DALTON, Ga. — In a move that Whitfield County Board of Commission Chairman Lynn Laughter said “completely blindsided” her, the other four members of the commission voted Monday night to ask local state legislators to remove term limits on county commissioners.

Local resident Ed Painter presented a plan to the board in November to allow a commissioner on the board to run for a fourth term in office if that fourth term would be served as the commission chairman. Commissioners currently can serve only three consecutive, full four-year terms.

But at Monday’s meeting, Painter recommended the board do away with term limits completely.

Commissioners are term-limited by state law, which was put in place in 1993. Only the Legislature can change that state law, and Monday’s vote is only asking local legislators to propose new legislation in the upcoming session.

Commissioner Greg Jones motioned for a resolution asking the local legislators to put forth legislation to remove those limits. The motion appeared to die without a second, but commissioner Barry Robbins said he seconded after Laughter said the motion failed and started to move to the next agenda item.

Harold Brooker and Roger Crossen joined Jones and Robbins in voting for the request, and Laughter, who can only vote to break ties, made a point of voting publicly against the proposal.

“I believe in term limits,” Laughter said. “I think we should have them for most offices. But to do any change, we haven’t had much discussion about this, and the proposal that was originally presented isn’t what we got tonight. I was completely blindsided.”

Whitfield County residents Jevin Jensen, Cathy Holmes and Beau Patton spoke against the resolution with the common theme that a decision to possibly change 25 years of law seemed rushed. But Patton and Jensen pointed out that even the initial change Painter brought to the board only had one beneficiary — Brooker. Brooker is in his third consecutive term as a commissioner and cannot run for re-election in two years.

“This is targeted specifically for Mr. Brooker,” said Jensen, who is on the board of the League of Women Voters. “We shouldn’t change policy on a whim to affect one person. For 25 years, this seems to have worked just fine. If we want to have a debate or put it up for a vote, that is one thing, but this seems like grandfathering yourself in. They knew the rules coming into the election.”

During Patton’s public comments, he asked if commissioners would pledge to abide by the old rules. Crossen said he supported that but could change his mind, and Laughter said she was a proponent of term limits.

“We only had one person to recuse themselves from the election process if the rules change,” said Patton, who is a vice-president of the Whitfield County Republican Party. “The voters should have the option. We just recently had a vote on commissioners being elected by district on the November ballot. Why is this being rushed? This needs to go to the people for a vote.”

Painter was also the driving force behind a referendum on the November ballot which changed the election of commissioners from a county-wide vote to district voting. The commission chair is still elected district-wide.

Brooker bristled during the public comments saying the commissioners are the only elected officials in Whitfield County or Dalton city government who are subject to term limits.

“I know where it is coming from,” Brooker said when asked if he felt singled out during public comments. “But the voters did not vote this in. If you are going to have term limits on the commissioners, why not the sheriff? Why not the tax commissioner? But this is Mr. Painter’s proposal, not mine.”