Jackson County names members of charter commission

A charter commission was appointed Monday to take up term limits and other electoral issues that could be put before Jackson County voters in November.

County Executive Mike Sanders appointed seven regular members and two alternates to the 2012 Charter Review Task Force and set Aug. 6 as the deadline for the committee to come back with its recommendations.

If the county legislature approves those findings, the recommendations will then go to the voters.

Chairing the task force will be Dianne Cleaver, a consultant on health care and education reform, among other issues, and the wife of U.S. Rep Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat.

The other members are Dana Altieri, a Lee’s Summit municipal judge; lawyer Buford Farrington; consultant Gayle Holliday; James Nunnelly, the county’s former anti-drug-abuse program administrator; former state legislator Paul Rojas; and union leader Bruce VanCompernolle of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The two alternates are Robert Hertzog, a former county legislator, and former Kansas City councilwoman Becky Nace.

Sanders suggested formation of a charter review committee in January after county legislator Theresa Garza-Ruiz proposed legislation that would change the way candidates’ names are listed on the county ballot. When her proposal failed to gain support, Sanders suggested looking at a variety of election issues, including new limits on the amount individual contributors can give to a single candidate, as well as term limits.

Sanders, now in his second term, has said he thinks a two-term limit “makes a lot of sense.” By 2014, only one of the nine county legislators would have served fewer than two terms.