New England town meetings are famous for debates over sidewalks and school budgets.
But if a Montpelier attorney gets his way, town meeting agendas throughout Vermont will include the war in Iraq.
The Vermont Standard's Kevin Forrest reports:
Ben Scotch believes the Iraq War, thousands of miles from home, is a local issue.
He wants it discussed at upcoming town meetings throughout Vermont.
Scotch and others are gathering signatures to put it on the agenda.
Their proposed resolution encourages discussion of many points.
These include the imbalance between federal and state powers and the disruption caused by the large Vermont National Guard activation.
Scotch - It particularly focuses on how to get communities to come together on those issues about the war.
Global issues often make their way onto Vermont town meeting agendas.
And Reaction to these efforts is mixed, according to Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz.
Markowitz - Some people here say those issues don�t belong in our discussions at town meeting. On the other hand there are people who believe that having a discussion of social issues or global issues or national issues make sense at a community level where people of different opinions can hear from each other.
By town meeting time, over 1,000 Vermont National Guard soldiers will have been activated to take part in the war effort.
Scotch says that fact alone makes the war a local issue.
Scotch - �Particularly in this war which is not a war that involves a threat against this country. And the callup in Vermont has been very sizeable and quite disruptive and I think the question deserves the amount of attention I hope it gets.
John McLaughry is president of the Ethan Allen Institute, a conservative think tank.
He�s also moderator in the Northeast Kingdom town of Kirby.
He argues that such debates on global issues dilute the real purpose of a town meeting.
McLaughry - Once we begin to clutter up the town meeting warning with resolution after resolution whether it be on Iraq or a woman�s right to choose or genetically modified organisms or whatever, we begin to overpower the primary purpose of town meeting which is do the business of the town.
McLaughry says such debates satisfy activists� desire to keep their issue alive , but do little to help townspeople,
McLaughry - The net result would be handfuls of activists shouting at each other and we�re losing sight of whether to buy a new grader or not.
But Scotch says the resolution should be easy to understand�.perhaps even more easy than deciding on a new grader or whether to upgrade the firehouse.
Scotch - We think the basic ideas are pretty simple. The states used to have powers. We lost them. We want them back. There�s a massive callup in Vermont. We want to know what the impact is. We want the legislature to measure it.
Even if none of the resolutions pass, Scotch says just having the debate will make the effort successful.
Scotch - Information and education and rigorous debate is more important than winning every single town. This is not a sports contest. We�re talking about a war that has had tremendous impact nationally and locally and we hope people consider putting this on thee warnings for town meeting.
But McLaughry says that wary townspeople often table such resolutions.
McLaughry - Most of them have been seen for what they are. The product of an overheated minority that desperately want their point of view ratified by the townspeople and the townspeople generally say have a nice day but don�t drag me into all this on town meeting day--and I think that�s sound judgment on their part.
Petitioners have until January 20th to get signatures of 5% of their checklist.
That will put the issue on their March agenda.
For NHPR news, this is Kevin Forrest in Reading, VT.
