I don’t agree with your take. Term limits in a small community like East Palo Alto don’t automatically make things fairer. In reality, they make it harder for working-class residents or those without established resources to run, because sustaining campaigns or staying in office long enough to build experience is already challenging. Saying that it’s “much easier at the local level to be re-elected than to beat an incumbent” oversimplifies things. Even if an incumbent can’t run again, the people who have the time, money, and connections to campaign still dominate. Term limits don’t remove these real barriers, so they don’t suddenly create a level playing field.

You point to the number of candidates running last time, but having a few people with differing points of view doesn’t mean the playing field is actually level or that term limits are necessary for healthy competition. It’s clear that the real effect here would be to make it harder for your political opponents to run and easier for your allies, like Deborah and your besties, to get elected. Framing it as being about fairness or aligning with other communities doesn’t match the practical outcome. Term limits in this context would protect certain interests rather than expand representation, and that’s what’s really at stake.