Olympia is nuclear weapons-free no longer: City council repeals ordinance through speedy process, disregard for public consent

author : Tim Russell topic : City council | Armageddon

by Tim Russell

At the September 9 city council meeting, members voted 5-2 to repeal Ordinance 6411, the Nuclear Free Zone Act. Despite 53 testimonies in favor of retaining and enhancing it, and despite 400 signatures gathered in four short days, members of the council arrogantly felt they knew Olympian’s wishes better, and voted the ordinance down. Only two people had spoken in favor of repealing the ordinance.

If this wasn’t sufficiently arrogant, the matter had been placed on the Consent Calendar, and was only given adequate time for testimony by a last minute decision. That is, members of the city council had decided their vote before listening to public testimony, and were only awaiting the opportunity for consent with fellow members.

You ask what kind of process is this? This is the very point that former council member Laura Ware brought to attention in her testimony. Ware noted that when originating the ordinance, the course included extensive process in committee and through various stages of deliberation, before being voted upon. To repeal it, three members of council Kingsbury, Ottavelli and Strub, voted it onto the consent calendar for the 9th, with only a 30 minute opportunity for comment.

To challenge anyone’s sense of democracy further, for the first time ever, the City Manager limited the number of persons allowed in the council chambers to three persons standing, beyond the number of chairs. Many people were turned away.

Council members who opposed the ordinance repeatedly claimed that the ordinance was unenforceable. But instead of fixing it, as council member Hyer suggested they do, members in opposition sought a resolution that was sufficiently empty, such that there is nothing to enforce.

One of the ironies about this move by five members of the city council is that throughout the meeting they sought to convince the public of their complete abhorrence of these weapons, and ongoing desire to rid them from the planet. This is true for those members who weren’t too cowardly to remain silent on the issue. It should be noted that Ottavelli said nothing on the matter. And Mah essentially said, take your passion to the federal level. To demonstrate their convictions, they seek a toothless resolution.

Meanwhile at the federal level, the U.S. government undercuts the Non-Proliferation treaty by refusing to dismantle weapons to an allowable extent, by making arms deals with Israel and India, two non-signatories, and pouring millions into modernizing old systems and developing new ones, our local government wants to replace a substantive ordinance with a warm and fuzzy statement of values called a resolution. While the Trident sub base at Bremerton, only an hour’s drive away, houses a greater concentration of nuclear weapons than anywhere else on the planet, the Olympia city council wants to “duck and cover,” like we were told to do in the 50s during a nuclear attack.