Committee Considers Term Limits, Contractor Spending

The Louisville Metro Council's Accountability and Oversight Committee has begun discussing a proposal for mayoral term limits.The resolution would ask the Kentucky General Assembly to change the state's merger law to reduce maximum mayoral terms from three to two.Ordinance sponsor Brent Ackerson says the legislation is not aimed at his fellow Democrat Jerry Abramson, who has declined to run for a third term as mayor of the merged government."This is not a partisan issue, this is not an indictment of anyone, this is an issue of philosophical examination of whether or not term limits in certain offices are applicable or should not be," he says.Instead of debating the issue in its meeting Wednesday, the committee instructed its caucus directors to research why the term limits are set at three and to look into a clearer order of succession and imposing term limits on council members.Committee co-chair Kelly Downard says the debate will begin in earnest in two weeks."Next time we meet, we'll introduce it and in the meantime I hope the caucus directors will have a list of some people who can maybe come before us and talk about the wisdom of why some of these things are there and also some of the ideas we'll have come up with by that time," says Downard.The committee also passed an ordinance that would require certain contractors to disclose how city money is spent on some projects. It now goes to the full council.