City Council Moves to Strike Citizens’ Initiative from Ballot:
Resolution No. 160602, To Stifle Public Debate on Nuclear Weapons Manufacturing
Contact: Dr. Rachel MacNair
Phone: 816-753-2057
E-mail: rachel_macnair@yahoo.com
Kansas City Peace Planters* met requirements for the City Council to place their initiative petition on the ballot, according to the requirements of the City Charter. The initiative petition proposes to ban production of nuclear weapons components in Kansas City and in its place promote jobs in renewable energy. Six Council members – John Sharp, Scott Taylor, Dick Davis, Cindy Circo, Jan Marcason, Scott Wagner, Jermaine Reed – along with Mayor Sylvester James Jr. – have sponsored a Resolution to prevent the initiative petition from reaching a city-wide vote. The Resolution cites issues of constitutionality relating to federal authority on nuclear weapons policy. “The City Council is not the correct forum to make a decision about the constitutionality of an initiative, for that is a decision reserved for Courts,” says Henry Stoever, attorney, of PeaceWorks KC. Placing a legitimate initiative petition on the ballot is a way to prevent the City Council from “having a monopoly on a vital issue.”
The Resolution endangers public awareness of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, a vital issue concerning government accountability, health and security. Rachel MacNair, Ph.D. believes the city council should be called to question for the leasing agreement designed for the new Kansas City Plant: “It was the city council that put up municipal bonds for a debt that should be financed by US Treasury bonds, and thereby breached the boundary between city and federal jurisdictions. They’re ignoring the strange ownership arrangements they made – yet those unprecedented arrangements are a major issue in this campaign. That point should not be squelched by the very people who caused this financial-involvement problem in the first place.”
Dr. MacNair is not alone in her skepticism. A report released last April by Dr. Robert Civiak, former budget examiner of the Department of Energy’s nuclear security activities at the White House Office of Management and Budget, observed that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had made an agreement for a 20-year lease without appropriating funds. To Dr. Civiak, this arrangement was facially unlawful: “NNSA’s commitment to the plant, without having appropriated funds for its construction, violates the U.S. Anti-Deficiency Act.”
If the Resolution were successful and upheld in the court challenge, it will be a missed opportunity to address the health and environmental consequences of manufacturing nuclear weapons. Legacy contamination from operations at the old Kansas City Plant involving beryllium machining is an immediate testament, but the prospect of employing nuclear weapons for a supposed strategic aim would have incalculable effects. Ann Suellentrop of Physicians for Social Responsibility asserts constitutionality takes second place to survival, “Undoubtedly more people have died from the mining, manufacture, testing and waste storage of nuclear weapons than ever died in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The people’s right to survive trumps absolutely everything. We have a right to say NO when our water, air and soil are contaminated by lethal cancer-causing pollution and potential world-wide annihilation.”
This Wednesday, August 17th, many members of the Kansas City Peace Planters will attend the Finance, Governance and Ethics Committee Meeting at City Hall (8:30 AM, tenth floor). They will raise their voices against a Resolution which aims to silence and exclude public engagement on a vital issue.
In the event of passage, court relief will be sought immediately. The group has hired attorney Phil Willoughby, an expert in election law and former member of the Missouri House of Representatives, who is confident that we have a good case for the court to order the citizens’ initiative onto the ballot.
*KC Peace Planters, a coalition, includes PeaceWorks-KC; Physicians for Social Responsibility-KC; East Meets West of Troost; Holy Family, Cherith Brook, and St. Lawrence Catholic Worker Houses; The Recipe LLC; KC’s Loretto Peace & Justice Network; the Social Justice Committee of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Benedictines for Peace; and Faith-Based Coalition for Peace, Justice & Healing.
