06/09/2026
During Monday night's Marion City Council meeting, council passed a Resolution 8-1 Submitting to the Electors of the City of Marion a Proposal to Establish Four-Year Staggered Terms for Members of City Council and a Four-Year Term for the President of Council. This option will appear on the November 3rd, 2026 ballot.
Currently, council members and the president of the council are elected to two-year terms. These terms are not staggered.
The lone no vote was fifth ward city councilman Thad Smith.
After the meeting, "WGH TALK" asked Thad why he voted no.
"Well, you know, I was just trying to, you know, not be different, but I think it keeps everybody's feet to the fire, makes them work just as hard. It's not that I wouldn't support it at the ballot because I probably will vote yes for it. But, you know, the other issue with it is campaigning. You spend a lot of time campaigning when you're running for city council and that eats up a lot of time when you could be doing other work. So that's a good thing why it should happen. But I voted no just because, you know, I think... Just keeping people's feet to the fire is what two-year terms is going to do, really. It's not going to have you stuck at four years, have you stuck with somebody for an extended period of time. It might make it easier to replace somebody real quickly. That's about it. I mean, nothing too major about it, I
Suppose."
Councilman Smith was asked about state rep positions and congressional positions being two years, and with a good portion of the country wanting term limits, if he thought this would pass on the November ballot.
"So I question whether or not it'll pass for sure. And to your point, with everybody else being two-year terms, that's kind of it too. Everybody else has two-year terms. Why do we need four-year terms? Um, but, again, I've also lobbied for this. So, I mean, if anything comes out, why did he vote no? I mean, you see me. I have lobbied for it before, but I just give it some more thought, and I've listened to kind of what some of the public was saying. And it sounds like not even the public was too interested in having it at four-year terms. So that was a lot of why I voted no is because listening to what the public said."
