Earlier this week outgoing Natchez and Vidalia city leaders paused to pat one another on the back and reminisce about their many years of public service.

We applaud them for having the guts to throw their hats in the ring and take on public matters.

For many years, most of them had their hearts in the right place — focused on the people for whom they represent in government.

A few, however, lost their focus along the way. The focus became less about doing the smart, necessary things and became more about ego and monument building.

For those politicians, the voters became fed up and said, “enough.”

In Vidalia, that means an almost entirely new administration will take over in a few weeks.

It was a monumental feat to oust so many incumbents, which underscores, perhaps, the need for term limits.

On a federal level, the president is limited to only two consecutive terms in office, but city mayors and aldermen can make careers out of working on the public’s dime.

Something doesn’t seem right about that. We hope the public will strongly urge local lawmakers to put forth bills limiting terms of any statewide office. If two terms provide good limits on the executive branch of the federal government, the same would seem appropriate for all other offices, too.