Voters to decide on election cycle change

Fort Lauderdale voters should get the chance to select the nation’s president and the city’s commission members at the same time, the City Commission decided Tuesday. It agreed on an initial vote to place the election-date change on the city’s next ballot in March.

The citywide vote, set for March 12, also would ask residents whether to:

Eliminate municipal primaries, as other Broward cities have already done.

Have commission terms begin Jan. 1 instead of immediately after elections.

Have commissioners serve three four-year terms, instead of three three-year terms, before facing term limits.

Fort Lauderdale currently holds its primary in February, and its general election in March. If voters approve the changes, the next City Commission election would take place in November 2020.

No commission seats are on the March ballot. But Fort Lauderdale voters will go to the polls in March for a special election on a property-tax increase for a new police headquarters and park improvements.

Vice Mayor Ben Sorensen said the changes would save Fort Lauderdale “hundreds of thousands of dollars” by allowing the city to

piggyback on general elections and not have to create its own ballot.

But Mayor Dean Trantalis said he was concerned City Commission elections would get lost amid the vast attention focused on presidential candidates and other issues typically on a November ballot. He pointed out that some Broward voters did not select a candidate in the most recent U.S. Senate election, which some attributed to its placement on the lengthy ballot and others blamed on a ballot design flaw.

“Look at how many people failed to vote for U.S. Senate,” Trantalis said. “Are people going to be looking for you or me or anyone else here” on a crowded ballot, he asked commissioners.

Despite the mayor’s misgivings, the commission agreed to place the issue before voters. Voters rejected a similar proposal in 2012.

Unlike some cities that stagger the terms of their council members, Fort Lauderdale’s mayor and city commissioners are all up for election at the same time. The mayor is elected by voters citywide, while commissioners are elected in four districts.

Under the proposal to be decided by voters in March, the mayor and commissioners elected in 2018 will serve until their successors are elected in 2020. Those successors would start serving four-year terms.

The commission will take a final vote on whether to place these changes on the ballot on Jan. 8.