While I almost always enjoy the message in Citizen Bill each month, the implication of the cartoon a couple of issues back on our Nuclear Free Zone was off base. The cartoon's commentary states that the free zone was "enacted as a protest against the bellicose Reagan administration."
This is absolutely untrue. I helped spearhead the local free zone movement and personally wrote the ordinance language back in l983. The motive behind the effort was to alert the public to the possibility of nuclear annihilation with the growing number of nuclear weapons worldwide and at no time was there ever discussion or even mention of our effort being directed at the Reagan administration.
The cartoon further states "Some now question the zone's relevance." Well, not only isn't our law a throwback to the l980s, it represents instead an ongoing mission with an ever changing dynamic. To wit, two years ago the Free Zone ordinance was expanded to give us, the Nuclear Free Zone Committee, the task of monitoring and reporting to the City Council the threat to Takoma Park of the transport of high-level nuclear waste.
And just this year, the Council has asked us to investigate the possibility of making our city nuclear power-free.
-- Jay Levy, chair
Nuclear Free Takoma Park Committee.
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