have said they’ve heard from a number of people calling on them to put a term-limits extension measure for the office of sheriff onto this year’s ballot.
“We heard from a lot of members of the public that they did not want a popular sheriff removed because of term limits,” Commissioner Ben Pearlman said Tuesday.
Earlier this month, county attorney Larry Hoyt presented commissioners with two options for their consideration: seeking voters’ approval of allowing a sheriff to run for a fourth consecutive four-year term or asking voters to exempt the county’s sheriff completely from the term-limit restrictions that apply to other elected county government offices.
Commissioner Will Toor said Tuesday that the option of extending the limit to four terms is “the one that has the greatest likelihood of voter support.”
Pearlman and Commissioner Cindy Domenico agreed.
“I personally don’t believe that term limits have served us well in the county,” Pearlman said.
But he said allowing the sheriff to serve four terms “strikes a balance” — one that would allow officeholders in positions requiring professional expertise, such as the sheriff’s post, to stay in that post longer than 12 years, while still capping the sheriff’s service in that job at 16 years, thereby ensuring that there will be eventual turnover in that elected office.
Boulder County’s term limits for county government officeholders are based on a state constitutional amendment Colorado voters adopted in 1994 to generally limit local officeholders to a maximum of two consecutive terms. That change did, however, include a provision allowing voters to remove or extend local term limits.
In 2001, Boulder County voters were asked to abolish term limits for all nine elective county government posts — the three commissioners’ seats, the sheriff, the clerk and recorder, the assessor, the treasurer, the coroner and the surveyor. A majority of voters rejected that proposal.
In the November 2005 election, though, Boulder County voters agreed to allow the county assessor, clerk, sheriff, surveyor and treasurer to serve a third four-year term.
Voters weren’t asked in that election to relax term limits for county commissioners, who still are generally limited to serving two consecutive full four-year terms.
In 2009, Boulder County voters also approved relaxing term limits for the Boulder County district attorney, which technically is a state government elected office. That passed by nine votes out of 59,923 cast on the measure, so a Boulder County district attorney can now serve up to three consecutive four-year terms.
John Fryar: 303-684-5211 or jfryar@times-call.com
