What if we made Hafen mayor for life?

Last week, a group of Henderson citizens examining whether to make revisions to that city’s charter elected not to rewrite the document and transform the entire form of city government. One proposed change could have allowed incumbent Mayor Andy Hafen to stay even longer in the city’s top job.

Hafen is being sued by city employee Rick Workman, who ran for mayor in 2013 but lost in the primary. Workman’s lawyer Stephanie Rice contends Hafen was ineligible to run for office last year because of term limits, a position entirely consistent with the 2014 case of Lorton v. Jones. Nevada’s Supreme Court will make the final call on Hafen’s future.

But the charter committee was presented with some interesting information: If the city were to change its form of government from one in which the mayor was just another member of the City Council to one in which he was the actual head of city government, lacking a council vote but empowered to ratify or veto the actions of the council, then the Lorton ruling would no longer apply.

Presto! Hafen would have been safe from Rice’s relentless legal assault and even free to run for as many terms as he wished!

But the citizens panel rejected that change, and City Attorney Josh Reid said there are no other plans to change the charter. But that won’t stop me from revealing the Entirely Fictional, Albeit Totally Plausible, Top 10 Other Henderson Charter Revisions Rejected by the Charter Review Committee:

10. All mayors must be nicknamed “Andy.”

9. No person presently employed by the city, or who has ever been employed by the city, or who is even thinking about being employed by the city, may ever run for any elected position in the city ever again.

8. No person named “Richard,” “Rich,” “Rick,” “Dick” or any variant thereof may ever hold the office of mayor in the city of Henderson.

7. Under the sovereignty granted to the states by the 9th and 10th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Henderson is hereby declared its own state, and the provisions of the Nevada Constitution regarding term limits no longer apply. But please keep sending C-tax money. We need it.

6. We promise to restore senior citizen lunch programs on Saturdays, if all the senior citizens pledge to always vote for Mayor Hafen, even if they have to write his name in on the ballot. (It’s H-A-F-E-N.)

5. Under some non-linear definitions of time, all events that have occurred in what we consider the past, or will occur in what we consider the future, are actually occurring simultaneously at the same instant. Therefore, the term limits ruling cannot possibly apply, since it may not truly be said the mayor has served for 12 years or more.

4. Any person who runs for office but loses in a low-turnout primary election must wear one of those networking meeting stickers that says “Hello, My Name is LOSER!”

3. Henderson form of government officially changed to theocracy.

2. Qualifications for office of mayor changed to add new section requiring all candidates to be friends with City Manager Jacob Snow.

1. No fatties.