Cates can run for 5th term despite term limits, says City Attorney

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Despite the Key West City Charter limiting the number of terms a mayor can serve to four, City Attorney Shawn Smith has issued a legal opinion that Mayor Craig Cates can run for an unprecedented fifth term in 2016.

Cates won reelection to his fourth and final term as mayor in August this year. He was first sworn in as mayor on Oct. 1, 2009, after beating his competitor, two-term mayor Morgan McPherson. But Smith issued his ruling on Wednesday, Jan. 7, saying that when residents voted in 2012 to align Key West’s election schedule with the state and county – putting the city on an even-year election cycle instead of the current odd year schedule – Cates had one year cut off of his third term, shortening it from two years to one. As a result, Cates will have served seven years at the end of his fourth term in November 2016. Under local term limit legislation passed by voters in 2006, Cates is allowed to run for a maximum of four terms totaling eight years.

Although city charter section 3.01 states that “no person shall serve more than a total of eight years in the position of mayor,” Smith said there is an exception.

“Because the term limit of eight years would be reached during your next two-year term if elected, you are able to serve because the Charter specifies, ‘if the term limit occurs during a term in office, the person holding the office may complete the term,’” Smith said in a memo to Cates.

Cates talked briefly about Smith’s legal opinion at a Town Hall meeting Wednesday, Jan. 7, sponsored by the Key West Business Guild.

“[Smith] says I can run again even though it will be nine years [at the end of a fifth term],” he said, adding that he hasn’t made a decision yet whether he will run again in 2016. “That’s down the road,” Cates said.

Commissioner Teri Johnston, who attended the Key West Business Guild Town Hall with Cates, said she was “shocked” when she heard the Mayor say Smith was researching whether he could run for a fifth term.

“We spent a good amount of time laying out the guidelines and restrictions when we made the decision to come into election alignment with the County and State. These guidelines are also part of our Code of Ordinance. I need to review them later this week to clarify,” she said.

Commissioner Tony Yaniz, who toyed with the idea of running against Cates last year but decided not to, wasn’t as apprehensive about the possibility of Cates running for a fifth time.

“Is it fair? That’s a tough question. If he runs again and a good candidates runs against him, then the constituents can vote him out of office,” Yaniz said.

If Cates does decide to run and wins, he will be the longest serving mayor in Key West since Charles “Sonny” McCoy, who was mayor from 1971 to 1981. But he would have a ways to go before challenging the longest-serving mayor in Key West’s history, Alexander Patterson, who served six non-consecutive terms totaling approximately 13 years between 1841 and 1868.

And Cates would also have to update change his Wikipedia page, where an unknown author wrote, “Craig Cates is currently on his last term, where he just got re-elected in August. Key West is going to miss the best mayor that they [sic] have ever had!”

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