At last night’s Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, representatives of various antiwar and community groups spoke in favor of a City Commission resolution through which the city of Grand Rapids would take a position against the war in Iraq. The effort, called the “Local Cost of War Campaign,” is encouraging the passage of a resolution based both on the economic costs of the war ($272 billion as well as the human costs of the war (between 34,000 and 100,000 civilians have been killed and 2,364 US troops have died ). Across the country more than one-hundred cities and towns are adopting such resolutions, with the most recent being 24 communities in Wisconsin.
The Grand Rapids campaign used numbers from the National Priorities Project to show how much the war has cost the city of Grand Rapids, with estimates by the NPP showing that the war cost the city $150 million since March of 2003. For a City Commission as budget conscious as the GR commission, advocates argued that ending the war would be a way to restore services, pay off the city’s debt, and found the renewable energy projects sought by Mayor Heartwell. Moreover, some of the community members present explained what they could do for the community with just a portion of that money—$1 million—with the Institute for Global Education (IGE) describing how they could use the money to fund fulltime organizers to promote peace and host educational events and Kym Spring of Clean Water Action describing how her organization—which has not taken an official stand on the war—could use $300,000 dollars to develop a recycling campaign that would both save the city $2 million and prevent the incineration of a considerable amount of trash. One speaker also reminded the Commission that they asked the Commission to pass a resolution before the invasion of Iraq and that it has now become clear that the Commission, who argued prior to the war that it was not their issue to take a position on, now needs to take a stand in light of the $150 million that has left Grand Rapids.
Many of those speaking highlighted the fact that while they have lobbied to end the war by writing letters to local Congressman Vern Ehlers, he has been largely unresponsive to their efforts. They argued that the City Commission would make a better lobbying vehicle and explained that it was in the City’s fiscal interest to stop the war in order to secure funding for various city programs. Commissioners were urged to consider the slogan that “peace begins at home” and to consider how they could work to stop the war. Representative Ehlers, who was an enthusiastic supporter of the invasion since 2002, remains supportive of the ongoing occupation by voting for continued funding.
Following the comments from the Local Cost of War Campaign, the City Commissioners gave their closing remarks during which many expressed agreement with those speaking in favor of a resolution. Commissioner Jim White of the third ward, who argued that the resolution should be expanded from what the Campaign was asking for to also demand an explanation of the lies used to justify the war, was asked to work on developing a resolution with those who spoke at the meeting by Mayor Heartwell. Commissioner Tormala of the second ward said that he had no problem in saying that he was personally against the war and welcomed a discussion of the matter and Commissioner Bliss highlighted the fact that earlier in the day it was announced that the federal government had cut additional programs do to budgetary issues.
