Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, a San Pedro native son and reserve police officer, is practically a shoo-in to win reelection Tuesday. He lacks substantial opposition and is known as a hometown darling. Yet Buscaino has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars on his reelection bid, hired consultants who worked on the presidential campaigns of President Obama and Hillary Clinton, and is appearing in television ads across the city.

The consultants and advertising are aimed at passing an obscure ballot measure related to waterfront development in the Port of Los Angeles, a driving force in Buscaino’s 15th City Council District. All the effort, political observers say, might be a sign that Buscaino is trying to raise his profile to possibly run for higher office or to mine a special set of circumstances that could allow him to serve on the City Council for 15 years, a tenure unprecedented in the modern era of term limits.