Alton Committee Pushes Vote On One-Year Term Limits To 2029

City of Alton - Committee of the Whole Meeting

ALTON – An effort to subject the Alton mayor’s appointees to one-year term limits and yearly City Council approval has been delayed for three years.

Committee of the Whole members voted 5-2 this week to postpone a resolution calling for an ordinance to limit the terms of appointed officials to no more than one year without City Council approval.

Alton Mayor David Goins quickly voiced his disapproval of the measure when it came up for a vote.

“I absolutely disagree with this resolution. I kind of undermines my authority as the mayor to make decisions in regards to our department heads,” Goins said, noting the city’s residency requirement would cause issues with employee recruitment and retention.

“It would require someone to move into Alton with perhaps only employment for only one year … we do need qualified department heads, and I think this kind of undermines our ability in the future to recruit good, quality employees for the City of Alton.”

Alderman Michael Velloff said that while he agrees the city needs qualified candidates, there is currently no mechanism in place to remove a sitting employee who is “not doing their job.” Citing his previous 12 years of experience in Alton government, he added: “As long as you were doing your job, you got reappointed.”

Alderwoman Stephanie Elliott cautioned against implementing one-year term limits, saying, “You can lose a lot of good people if you think … one year at a time.” She agreed with the mayor’s point that these term limits on top of the city’s residency requirement would drive away qualified candidates from out of town.

Elliott added the city has too many unresolved issues on the table to risk further instability, noting that yearly performance reviews are already conducted for city employees. She moved to lay the item over until the City Council meeting on March 14, 2029 to give future mayoral appointees advance notice of the new rule.

“We have so many irons in the fire that we need something that’s stable … let’s keep what we have here now, let’s try not to change so many things without a plan to make it work,” Elliott said. “There’s too many things going on that we have not fixed.

“If we really think that we need to have one year [terms], let’s wait until this administration has finished its course and March 2029 – we know there’s another election – and if that has to be changed … and everybody has to abide by it, that’s fine.”

Elliott’s motion to lay the item over until March 14, 2029 was approved 5-2, with Aldermen Velloff and Chris Bohn voting against its postponement.

A full recording of the April 6, 2026 Alton Committee of the Whole meeting is available at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.

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