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Thank Portage Councilmember Betty Lee Ongley,
e-mail: bongley123@aol.com for
her courageous stand.
Voice your disappointed to the other 6:
see http://www.portagemi.com/government/city_council.asp.
Even if you do not live in Portage, consider if you shop or work
in Portage.
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Portage City Council refuses
to vote on USA Patriot Act
Friday, February 13, 2004
By Craig McCool
cmccool@kalamazoogazette.com 388-8575
The Portage City Council has effectively killed a drive to get the city to take a stand against the USA Patriot Act. Members didn't vote Tuesday night against a resolution presented to them last month that would have repealed certain sections of the Patriot Act. But they didn't vote for it, either, instead voting 6-1 not to vote. The Patriot Act, a federal bill, was passed in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Betty Lee Ongley was the City Council's lone dissenter. "By not taking a position, you're taking a position in favor," of the Patriot Act, Ongley said. "I hope it doesn't come that we'll rue the day we didn't take some kind of action." In December the Task Force for the Defense of the Bill of Rights, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, presented the council with a resolution opposing portions of the Patriot Act. The same group succeeded last year in getting Kalamazoo to pass a similar resolution, though with watered-down language. No such luck in Portage. "I was frankly surprised that the vote was so overwhelming," said James Rodbard, president of the Southwest Michigan chapter of the ACLU, after Tuesday's meeting. "Needless to say, I'm disappointed." The council voted to acknowledge the proposed resolution as a communication from residents, but stopped there. It will take no vote on whether to adopt it. Most council members said issues about the Patriot Act are not for local officials to decide. "It's a federal issue. You're lobbying the wrong people," Mayor Pro Tem Ted Vliek told the crowd of about 30 people at City Hall. "This is one we cannot go with you on." About a dozen community residents spoke at Tuesday's meeting. All but one urged the city to pass the resolution. One woman brought a paper chain, each link inscribed with a different community that has passed similar resolutions -- 253 in all, including Lansing, Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo. Lynwood Bartley, a Kalamazoo resident and member of the Bill of Rights task force, said the group is not finished lobbying, though it may take its drive to another venue, such as the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners. "It's really a matter of our sitting down and reorganizing, rethinking what we do in the future," he said. "The group will continue." |
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