Oviedo council weighs charter amendments, including four-year terms

Oviedo residents could soon be asked to trade more frequent elections for longer stretches of local leadership. Four proposed charter amendments, including a move from two-year council terms to four-year terms, were headed toward a public hearing at Oviedo City Hall on Monday, June 15, at 400 Alexandria Blvd.

The changes go beyond term length. City records show the package also would alter how the council votes on ordinances and resolutions, change the timing of special elections, and move the qualifying window for candidates running for City Council. Taken together, the amendments would affect how quickly Oviedo voters can replace leaders, how often campaigns come around, and how much room challengers have to enter the race.

That matters in a city where the mayor and council serve as the five-member elected legislative and governing body, responsible for policy, growth and land use, the budget and tax rate, utility rates, ordinances, and oversight of the city manager. Under the current system, the mayor and one council seat are elected in odd years, while the other three seats are on even years. Oviedo’s charter now puts all of those seats on two-year terms.

The 2026 Oviedo Charter Review Committee met seven times between January and April before forwarding four recommended revisions to the City Council. The city’s charter requires the council to appoint such a committee at least once every five years, and the committee’s job is to examine the charter and recommend changes that make city government work more efficiently.

If council members approve the ballot language after the hearing, the final wording would be locked in by July 6 and placed on the Nov. 3 ballot. If voters then approve the term-length change, the transition would give the two council members up in 2027, including the mayor, three-year terms, while the three seats up in 2028 would shift directly to four-year terms. That would move Oviedo toward an election cycle tied more closely to even-year presidential and gubernatorial contests.

The issue is not new in Oviedo. Voters considered a similar term-length amendment in 2021, when the city also weighed a shift from two-year to four-year terms. At the time, Mayor Megan Sladek said residents had voted the measure down in the past because they preferred the accountability of shorter terms. The city also said it spent an average of $25,700 on elections that do not sync with state and federal cycles, compared with $3,300 when elections do sync.

For Oviedo, the choice now is whether longer terms would bring steadier leadership and fewer off-cycle campaigns, or whether shorter terms remain the better check on council power. The answer would shape who gets voted out, when they can be replaced, and how often Seminole County’s fastest-growing city resets its leadership.