MICHELLE LE

Author and columnist Doris Reynolds with her dog Lucy in her living room, Thursday, January 24, 2008. Reynolds says "Lucy and I are rejoined at the hip, where ever I go, she goes." Her friends call the color of her wall 'Doris blue,' a vibrant color that appears throughout her home.

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Doris Reynolds is still the city historian.

But her role now has limits. Term limits to be exact.

Naples City Council voted 4-3 at their recent meeting to limit the historian to two consecutive three-year terms. The decision will not retroactively affect Reynolds’ 2006 appointment, which means her first term will end in June 2011.

Mayor Bill Barnett, Councilman Gary Price and Councilwoman Teresa Heitmann cast the dissenting votes. Both Barnett and Price said they weren’t in favor of creating a term limit for the position.

“I think that if the time ever came that (she) felt she wouldn’t be able to be the city’s historian any more, she’d be the first one (to say so),” Barnett said. “Doris Reynolds for all intents and purposes is a historian ... she knows about Naples history.”

Reynolds, a columnist for the Naples Daily News, was appointed to her position in June 2006. Council at the time voted unanimously to name her the city’s official historian.

Councilwoman Penny Taylor in April said she felt it was appropriate to assign term limits to the city historian position.

In a memo to council, Taylor also asked that the “duties and responsibilities be revised to remove any reference to a city historian collecting, maintain or receiving donations from the public of historical and/or archival materials in the name of the city.”

Those archival duties, according to Taylor, should be the responsibility of someone at the city.

City Clerk Tara Norman told council Wednesday that she would look into what was needed to create an archive, and meet with relevant community groups to see what type of partnerships could be formed.

Lois Bolin, a strategic adviser for Naples Cultural Landscape, said her organization would be interested in working with the city in creating an archive.

This isn’t the first time Reynolds’ position has come under scrutiny. In October, council came to a 4-3 consensus that Reynolds shouldn’t be allowed to use her official title to market a for-profit collection of DVDs.

Reynolds resigned, then rescinded her resignation two days later, saying she wasn’t leaving her post but planned to continue using her title as a marketing tool.