Works In Progress - November 2005 - Letter #2 to WIP From Mayor Foutch

In the October WIP I tried, as completely and diplomatically as I could, to give my impression of what happened in City Council process on the Nuclear Free Zone Ordinance leading up to the Council meeting where the ordinance was heard at second reading. Carrie Lybecker had some additional questions, and some I thought I'd answered already. Let me try again.

But first, please understand that Doug Mah and I were unwilling passengers on the NFZ train. We were "out of the loop," not consulted by NFZ proponents and so, as I pointed out last month, our only information came from reading the General Government Committee's minutes and from the weekly update conversation that each Councilmember has with the City Manager. Possibly there are other, better, answers to Ms. Lybecker's questions.

Here's the sequence as I understand it: The City Attorney, hearing the Council's concerns about potential NFZ liability issues expressed after the public hearing and at first reading, phoned Oakland and at least one other NFZ city to learn about their post-declaration experience. (Oakland had to retrieve their NFZ ordinance from the archives, which hints at how "active" it was. So I wonder how militant the other purported 4,000 "entities" have really been in enforcing their own NFZs . . . .) Anyway, it turned out that Oakland, after losing a Federal lawsuit, had exempted activities of the Federal government from its ordinance, a precedent now firmly established in case law. I believe the City Manager, after hearing from the City Attorney, offered an Executive Session to Councilmembers as a vehicle for them to hear what he'd found and to ask questions related to potential litigation if Olympia's ordinance passed as drafted. (I'm not aware of any actual or threatened litigation directed at Olympia.)

The Council made no decisions during the Executive Session, but apparently the five members of the Council's NFZ majority individually came to their own conclusions. The City Manager had a modified draft available if the Council majority wished to consider it that evening. Action could have been postponed to the following week, but the majority, I assume, wanted to "get it over with." In any event it came before us for second and final reading at the Council meeting the same evening as the Executive Session.

Last month I described the awkward process that then ensued, culminating with an unexpected motion to vote immediately on the ordinance, cutting off debate and any further opportunity for Councilmembers to try to explain the situation.

Last month I also said why I thought the legal research wasn't available until the week of second reading: Other Legal Office tasks had higher priority, two positions vacant, family issues distracting the City Attorney who took leave. And the General Government Committee declined the staff's offer of timely, contracted legal research. Perhaps cost was their concern; possibly they had confidence in the information available on activist websites regarding other cities' experience with and enthusiasm for NFZs.

Ms. Lybecker criticizes me for, in her opinion, attempting to "shuttle blame" onto the General Government Committee. What more can I say? The Committee could have postponed bringing the ordinance to the full Council until some real legal research had been done, but chose instead to stick to a schedule that would coincide with the end of the week of NFZ activism, symbolically tied to the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings. The next line of defense should have been the Council majority, who heard staff and fellow councilmembers' concerns but voted anyway to pass the ordinance on first reading. Ms. Lybecker's first article noted those concerns and asked why they hadn't been addressed. Good question.

Regarding public participation, Ms Lybecker recycled Terry Zander's opinion that I addressed last month: "There was ample opportunity for the general public to learn about the NFZ ordinance and make their views known. Too bad for them if they did not respond!" What can I say? The self-righteousness of that attitude is one of the characteristics of zealous activists that drive away the ordinary citizen. Just because "we" gave a party and "they" didn't show up doesn't mean we shouldn't do a more complete "political cost/benefit" analysis when considering high-profile policy initiatives. Now, as I predicted last month, the NFZ has become a campaign issue in an important City Council race (Ref: Thurston County General Election Voters' Pamphlet, page 18). This won't be the last we hear of it. A lot of political capital has been squandered on the NFZ for very little real benefit.

Which leads me to one of Ms. Lybecker's observations in her September WIP article, that the citizen activists who supported the original NFZ draft were willing to take the risk of leaving Federal activities in the final version. WHAT risk? They were taking no risks whatsoever! That's the most galling thing about all this. Any actual risk would have been borne by the general public, through possible litigation and fiscal impact on the services their municipal corporation is attempting to continue in a time of declining resources relative to expenses, plus the potential electoral and policy fallout.

I repeat, the Council's February 1 resolution was at least as effective a public policy statement on nuclear weapons as the final version of the NFZ. And it cost virtually nothing vs. the multiple staff tasks, General Government Committee meetings, newspaper criticism, resentment by much of the general public, political and policy "fallout," and frustration of citizen activist/advocates with the NFZ ordinance process. Beyond being able to include Olympia as an NFZ city on activist listings, what has all this effort and furor really accomplished? Was it worth it?

And now, I'll mercifully go "off line" and let WIP readers contemplate new topics. I'd be glad to talk individually with anyone who's not tired of the whole subject by now.

Regards,

Mark Foutch

Mayor of Olympia