Committee votes to adopt three-year terms with staggered transition; declines to recommend term limits

The Lago Vista Charter Review Committee voted 3–2 to amend its earlier recommendation and adopt three-year terms for council seats, with a transition plan intended to produce a cadence of two council seats on the ballot each year. Later in the same meeting, the committee voted 3–2 not to recommend term limits for placement on this ballot.

Committee members debated two main approaches: a 2-2-2 stagger (which would result in two seats up for election each year after a transition) and a 3-3-0 cadence (three seats in two years, then a year without a city election). Advocates of 2-2-2 said it spreads electoral contests annually and could reduce uncontested seats; proponents of 3-3-0 said the transition is simpler to implement.

Members discussed multiple transition mechanisms to create the staggered cycle: (a) designate specific seat numbers as short terms (for example, an odd-numbered seat with a one-year term and an even-numbered seat with a two-year term during transition); (b) treat an uncontested race as the short term; or (c) assign a short term by the lowest vote total among winners or by chance (coin toss or similar) if no uncontested seat exists. One committee member summarized the 2-2-2 transition: "So you've got 2, 2, and 2, and they all have 3 year terms. It's just the transition period would require an odd number seat to have a 1 year term in '27 and an even numbered seat to have a 2 year term..." (Speaker 2).

After debate, a committee member moved to amend the earlier motion to adopt three-year terms and to define the transition to yield two seats per year; the motion was seconded and recorded as passing 3–2. The committee did not specify a single transition-selection method in committee minutes; members suggested options be included in the charter appendix or left for council direction or an implementing ordinance.

On term limits, members discussed whether to include limits on the same ballot as the term-extension measure. Some members argued combining term limits with term-extension could confuse voters or produce an undesirable outcome (for example, voters approving term limits but rejecting extended terms). Others favored simultaneous submission. The committee took a motion to avoid recommending term limits on this ballot; that motion passed 3–2, so the committee will not place a term-limits measure in the current charter amendment recommendation.

Ending: The committee agreed to table further detailed drafting of transition language and term-limit mechanics to a subsequent meeting and to circulate examples from other Texas cities for review before the next session.