‘Self-serving’ or good government? A supervisor wants to overhaul county government, including by extending term limits

A San Diego County supervisor is proposing seismic changes to how county government works, who controls it and how many terms they can serve.

Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer wants to ask voters to overhaul the county’s charter — effectively its constitution — in a way that could hand additional power to supervisors and strip it from county staff and bureaucrats who have long played a key role in running its operations day to day.

A three-page working summary of the proposal calls for creating a county ethics commission, establishing new budget and auditing offices responsive to supervisors and giving supervisors the direct power to confirm and remove top bureaucrats.

But the summary also proposes an overhaul to who is elected in San Diego County and how long they can serve.

Listed as “under discussion” are proposals to convert the appointed job of the top county executive to an elected one, relax existing term limits for supervisors and enact new ones for all other county elected officials, who aren’t currently subject to any.

In an interview, Lawson-Remer said labor unions and constituents have pushed her to support certain elements of the package, particularly confirmation hearings for top county hires and greater transparency around the budget. Of all the components of her proposal, she said she was hearing the least support for the elected county executive. 

“Everything else — including, by the way, the term limits — has been a n...