Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon expects to make a decision soon on whether to sign or veto two pieces of legislation that could limit the power of the county executive’s office.
One law would limit the county executive and county comptroller to three four-year terms. The second would take away the power from the executive branch to fill vacancies on the county legislature and turn that over to lawmakers.
A handful of people turned up for a public hearing to support the legislation, including former Democratic county legislator Linda Ervin, who said there needs to be more input over who decides to fill vacancies.
"Why should one person say 'Mary Sue should be the next legislator,' because he knows Mary Sue is going to support him going forward, with whatever he wants to have happen," Ervin said. "So that's not the way it should work."
Following the hearing, McMahon wouldn’t say which way he's leaning on the issue, but did object to the way Democrats, who have the majority in the legislature for the first time in nearly 50 years, didn’t consult him on the legislation.
"So I think that's a problem how it all started, but I think on the merit of each one of them, I think there's areas where if a process was a little bit different, there might have been opportunities for common ground," McMahon said.
County legislature Majority Leader Nodesia Hernandez said Democrats have been having bipartisan talks about this since the legislature voted on term limits for lawmakers last year.
"It is not a new conversation," said Hernandez. "We have discussions about making sure that we term limit the county executive and the comptroller. So I think we've been talking about this with the other side for almost a year now."
If McMahon decides to veto the legislation, it would take 12-votes to override. Currently, Democrats have a 10-7 edge in the legislature.
