Moynihan wants term limits on Schaumburg board

Jim Moynihan is the only non-incumbent who's expressed interest in running for the Schaumburg village board this year, but he believes a mandatory term-limit policy would inspire a wider choice of viewpoints from among village residents.

Though it would have no impact on his current challenge of incumbents Tom Dailly, George Dunham and Mark Madej for one of three available seats on the board, Moynihan said he's supportive of a future ballot referendum that would let voters decide whether a limit of three consecutive terms is a good idea.

"I don't know how long it would take to get it in motion," Moynihan said. "But I would like to be the catalyst in getting it moving."

He thought the presidential election in November 2016 might be the best time to get the largest number of Schaumburg voters to weigh in on the question.

Though many current members of the board have already served more than three terms, Moynihan emphasized that he wouldn't want such a policy to be retroactive. Even if approved by voters, he would want the clock to start at zero for everyone at that moment.

"It gives us a chance to infuse a different dynamic in that group that you don't have after a while," Moynihan said. "Let's take something that's good and keep it good, or make it better. I'm just trying to give people a reason to be part of the process."

Moynihan said he plans to do further research on getting such a referendum on the ballot, which he concedes would not be dependent to his being on the board himself.

On his campaign website, Moynihan claims that only one new trustee has been elected since 1991. But in fact, four current trustees and two more who have since left the board were first elected after 1991.

Moynihan clarified that his campaign team was only counting trustees who were elected without having first been appointed to fill a vacancy.

Dunham, who was first elected in 1991, said the village board's institutional memory could almost disappear if experienced members were barred from running.

"With the institutional memory we have, I think we've done a pretty good job," Dunham said. "Show me one other village that's reduced its property tax levy as we have."

Though Dunham conceded that the village board first created its property tax levy in 2009 during the recession, he said it has annually reduced it as the economy has recovered.

Dunham asked why Moynihan never shared the fresh ideas he now claims to have until the day after he conceded to Democratic state Rep. Michelle Mussman in their 56th District legislative race last November.

Dailly was first elected in 1989 and served five terms before stepping down in 2009. He was appointed to fill the vacancy created by Hank Curcio's resignation in 2013 and is now running again.

Even in 1989, Dailly said a term-limits policy isn't something he would have found helpful either as a first-time candidate or as a newly elected trustee.

"I was glad there were people on the board that had some long-term knowledge that I could feed off," Dailly said. "This (referendum proposal) is one of those items that someone can use in a campaign because it's a cheap way of garnering votes, and that's unfortunate."

Madej, who was appointed to the board in 2005 and first elected in 2007, agreed.

"We do have term limits," he said. "Every four years the residents can vote us in or out.

"Also, I don't recall or can't imagine any town that has term limits that has been very successful, or has reversed their negative growth or whatever, by creating term limits," Madej continued. "Usually, term limits are brought up by a political candidate that can't seem to win a campaign."

Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson, uncontested in his bid for an eighth term, said the most eloquent words about term limits were delivered by the late, longtime congressman Henry Hyde. He once posed the question of whether someone would ask a surgeon about to perform a lifesaving operation whether he or she was a careerist, Larson said.

"I fully subscribe to Hyde's philosophy," Larson said. "(Term limits are) a dumbing down of our democracy."

While the office of U.S. president is one most people are comfortable applying term limits to, Larson said there are significant differences between that level of power and that of local government.

"The president can declare war," Larson said. "I can't."

But he argued for the need for long-term experience that term limits would make impossible.

"There are projects that take a long time to get done," Larson said. "We talked about a convention center for years and years before we did it. It takes time for dreams to come true."