Foolish Investment - Kansas City
A Citizen's Campaign
Using the Initiative Petition Process
to Raise Awareness
of Kansas City's New Nuclear Weapons Parts Plant
In a public-private partnership, 14 private investors have purchased bonds for $673 million for construction of a new plant making and procuring nuclear weapons parts. For the first 20 years, this plant will be owned by the local Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, which issued the bonds. It's entirely unprecedented that a local agency, as opposed to the federal government, would have such involvement, and that the City Council of Kansas City would be voting to facilitate such involvement.
Round 1 (January - August, 2011)
The petition was "Production of nuclear weapons components prohibited." Because of the unprecedented local financial involvement in the new plant, we asserted that city voters should have a say over the plant itself, and collected enough signatures to put this on the ballot. This would have mandated converting the almost-finished plant to making a different product, such as wind turbines, and this would actually provide more jobs (see below) that would be much safer for workers and the environment. This led to marvelous debating on the City Council of Kansas City, Missouri. They voted down putting it on the ballot, and litigation proved to be a bad idea as it appeared to be going to federal court. To keep it as a local issue, we went on to Round 2.
Round 2 (September, 2011 - April, 2012)
We did two petitions at once.
"Safeguarding Jobs with Contingency Plans for Nuclear Weapons Facilities" passed the City Council unanimously March 22, 2012. The final text is at the bottom of this web page.
"Removal of City Financial Involvement in Nuclear Weapons Components Production" was based on the reasoning that if city voters didn't have a say over the plant, we would at least have a say over the financing. By the end of the process, Councilmember Scott Taylor was noting that the Council had spent more time on this issue than any other this term. But it's not the city that put up the bonds, and city taxpayers aren't on the hook for them. It's the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA) that issued the bonds, with only the investors at risk. The law which regards PIEA as an independent entity beyond the reach of voters never contemplated they would do something that would outrage so much of the citizenry and therefore frustrate the democratic process. However, rather than lobbying to change that law, we go on to Round 3 -- wording that the Council worked on itself, so they'll be left without excuses not to put this one on the ballot.
Round 3 (starting April 2012!)
We have agreement from the City Council that prohibiting future financial involvement would be legal and constitutional. They wanted the city attorney to give an opinion that the ordinance would be legal if passed, and in a letter dated April 14, 2012, William Geary did so. The petition drive has started, and we are hoping to turn in the petitions in early June -- see updates on the right sidebar if you want to participate.
Participating in the Petition Drive
You can make as many copies of the petition as you need -- on white letter-sized paper, one side only (they have strict rules). The second page gives instructions on the rules and how to get them notarized and turned in.
For questions, the Petition Coordinator is Rachel MacNair, (816)753-2057, rachel_macnair@yahoo.com. She's a notary public, so if you want to get petitions notarized and turned in at the same time, make arrangements with her.
Best places:
Public Events
Libraries (ask permission at the front desk; they generally let you have a table)
Grocery Stores
Churches
The Zoo
Spreading the Word
Billboards with this design were up throughout February 2012 at 15th & Main and near 39th & Broadway.
New bumperstickers will be available when we know what the Question # on the ballot will be.
We're eager to speak to groups and other offers for volunteering.
Update on Media Coverage
The Pitch has run a cover story on the new plant and its financing and ownership scheme, February 21, 2012. Written by Ben Palosaari, it's entitled "How KC learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (makers)."
For the latest on scandals at the old Bannister plant (which the new plant is replacing), see a local NBC news story of January 12, 2012.
The campaign is sponsored by KC Peace Planters, a coalition of: Peacworks-KC; Physicians for Social Responbility-KC; East Meets West of Troost; Holy Family Catholic Worker House; Cherith Brooks Catholic Worker House; St. Lawrence Catholic Worker House; The Recipe LLC; KC's Loretto Peace & Justice Network; the Social Justice Committee of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Benedictines for Peace; and Faith-Based Coalition for Peace, Justice & Healing.
For more detailed information on the web:
About the plant:
The new plant will help make Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The new facility is at 14500 Botts Road, on Highway 150, on a strip of Kansas City that
juts out just south of Grandview. It will manufacture and procure about 85% of
the components for nuclear weapons – non-nuclear components that transform
nuclear explosives into deliverable weapons of mass destruction. These include
radars, guidance systems, tracking systems, and arming, firing, and fusing
sets.
If funding is cut for other sites in the nuclear weapons complex, that will affect
work in Kansas City, calling into question the sustainability of the jobs.
This plant is to replace the old one at the Bannister Federal Complex. The old one
has had continuous scandals involving chemical contamination that has left
workers sick and caused their early death. Environmental contamination may help
account for developers’ reluctance to go to this vicinity.
About the financing and ownership:
Why would Kansas City's Planned Industrial Expansion Authority put up bonds to finance a federal facility, when this is so completely unprecedented, anywhere in the world? Because when the government was deciding to close the Bannister Federal site, the original plan was to move the new replacement facility to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Kansas City City Council came up with a complicated scheme to keep the facility here in order to save around 2,000 jobs. However, since the five buildings are almost all built, we believe the danger of it being moved to Albuquerque is now past and is therefore no longer an issue.
It’s unprecedented for local bonds rather than U.S. Treasury bonds to be
financing what is so clearly a federal facility.
A previous attempt to put a measure on the ballot for voters to have a say in what this new plant makes was knocked down by the City Council and Circuit Court on the grounds that this is a federal facility - keeping city voters from having any say. We assert that city voters should have a say over what lending is done by our industrial development corporation -- the amount of lending is a finite resource, and if it's used here, it's not used elsewhere.
It’s unprecedented for a local agency to own the facility for nuclear weapons
production.
The Planned Industrial Expansion Authority of Kansas City holds the title to the new plant, as approved by the City Council. This is an agency whose board is appointed entirely by the mayor. They’ll lease it to the developer, which will lease it to one federal agency, which will lease it to another.
Cities aren't supposed to legislate elaborate financial plans for producing nuclear weapons parts.
This bypasses proper channels of U.S. Congressional appropriations. The city is doing more than participating in building weapons of mass destruction - it's enabling a set-up that might not happen with more full federal attention and accountability.
Why is this a foolish investment?
Nuclear weapons are an unstable business.
The US Council of Mayors voted unanimously June 27, 2011 to support a UN plan for eliminating nuclear weapons by 2020. The International Red Cross voted by acclamation on November 26, 2011 that it's time to abolish nuclear weapons as a medical menace. These are two of several efforts at a time when the old reasoning for these weapons just doesn’t fit the current situation.
Nuclear weapons are Cold War relics. The Cold War ended over 20 years ago. Why should we have any confidence they’ll keep being made, to the point that we’re in economic trouble if they aren’t?
Making other products would create more jobs than making nuclear weapons parts will.
Prominent economist Lloyd Jeff Dumas and Dr. Teresa D. Nelson have calculated job projections for Kansas City specifically. (For the full report, click here.) First he looks at the "multiplier" effect, which is how many more jobs we get after the first set of people are employed. Even if we were to pay people to sit and watch television, after all, they'd then buy groceries and help give employment to the grocers. But because nuclear weapons parts are capital-intensive rather than labor-intensive, and the final product doesn't provide much by way of more employment, other uses for the same plant would have a better multiplier effect:
If the plant had as many as 2,500 direct jobs, and we added the number of indirect jobs generated, totals for different products are:
So the good news is – if we get a chance to convert the plant to something along these lines, for the same resources we get more jobs!
But this also means that we could have gotten more jobs with the same resources we're spending on this plant, so over-all we're actually losing jobs now! When many are proposing that federal budget cuts should be severe, to build the federal debt on a job-loser is unconscionable.
This is the full wording of the ordinance that passed the City Council unanimously on March 22, 2012.
ORDINANCE NO. 120146
Directing the City Manager to develop a plan for the reuse of federal facilities in Kansas City.
WHEREAS, the federal government for many decades has occupied facilities at its Bannister Road complex for various uses, including production of components for nuclear weapons; and
WHEREAS, the federal government is moving its operations from the Bannister Road complex to a new facility on Botts Road, to downtown office space and possibly to other locations; and
WHEREAS, it is incumbent upon the City to develop plans for the reuse of the Bannister Road complex and the eventual possible reuse of the Botts Road facility so that potential developers can be contacted quickly and have adequate information to determine if a reuse of these sites is attractive to their interests; NOW, THEREFORE,
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF KANSAS CITY:
Section 1. That the City Manager is directed to develop a plan for the reuse of the Bannister Road complex and the Botts Road facility if federal activities at that site cease that includes:
A. Retraining of the work force employed at the Botts Road facility and the Bannister Road Complex so as to provide these workers with the skills required at the converted facilities and retain these good paying jobs in Kansas City;
B. Consideration of the production of new environmentally sound energy or other environmental technologies, which will benefit the residents of Kansas City and surrounding areas, as an option for each reuse;
C. Cost estimates for the reuse of each facility;
D. Annual review by City staff with updates as needed; and
E. A time period for public inspection of the plan, allowing for public review and comment.