Battles over development, zoning and, last year, recreational marijuana can be plenty bruising in Newton. But next Tuesday, Newton’s City Council will deliberate actual war (page two here)….
COUNCILOR LEARY requesting a Resolution to the federal government to freeze plans to spend over a trillion dollars rebuilding the US nuclear arsenal and instead to adopt a new nuclear policy based on the active pursuit of a verifiable, enforceable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
And after they’ve made the world safe from nuclear annihilation, the council will also seek to rid it of polystyrene and plastic coffee stirrers.
I lost 2 tires and the $700 to replace them due to the crappy roads in this city and my city council is focusing on nuclear weapons and banning more plastic. I’m sure the next major items on the agenda will be calling for an end to the death penalty and a ban on lawnmowers. What an embarrassment!
Doubtless an attempt to distract from thornier issues currently being grappled with.
Don’t get me wrong; I would love to see global denuclearization. But it is frustrating to see our CITY council spending precious time debating U.S. military strategy and international diplomacy. If our councilors want to spend their time on that, they should run for federal office next time, or maybe join the diplomatic corps.
Next thing you know they’ll be protecting us from the Lawnmower man with his deadly leaf blower
I support denuclearization and thoughtful plastics bans, but as others have said, when our city infrastructure is in bad shape, people expect that to be the top priority for the city council.
Every day I hear about the shape of the roads, the sidewalks, the fields. Concrete sidewalks with bad tar patch jobs, Potholes that have been filled 5 times but never repaired, dead trees that are removed and never replaced. This is the bread and butter of city government, and we need councilors focused on putting a better system in place for our infrastructure. To their credit, many of them are working on that, too.
@Greg
I’m beginning to think that the scope of questions and requirements for local candidates for office should be broadened to include, but nor be limited to the following:
Candidates must release their tax returns from the last 5 yrs. State & Federal.
What are their non religion based contributions to charity each year? What percentage of their income do they contribute to charity?(releasing tax returns would answer these questions also)
Newton is designated as a “Welcoming City”. Should a portion of “immigrants” who are released while their cases are being
adjucated be settled in Newton? How many? Should an “immigrant” be given priority status for affordable housing?
Would a candidate offer housing,
food, shelter, career counseling, work or loans to these immigrants? If they are a lawyer, would they offer pro bono
representation to these immigrants?
Should the electoral college be eliminated?
What is the square yardage of your home? What kind of car are you driving and how many do you own?
How often do you walk or ride your bike to work? In other words,
what is your carbon footprint?
What sacrifices are you personally making to combat global warming or climate change?
National issues of import have been on the docket of the city council for many years. It’s clearly time to get candidates on the record so voters will know exactly what they are getting
Paul
You are asking too much. The bar to run is pretty low in newton. You just have to be
– Democrat
– be a nice person
– use the terms diversity and equality in vague terms
– hate trump
After which its just a personality contest…
This is such a red herring topic. Every so often, our city council focuses on national issues (nuclear disarmament) or small issues like plastic bags and straws. I think the focus on the former is silly and the focus on the latter is just ok. Frankly, I’d prefer these environmental issues be dealt with at the state level, not the local level, since it creates some unfair obligations on merchants on the borders of the city. But I’ve learned to adjust to paper bags, even if I think the additional cost program is horribly designed. I’m sure the straw thing/stirrer thing would be ok too.
But before some of us start posting diatribes about the ‘libs, let’s also remember that these city councilors are spending an insane amount of time on this public service job each week, and the VAST majority of it is on worthy city tasks. Do we really think they aren’t focusing on the streets, the sidewalks and the schools because of this resolution? Are they dedicated untold hours to the study of how to say nuclear? Or is this a simple docket, a quick vote and then back to the grindstone of being yelled at by the fellowship of the miserable? Pretty sure it is the latter.
You want to know why our sidewalks and streets are horrible? Because we decided years ago not to dedicate enough funding to fixing those streets and sidewalks. Why aren’t more trees being planted? Same.
Things are certainly better than a decade ago. At least we seem to be making a dent in the tree removal back-log and the streets are SLOWLY getting better. We’ve been held back by some bad winters (bad meaning freeze/thaw cycles, not snow amount). But let’s not blame a few moments of silliness or a bit of a blurred focus for the issue. Our city govt can walk and chew gum at the same time, at least occasionally.
We could always have another override for parks, trees, roads, and sidewalks. Infrastructure Week at last! (I’m joking, please don’t send me hate posts)
What Fig said. Spot on.
I wish I could have written as eloquently about this as fignewtonville just did.
This “article” is just complaining for the sake of complaining.
Ben,
There is alot to complain about…
Greg Reibman is doing many good things to educate our local business community about a range of topics, including environmental topics, such as those related to transportation. So why the sarcasm in his reporting about resolutions being introduced by some of our City Councilors with related concerns? His posting about recent City Council resolutions unleashed hostility from anonymous bloggers who felt that the head of our C of C agrees with them in their view that the resolutions are distractions that will interfere with the City Council properly addressing local issues. Perhaps Greg was just trying to be humorous, but there is nothing funny about plastic polition.
It should take hardly any time for the city council to pass the resolution to the federal government to freeze plans to spend over a TRILLION dollars (your tax dollars included) rebuilding the US nuclear arsenal and instead to adopt a new nuclear policy based on the active pursuit of a verifiable, enforceable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
And city councilors ought to easily pass The Sustainable Food Containers and Packaging Ordinance to ban plastic stirrers and polystyrene food containers to eliminate single use non-biodegradable plastics from the waste stream. This is a sensible and affordable step in the right direction to benefit our environment.
Anything being done to strengthen or expand our nuclear weapons facility instead of working collectively to reduce the threat of them ever being used is pure insanity. I spent the last year of my naval career in the mid 60s serving as Ship’s Intelligence Officer on an aircraft in the Mediterranean/ Middle East theater of operation. I was a lowly JG and was only supposed to hold it for a month or so until a full Commander could replace me; but whoever that was never showed up. I was one of only 5 or 6 people cleared on the ship to see the full sea, land and air nuclear order of battle that we and the Soviets would be launching if the “balloon” ever went up. I don’t know if any of this is still classified, but I can say that anytime I looked at the maps and air paths going north and east was like peering into the depths of hell. We’ve become very cavalier about all this because we seem to have forgotten just what a deadly game this all is.
“We live in a Starwars Civilization with god like technology, medieval institutions and stone age emotions.: E.O. Wilson
It’s quite possible that the reason why we have such gridlock in Washington is that everybody is waiting for the Newton City Council to opine on what Congress should be doing. Perhaps they should spend the rest of the year before the election giving Newton’s directions on Medicare For All, the the Green New Deal, Immigration, etc. It could be a solution to gridlock!
Good thing we can walk and chew gum the same time on the City Council because we have a pretty full agenda most of the time. But I believe strongly that we must be able take a leadership role on critical issues that impact us all. This is especially important considering the stagnation at both the State and Federal level.
Change percolates up. It’s often the local governments that take action first. One example, Newton was the 7th community to phase out single use plastic bags in 2016, now 97 communities across the Commonwealth have done so. The State is now considering a bill that that would phase out single use plastic bags (Bill 771 “An Act reducing plastic bag pollution”) which I recently gave testimony on at the State House. The Commonwealth would not be considering such an action unless so many communities have made clear that plastic pollution is a problem. The Federal and State governments have a terrible record of leaving difficult and intractable problems for the next generation to deal with. Climate change and our insane nuclear policy are two stark examples. Are we to shrug our shoulders and say, it’s not my problem?
Newton has powerful history of leadership on nuclear disarmament with internationally recognized superstars like Dr. Bernard Lown, who co-founded the Physicians For Social Responsibility, which helped lead to the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty. In 1980, he co-founded the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Helen Caldicott (whose son Phil ran on Newton North’s cross country team with my brother) co-founded the Women’s Action For Nuclear Disarmament, dedicated to reducing government spending away from nuclear energy use towards unmet social needs. Most recently, Dr. Lachlan Forrow has served as Chair of the Board of Directors and as CEO of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and a member of the National Board of Directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Why wouldn’t we take the lead on important issues that impact us all when we are blessed to have so much talent right here in Newton?
I agree with Allison Leary 100% and believe that many issues of global significance need our local attention as well, if only to help educate more of us about their importance. For those people who won’t otherwise learn about these issues, the local discussion IS of value.
@Allison: I would like to see the plastics bill tweaked so that retailers can’t do an end run around it. Star market reaches for these “reusable” plastic bags and you have to ASK for a paper one. They’re not the only retailer doing it either….
@Alison, I appreciate the high aspirations, but that’s not we elected you and your colleagues to do.
@Pat, I agree! I have docketed an item to revise the plastic bag ordinance. We will be reaching out to the local businesses over the next few weeks and I expect it will come before the City Council in June.
@Laurie, I am not sure who the “we” is that you are referring to but I docketed this item at the request of a number of Newton residents who clearly think this is an important issue. If you are concerned about this one docket item taking away from time spent on the day to day issues like streets and sidewalks, public safety, development or zoning reform you don’t have to worry. I spend about 20+ hours a week on City business and this item took up about 2 hours of my time.
@Councilor Alison Leary: I would like to expand on the ideas I wrote above as Michael (my last name was accidentally omitted):
Almost everyone here shares your desire for a world without nuclear weapons. But do you, as a municipal politician, possess the qualifications and constitutional authority to represent us on national defense and international relations?
What are your education and work experience on these topics? Did you serve in the military or State Department? What is your technical knowledge about strategic defense? How many treaties have you negotiated? Have you ever struck a simultaneous deal with Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea?
What special interest does the City of Newton have on this question that merits special consideration by the Federal Government?
With all due respect, I suspect that you do not have good answers to these questions. Instead, I think that you are like most us (myself included): you have strong opinions and emotions about the topic but a limited grasp of the technical and geopolitical details.
@Laurie is correct; nuclear policy is not what we elected you to do. City officials have no mandate under our Constitution to steer federal policy. Not even Governor Baker has such a mandate.
We elected Congressman Kennedy, Senator Warren, and Senator Markey to represent us on these matters. As I wrote previously, if you want to work on national defense, I sincerely think you should run for federal office.
Of course, each of us is free to express our views as private citizens, and to petition the Federal Government. You should put your concerns about nuclear weapons in a letter to Congress, not in a local proclamation.
I’m actually ok with this. Let’s put this in context…
This was a meeting of the Programs & Services Committee, not Facilities or Land Use.
The conversation was not just Councilor Leary, but also members of Newton Dialogues (http://www.newtondialogues.org/). Not a stretch to assume the two are related.
So long as the percentage of effort expended on this is right sized compared to the much larger list of issues here in Newton…they can most certainly “walk and chew gum”.
@Alison…I am one of the “we” Laurie is referring to. By the way, I hit another huge pothole on Centre Street last night. Right in the middle of the road….no way to see or avoid it. I’m sure that someone lost a tire or two last night. Maybe cut down by the time spent on the make the world a better place items to just 1 hour per week, and add it into the make Newton a better place time. Thanks!
Sincerely,
We
@Michael, I do not possess the qualifications to represent us on national defense and international relations, nor did I serve in the military or the State Department, but I’m pretty sure our President does not possess any of those qualifications either. Let me clarify what we are requesting with this resolution.
We are sending a message that calls upon our federal leaders to make nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of U.S. national security policy and to work toward the goal of signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It includes five key points:
Renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first;
Ending the president’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack;
Taking U.S. nuclear weapons off “hair-trigger” alert;
Cancelling all plans to add weapons to the U.S. nuclear arsenal that would make it more likely that leaders will initiate nuclear war; and
Actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
I explained in a previous post why I think the City of Newton is in a good position to take a leadership role on this issue. Again, I am representing Newton citizens who asked me to sponsor this important resolution in order to send a message to our leaders at the Federal level.
@Independent man I hear your frustration with the condition of the streets. We are actually putting significantly more resources into improving the condition of our streets, but at this time of year it is very difficult to keep up with all the repairs. It really comes down to how much of our City budget we want to spend on the roads. Do we take money away from the schools? Parks and Recreation? Senior services? Reduce trash and recycling services? The City budget requires us to make difficult choices.
Newton residents send millions of dollars in taxes for maintenance of our nuclear arsenal. That’s money that could be better spent on many other things including infrastructure improvements.
Of course we want our City Council to pay some attention to the waste of a trillion dollars of taxpayer money that leads to a horrible possibility! Our voice in Newton is small, but important as one among many.
Continued preparation for Nuclear War undermines our integrity and values as a community and a country. The problem does not go away by claiming it is for others to take care of.
Thank you Councilor Leary for your leadership and courage to point to something that we all need to pay attention to.
Thank you Alison for representing a large number of Newton citizens, myself included, who asked you to sponsor the resolution to send a message to our leaders at the federal level. I bet the majority of Newton residents are opposed to sending over a trillion dollars in taxes for maintenance of our nuclear arsenal and prefer to see their hard-earned tax dollars be spent on schools and infrastructure improvements. Kudos to you for investing the majority of your time working to get potholes fixed, as well as improving our schools and all of our city services!
Gosh, don’t know where to begin. Pot holes vs. nuclear war, climate change, the death of representative democracy. So you say we have no role to play here as local residents. Our City Councilors don’t need to worry about the bigger picture. Our little island is safe from all storms, yes? Just as long as the trains run on time, right? But its ok for our children to surrender their future while we hide our heads in the sand. I can be as sarcastic as the next guy, but I think energy is better spent in attempting to address these issues locally so eventually there will be global impact. Problem solving through polystrene and plastic bag regulation. A resolution that says we support changes in the laws that will make all of us safer re nuclear war. Coming together to find effective ways to reduce our carbon footprint in time. Don’t kid yourself, we really are responsble for fixing the mess of a world we are living in, and I promise it is going to get a lot worse if we don’t stand up to be counted. Then pot holes will be a nostalgic throwback to an innocent past. Thank you to the City Councilors who get this and are taking the lead connecting the dots as part of their work.
.. wait, I thought this is why we elected Elizabeth Warren. Any national/international concerns should be directed at our senators and congressmen. They can actually make your voice heard and shape the US policy…
@ Councilor Leary, while I appreciate that you are spending 20 hours a week on city work for a modest salary, it seems that your estimation of only spending two hours on this proposal is a bit of an underestimate. You and your colleagues will now be compelled to research the topic, lobby each other pro and con, hold hearings, field questions from constituents, etc.
Just as importantly, if the city Council keeps doing these proclamations on national issues, more and more citizens will ask you to do the same on their pet issues.
Not surprisingly the City Council passed the No Nukes proclamation last night, thereby ensuring world peace.
Four brave city councilors voted against and four semi-brave councilors abstained, which is a trend worth noting. Usually these opportunities for virtue signaling are voted on favorably with close to unanimity. At least some are suggesting they’d rather get back to the city’s business.
@Councillor Leary: The people who make decisions in Washington are going to take zero notice of what Newton City Council opines on this or that issue. But if you’ve got a couple of hours to spare, and it makes you feel better, by all means resolve away.
@Sarah-
As a point of clarification- a City Councilor cannot abstain in a City Council meeting. What happened Monday night is 5 city Councilors stepped outside (jumped? fled?) the rail refusing to be on record with their vote. I have heard that referred to as many things- but certainly not semi-brave.
With all due respect, the time that a few people have taken to criticize the good work of Councilor Leary, might better be spent participating in additional community service. Alison took the briefest amount of time to represent Newton citizens who have a preference for investing more of our tax dollars to fund local needs rather than another trillion + dollars on “never enough” nuclear weapons. And while people in Washington may not be listening, it does no harm for communities across our country to speak up on issues that threaten harm to all of us.
Marcia,
Again… thats why we have senators and congressmen. They can actually take take action on our national concerns.
Time would have been better spent talking to them as they can actually do make a difference on the issue. To pretend the newton council can do more than senators and congressmen is a big waste if everyones time
@Brenda Noel – Few thoughts on this:
-It may have only been two hours of your time as an individual councilor, but multiply that by the entire council and it adds up. Assuming every councilor spends two hours to research this issue that’s already 48 hours total. More than a full work week.
-We just had an announcement in March that zoning redesign was being pushed back to next year at least partially due to the workload for this year being full. There are multiple major development projects along with other important issues that need attention. Regardless of the effort for this specific resolution I feel the optics are poor when we hear that the council is overworked and overloaded. There’s already a sense of frustration over the perceived lack of attention on Riverside, and I’m sure some of the other proposed developments as well.
-We have representatives at the Federal level – Elizabeth Warren/Ed Markey in the Senate and Joe Kennedy in the House that are specifically elected to represent issues like this one. This resolution is not germane to the jurisdiction of the Newton city council. Our senators and representative on the other hand have a direct line and responsibility to advocate Federal issues on our behalf. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to work through them rather than a city council resolution which has no standing?
-I feel this is a potential slippery slope, where would you draw the line in terms of what Federal issues the council should weigh in on? Do we want the city council to start taking up resolutions on immigration at the Federal level or an official position on the Special Counsel’s report? We already have our senators and representatives pouring over these issues that we can call out to as constituents.
Kudos to the councilors who stepped out in order to abstain, (or “fled” as councilor Noel suggests). They should not vote on an issue that they haven’t researched (nor should they be required to research national issues), and therefore abstaining or voting against is the proper response.
This is unfortunate but predictable in a community with so many smart and well-meaning activists. A small number of residents used our City Council as a megaphone for a federal and international issue about which they are very passionate.
If this is how our City Council now operates, I am waiting for our erudite councilors to pass much-needed resolutions on nuclear fission plants, nuclear fusion research, desalination, genetic engineering, high-speed railroads, the South China Sea, Saudi Arabia, immigration, vaccinations, public school subsidies, STEM education, student loans, federal income tax, federal election reform, and patent reform, to name a few. How many constituents will it take to obtain resolutions on these issues? Who decided that nuclear weapons were more important than other issues?
Despite the headlines, statistically we live in the least violent time in human history. There has never been an earnest military confrontation between two nuclear powers; that is because these powers know that diplomacy is their only viable option. Seventy years of history, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, show that the popular concept of “hair-trigger” nuclear weapons is a myth; in fact, all nuclear powers have rigid, conservative, redundant, and failsafe procedures to control their nuclear arsenals. Civilian activists and Newton City Council are not privy to these procedures. Nor does City Council understand how U.S. nuclear strategy affects decisions by unpredictable nuclear states like North Korea, or non-nuclear states like Iran or Syria, who possess other weapons of mass destruction. I suspect that if our City Council truly understood the complexity of the situation, they would not make such broad and amaeteurish declarations.
I appreciate that a small number of Newton residents, including my old friend Peter Barrer, are advocating for peace; however, the resolution they obtained was a misuse of city resources and the city’s name.