BUENA PARK : City Councilwoman Won’t Seek Reelection

City Councilwoman Rhonda J. McCune has announced that she will put her belief in term limits into practice and not run for reelection in November.

“I do believe in term limits,” the two-term councilwoman said at Tuesday night’s council meeting. “I think the reason the country’s in the terrible shape it’s in is because we have congressmen who have been in office for 30 years.”

McCune, 48, said she has thought about the decision for several months. She has been under some pressure from residents to run again because three of the council’s five seats are open for election this year and they are worried about the city’s stability, she said.

“At this juncture, I would feel sort of hypocritical,” she said. “I believe that new blood is always good.” She still may run again at a future date, she added.

McCune, a real estate appraiser for Blackwell & Associates in Fullerton, was first elected to the council in 1985. During her first term, the city twice moved the dates for local elections, which stretched her term out by an extra year and a half, she said.

The councilwoman first moved to Buena Park from her native Los Angeles in 1967 and had her first taste of public service in 1978, when she served on the Orange County Grand Jury for a year. She then served on the city’s Beautification Commission from 1980 to 1982 and on the Planning Commission from 1982 to 1985.

She made an unsuccessful run for an Assembly seat in 1992 against Curt Pringle, but lost without the backing of the Orange County Republican Party, she said.

Her said her proudest achievements as a councilwoman are the new and rehabilitated retail centers and the city’s entertainment corridor.

“During the robust economy of the late 1980s, it was nice to see some of the redevelopment projects go through,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of transitional development from older housing to new apartments, from older shopping centers to either renovating them or rebuilding them.”

Disappointments include the dramatic impact of the recession, which halted some development projects, and the continued existence of Buena Park’s two adult theaters. “I thought by now that they would die of their own boredom,” she said. “However, I still believe they will eventually be gone.”

In political retirement, she wants to concentrate on her career and find something to do that combines her public service with her experience with finance and real estate.