Letter to WIP From Mayor Foutch

author : Mark Foutch topic : Nuclear Free Zone | Olympia City Council

Yeah, the job of Mayor of Olympia has its highs and lows, but being lampooned on the cover of Works In Progress has to be the pinnacle of any local politician's career. I loved it. You might have noticed a run at one of your newsstands; my wife Janet saw it first and grabbed extras for friends and relatives. That cover was a true work of art; hats off to Pat Tassoni who has a real eye for both irony and technical layout. It's truly one for the scrapbook. Thanks!

Now for some of the issues raised by the cover story:

First and most significant, what happened to the Nuclear Free Zone ordinance? Why were last minute changes made exempting the Federal government?

Up until the evening when the ordinance came before the Council for second reading, I have only the General Government Committee's meeting minutes and hearsay to go on as I was not directly involved in the Committee's work. But it seems to me that the Committee chose "Schedule" over "Substance." The key factor was our City legal office's lack of time to research implications of the proposed ordinance before the Committee's August public hearing date.

That date was significant because it would come immediately after the week of public activities noted in WIP's cover story. The legal office runs at full tilt most of the time, but last summer there were two attorney positions vacant and the City Attorney himself (who often works evenings and weekends under ordinary circumstances) had to take leave due to a family situation. The NFZ ordinance could not take priority over the many other time-constrained activities of the legal office; and the General Government Committee (rightly) declined staff's offer to contract out NFZ research at extra cost.

The basic purpose of a Council committee is to screen and shape complex issues so that they are ready for "prime time" when they come before the Council. In this case the Committee did not fulfill that basic responsibility. So the draft ordinance was sent to a public hearing with serious legal and implementation questions still up in the air.

Then, the week after first reading of the ordinance, the City Attorney was finally able to break free and do some online research and phone consultation with other cities. He reported his findings to the City Manager and the ordinance's Council proponents were briefed. Apparently they -- no doubt reluctantly -- agreed that changes had to be made, and an executive session was scheduled so that all councilmembers could understand the legal issues. When I came in for the executive session a modified draft ordinance was presented for Council review before the second reading on the Council meeting's Consent Calendar. The revised ordinance was going to be substituted for the version that had been available to the public, with no plan to let the public know.

As Mayor and chair of the meeting, I was concerned that the public was not aware of the modifications to the ordinance, but Executive Session is for legal issues only so we did not discuss "process" for second reading. That's why I announced at the beginning of the Council meeting that there was a new version, and that's one reason why I pulled it from the Consent Calendar for questions and further discussion. (Councilmembers Johnson and Mah told me after the meeting that they were ready to pull it if I hadn't; Councilmember Johnson also said he would have explained the situation further following the motion to pass, but Councilmember Hyer's unexpected formal Call For The Question, which was seconded, ended debate on the issue.)

So even though we tried our best, it's easy to understand why members of the audience that evening were asking themselves, "What just happened?" All this messy process, confusion and suspicion could have been avoided if the General Government Committee had delayed sending the draft NFZ ordinance to the full Council until all necessary research had been completed, even if that meant missing the end of the big week of antinuclear activities.

Second, my opposition to the NFZ ordinance, and my asking tough questions about its intent, shouldn't be interpreted as some Strangelovian fascination with nuclear weapons. In fact, it was I, not Councilmember Johnson, who drafted and presented the February 1 resolution to the Council, supporting the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the international Mayors for Peace position and calling for the "verifiable and enforceable" elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020. Council passed that resolution unanimously.

Where I (and, I believe, Councilmember Mah) parted company with the rest of the Council was committing the City's limited resources to an actual ordinance, which would cost money to enforce and might expose us to significant litigation. After the public hearing and also at first reading I asked questions about transportation, especially along Interstate 5 and along Plum Street and Marine Drive, which I recalled some years ago had been designated part of the National Highway System to obtain Federal funds for maintenance. (I still don't know the answer to those questions, but they were certainly germane if the City was to enforce the NFZ provisions as diligently as activists seemed to advocate at the public hearing.)

After the public hearing I also wanted to know whether the ordinance would apply to the USS OLYMPIA; Councilmember Johnson said it would not because the ordinance exempted nuclear power, although later in the discussion he indicated that he interpreted the Certification provision to apply to the Navy's "Neither confirm nor deny" policy.

The following week, at first reading, I assumed the ordinance would pass. But I wanted to get three key policy questions answered on the public record so that Council, staff, and the public would all know what to expect when it went into effect: In the course of a long and detailed discussion, staff and Council agreed (and on September 13 Council adopted detailed minutes) that:

1.Staff would not seek out violations of the ordinance, but would take a passive role, depending on others to bring "conclusive proof" of a violation. (Of course, the Legal office would still have to do research to make sure of the facts before enforcement or court action by the City . . . )

2.Nothing in the ordinance committed Olympia to advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United States (which would contradict the spirit of the February 1 Council resolution.)

3.(After determining that the Certification section applied only to City contracting policy) The Navy would not be in violation of the ordinance if it invoked its "Neither confirm nor deny" policy to, for example, a visit by the USS OLYMPIA.

Even after all that, and after exempting activities of the Federal government at second reading, I still believed we should have been satisfied with the February 1 resolution and not passed an ordinance. It's not that I don't think the Council should weigh in on national and international issues, it's that we should do so in a way that better balances benefits with costs, both fiscal and political.

Fiscal: I think the City Manager's estimate of NFZ staff costs to date are low. But even if it's just two or three thousand dollars, for the general public, who've heard from us for years that basic City services are going to have to be cut, the "value" of the NFZ is hard to grasp. And I don't think we're out of the woods on the legal front, either. Enforcing the business and contracting provisions of the ordinance may well land us in court, with unpredictable results. Meanwhile it took six hours for one of our office specialists to go online and consult by phone with the State Department and others to determine who (if anyone) represents all the nuclear or possibly-nuclear nations in this country, with their titles and salutations, in order to carry out the my responsibility under the ordinance to inform those entities annually that, in fact, Olympia is a Nuclear Free Zone. (I have no idea if the packet will ever make it to Pyongyang . . . .)

Political: Olympia is well and widely known as a progressive City. Passing an NFZ ordinance instead of just the February 1 resolution added very little proportionally to that reputation. But that action, together with last year's inflammatory draft resolution opposing visits by the US OLYMPIA, have narrowed considerably the spectrum of those who view this town, and this council, with favor. Now it's true that those reactions have in some cases been ill-informed, incoherent, and very emotional. And many of those we have heard from live far away and would never have come here or done business here anyway. And you might agree with my friend and Eastside neighbor Terry Zander, who told the Council a few weeks ago, " . . . if those people didn't care to show up to the NFZ public hearing, too bad. They had their chance."

But that's a very narrow way to look at the community and its long term way of dealing with local policy -- and politicians. Put aside the fact that the ordinance was brought forward in August, when traditionally most folks have their minds on other things and don't want to have to watch their City Council every minute. Most ordinary citizens just don't get involved that directly. They wait for the next ballot to show up.

Council candidates going door to door this Fall are hearing from a lot of those people, and their opinions are just as valid as those of the activists who were much more visible on this issue. Some "shoo-in" races are now less so because of those voters' anger over the Council's USS OLYMPIA hearing and now suddenly re-aroused by the NFZ.

(And here I'd suggest that I did not "invite" the USS OLYMPIA to Lakefair 2006. In the course of replying to a report from her commander on the submarine's 2004 activities, I said that it was "my personal wish" that OLYMPIA visit here before the end of my term as mayor. I also suggested that most people in the greater Olympia area would welcome the submarine and crew as they had in the past. I think that's still true. As for using City letterhead or consulting with the Council, as far as I'm concerned, any and all councilmembers may express their personal opinions on any topic related to their official duties, using City letterhead, whenever they wish. In any event the sub's commander does not determine her sailing schedule, and anyway the whole issue is now moot as she's going into drydock for a two year retrofit.)

Back to the local political scene: I'm not so worried in the short run about the makeup of future Olympia City Councils. But this and prior councils have enacted a whole series of policies that define our community: How city services are delivered, and by whom. City employment, compensation, and contracting policies. Land use, transportation, environmental, criminal justice, civil rights. I could go on, but my point is that none of these is chiseled in stone. They can be changed if local politics changes.

Every community's demographics are changing and new faces will someday appear on our public stage. We should take care not to risk the gains made over the past 25 years for the temporary satisfaction of enacting controversial commitments that bring few, if any, measurable benefits.

Finally, in the discussion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my expressed concern was not just for American lives. I was also considering the lives of Japanese military and civilians that would have been lost in an allied invasion of the home islands, or as some have suggested, during continued bombing and blockade and waiting for them to surrender -- all while combat continued on the Asian continent putting still more lives at risk. Those two disasters allowed the Emperor to risk a revolt by his military leadership and call publicly for surrender. I said during the Council's NFZ debates that those two nuclear bombings were "terrible acts" but that they most likely forestalled even more-terrible acts. World War II was the worst catastrophe ever to befall humanity. At last it was over.

Assertions by some American military figures cited by revisionist historians to prove alternative theories about why the bombs were dropped, seem to come from people who were not directly involved in the decision. Generals Eisenhower and Bradley, for example, were in Europe. Scholars for years have rooted through documents hoping to find a "smoking gun" that proves their various theories. Many books have been written on the subject. But the only person who really knew why he made the decision was President Truman, an outspoken man who stated his reasons very plainly. All else is conjecture.

Regards,

Mark Foutch