Chico CA City Council Asked to Pass Resolution Regarding Impeaching Bush, Cheney

City Council asked to pass resolution regarding impeaching Bush, Cheney

A group of residents want the Chico City Council to back up their request to impeach the president and vice president.

The group, which informally calls itself the "Chico Impeach Team," is asking the council to pass a resolution urging Congress to "do its job" and begin the process to impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, group project leader Marla Crites said.

While acknowledging the terms of both will end in January, Crites said she believed it was not too late for impeachment.

"I think they need to be held accountable whether they have one more day in office or two more years," Crites said. "I think we need to fight for justice or fairness ... Whoever wins the election can, unless we set things straight, can pick up wherever they left off and can continue the same behavior. And that to me is dangerous."

Crites said more than 1,000 people in Chico have signed a petition supporting that request and said that number is still growing.

The group will make its case this Tuesday to the City Council, which voted 5-2 earlier to go ahead and hear the request. Chico Mayor Andy Holcombe said it was an important issue of interest to a lot of people and said that the council owed the group the respect and privilege of being heard. However, the mayor said he wasn't sure yet how he felt about voting.

"I'm struggling with how to decide if it's the community's will, and if it's the community's will I'm still struggling with whether this is the right place to manifest it. Are they knocking on the right door?" Holcombe said.

Both City Councilors Larry Wahl and Steve Bertagna remained against the City Council even hearing the issue.

"There are so many other issues we could be addressing. Impeachment of the president is not a City Council issue," Wahl said.

Bertagna said issues of this type typically become "a political football thrown around the room at election time." "It's not our jurisdiction or job to be listening to this stuff and doing anything about it, it's just not our job and there's no support for me to vote to impeach the president," Bertagna said.

Crites said while individuals have a lot of power en mass, a city council amplifies the message because it can speak for a city in one voice.

Crites said the group feels the president and vice president should be impeached for a long list of reasons, the most egregious being what she said was their failure to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Other reasons she listed included lies told to get the nation to go into war with Iraq, surveillance of the American people through phone companies, and torture going against the Geneva Convention.

Crites said at her last count, 92 other cities across the county have signed similar resolutions urging impeachment. She said that number included several in California, with the most recent Willits and Santa Rosa.

Crites said if the council does not pass the resolution, the group fill figure out a fallback plan to still sent a message that a number of Chico residents support impeachment to the speaker of the house.