Guest Editorial
Warning to the people of Ridgecrest. Our current Term Limits law is now under attack by incumbents Eric Bruen, Kyle Blades, and Solomon Rajaratnam. Eric Bruen is now leading this scam. As they get close to terming out their terms, they are now spreading FALSE information that the current law is flawed and needs to be changed. Don’t be fooled by this scam by incumbents who just want to stay in office.
Here is the truth about the City of Ridgecrest Term Limits Law. The current law was done as a people’s initiative in 2012 to place term limits on the Ridgecrest City Council and Mayor. Over 2400 registered voters in Ridgecrest signed the initiative to place it on the ballot. It states: “Any person who has held the office of a member of the City Council or Mayor for eight consecutive years shall not be eligible to hold such office until at least two years have passed since such person last held such office. In no event shall any person be eligible to serve as a member of the city council or mayor for more than eight consecutive years”.
Most other laws state that once the original limit is reached, they can NEVER run again. The intent of our law was to encourage new people to run for office and not let politicians get entrenched in an office. The intent was to level the incumbent advantage and let some new people and ideas possibly get elected. New blood is good for a council.
Right now, one of the incumbents, Kyle Blades, will soon have five years in office and has decided to run for a 4-year office, even though he won’t be able to finish the four-year term. So, even though, by law, he will not be able to stay in office for the full four years, he’s going to run anyway. And the plan, led by Eric Bruen, Solomon Rajaratnam, and Kyle Blades, is to write a new initiative to change or maybe even eliminate the current law before their eight years is reached. Don’t be fooled by their nonsense. They want to change from 8 consecutive years to two elected terms. They think appointed time shouldn’t count towards time served. This is wrong. If anyone were to research most other cities that have term limit laws, “any appointed” time usually counts as one term. The reason is even when appointed, the person gets PAID, votes, gets recognition, and never had to run or pay for a campaign to get elected. If they have all the recognition and power as an elected person, then ANY appointed time should count.
They want to spend your tax dollars to pay thousands of dollars to the City Attorney to draft their initiative and pay the costs to add their self-serving initiative to the ballot just so they can serve more than eight years.
Important: If they are successful and make any change to the current term limits law, it will reset the years they have already served to zero. All of the years they have been in office will no longer count. If any change is made to the law, they will be allowed to serve another eight straight years or more.
Have you ever noticed the only people against term limits are mostly politicians and friends of politicians. Why is this? Power! Keeping the good old boys club in power. And attempting to keep new people off the council. They’ll try and deny this. But don’t believe them. Don’t be fooled by their garbage that the current law is flawed. It isn’t. And truth be told, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they try and get rid of term limits completely.
Since Kyle can’t serve all fours years of the position, he shouldn’t have even pulled papers to run. He could run right now for Mayor, as it is just a two-year term. The public needs to vote for non incumbents this November election to keep this disguised scam off the ballot in 2026. If Eric Bruen, Solomon Rajaratnam, and Kyle Blades are reelected, they will vote to put THEIR own Term Limit initiative on the 2026 ballot to block the will of the 74% that voted for term limits in 2012.
If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from anyone. As the writer and proponent of the original law, I’d like to hear from you. Call me at 760-375-1004, or feel free to come by GUNS4US to talk to me.
Thomas Wiknich
Proponent and Author of the 2012 City Council Term Limits Law