Tompkins County Against War & Occupation

A resolution in support of an investigation into the possible impeachment of the president and vice-president by Congress and the NYS legislature failed to get the required 3 out of 5 votes required to pass at a special Village of Trumansburg Board of Trustees meeting and public hearing. The vote was two for and two against with one abstention.

Margo Alexander set a good tone in her welcoming statement on the importance of democratic process and citizen engagement, irrespective of the outcome of the vote.

Marty Luster made a strong case that the matter of the resolution is well within the purview of the village board of trustees, by virtue of their oath of office to protect the Constitution.

This was followed by a call to arms against global jihad by the designated spokesperson for the opposing view whose thesis seemed to be one of alternating wars that were necessary and not necessary. World War I was not necessary, but the struggle against Nazism in the second world war was. The WWI experience resulted in a reticence at the start to fight Nazism. Vietnam was not a necessary war, but the current war against a jihadists whose stated goal is the formation of a new caliphate and the subjugation of the world to cleric rule, is. He was very articulate, but his arguments was pretty much blown apart during public comment period.

By some counts, as many as 150 attended Monday’s meeting at the Trumansburg Fire Hall. Judging from the applause and from the relative numbers of those who chose to speak, a clear majority came to support passage of the resolution. Some opponents of the measure tried to put it as evenly divided, while some proponents put it at 2/3 to 3/4 in favor.

One resident asked that three board members recuse themselves from voting because they had earlier signed the petition that asked the village board to take up the matter. The suggestion was respectfully dismissed by the mayor and another of the board members in question as without merit. The board appeared unanimous in affirming the appropriateness and value of holding the meeting, with one board member saying that the reason that he signed the petition was because he supported having the meeting take place.

The mayor, responding to a statement by one of the board members who later voted against the resolution that the court records support a narrow jurisdiction for local government, said that the language of the resolution, which simply asks for an investigation by Congress and the NYS legislature to see if impeachment is warranted, is something that the village’s attorney agreed was legal for the village to consider and vote upon.

The board employed a moderator who was skillful in keeping the meeting moving along with little incident. Generally, folks were respectful, and though the outcome was dispointing, the process itself was encouraging.

One board member was quite skeptical of the arguments for impeachment and enumerated his objections to the ‘Ten Reasons to Impeach” on Alan Karstensten’s blog. He particularly took offense with to charge that US military deliberately targeted hospitals, ambulances, and the civilian population, taking this statement as tantamount to asserting that solders from Trumansburg were baby killers.

Another board member felt that the Bush administration was very bad news (I am paraphrasing), but the way to deal with the problem is through elections. Impeachment would go nowhere, in his view, and would be a colossal waste of time and money.

The third board member to vote against the resolution seemed to be most concerned about the board taking a unilateral action in support of the resolution when in fact there was no way to know how many really supported it. He felt torn between his role as village trustee and his own views, and ultimately decided that he could not vote for the resolution fearing that the board’s support would be divisive in the community.

The question of divisiveness appeared to be key. Allen Carstensen wrote about this on his blog on Saturday.

My account is incomplete. I am a resident og the Toen of Enfield, and do not know the names of the board members, for example, and did not come prepared to take notes, so this is all off the top of my head. I certainly would enocirage folks to comment on their reactions to the meeting and vote.