San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus on Thursday placed on the Board’s August 1 agenda a proposed ballot measure to prohibit the County from seizing private property for private use, while the Board’s Vice-Chairman, Paul Biane, is offering another ballot measure to place term limits on supervisors and revise their pay scale upward to attract better candidates.  

Postmus’ eminent domain restriction is similar to the one passed in June by Orange County voters.  Eminent domain abuse has been a nationwide subject of concern since last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local governments could seize land to be used for private development.  In Kelo v. City of New London, 125 S. Ct. 2655 (2005), the Court upheld a Connecticut law that allows local governmental entities to exercise the power of eminent domain for so-called “economic development” purposes.

“The Supreme Court said that local governments can seize your property and give it to a private developer,” said Postmus.  “That’s not right.  The fact that a piece of property might generate more tax revenue under another use shouldn’t give government the right to take that property for that purpose.”

Postmus added that while he doesn’t believe that past San Bernardino County Supervisors have taken property in this manner and he doesn’t believe the current Board would do so either, he wants the voters to permanently decide the matter so that no future Board could abuse eminent domain power in such a way.

Biane’s proposed term limits/pay-raise measure is intended to encourage more competitive elections and to attract highly qualified candidates for Board seats, he said Thursday.  “With more than an 80% re-election rate of incumbent elected officials in California, many new, talented and capable candidates are discouraged from running for Board seats,” Biane said, adding that by gradually increasing board member salaries (currently severely limited by a previous voter-approved measure), more competitive compensation would help attract “talented, fresh-thinking candidates from the private sector.”  “Together, these two elements will increase competitiveness in Supervisor elections and attract more quality candidates,” Biane said.

If approved by the voters, the measure would limit Supervisors to three consecutive four-year terms in office.  Biane, who as a businessman and a Rancho Cucamonga City Councilman unseated a four-term incumbent supervisor in his initial election in 2002, said term limits are a well-established method of ensuring political turnover and of discouraging political complacency.  “Thirty-six states have gubernatorial term limits and 16 states have legislative term limits,” he said, adding that six other counties, including the counties of Orange and Los Angeles, limit terms for county supervisors.  

Biane’s proposal, if approved by the voters in November, would also link the annual salaries of the Board of Supervisors to the annual salaries for the office of Superior Court Judge.  Biane said this would establish a simple and predictable formula for setting supervisor salaries and ensure that pay is comparable to other Southern California counties with similar populations, including Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles counties. Increasing Board members’ salaries will encourage more candidates, especially private sector professionals, to run for office by making it more economically feasible for them to do so, Biane said.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.