Nederland – Tonight, the town’s board of trustees will consider a resolution to impeach President Bush.
Strange?
Not really. This is, after all, Nederland, a mountain community of 1,515 west of Boulder, where there are four Democrats for every Republican, where the board of trustees in 2003 passed a resolution opposing the Iraq war, and where the most famous resident is dead and frozen in a Tuff Shed.
As resident Claudia O’Neill, who said she moved from Boulder when it became too ordinary, puts it: “If we wanted to march to everybody’s beat, we’d be somewhere else.”
No, it’s not strange that Nederland would be so bold as to take up a matter of national politics. (If trustees approve the resolution, it would be the first call to impeach Bush by a Colorado community.)
What’s strange is that the resolution might not pass.
That’s because Nederland, long proud of its outsiderness, is becoming a little more like everywhere else, residents and local leaders say. More people are moving to Ned, as the locals familiarly call it, and commuting to work in Boulder. Housing prices are rising. The number of high-end homes is growing, town leaders say.
And, more and more, the town leadership, while striving to preserve Nederland’s funky vibe, is concerned about upgrading public facilities and creating new economic development.
“Really pressing issues”
For some, this resolution isn’t what the town needs.
“I really want this new board to focus on the really pressing issues the town has before us,” said Laura Farris, a town trustee who was elected mayor last week. “We really need to be working on our infrastructure. We need to be focusing on our tax revenues. … I feel like (the resolution) is a distraction.”
Evidence of the change abounds.
Nederland recently joined the Colorado Association of Ski Towns as a way capitalize on its proximity to Eldora Mountain Resort, something past town leaders never thought to do, said Jim Stevens, the new town administrator.
Two years ago, the town became embroiled in controversy when a new town marshal began more strictly enforcing drinking and driving laws.
Some tried to have the marshal ousted, but the extra law and order prevailed.
Stevens, the first town administrator Nederland has had in a decade, has a list of projects on the wall of his office, numbered by priority. No. 1, sewer plant. No. 2, water-treatment plant. No. 3, community center.
“Different priorities”
He worries that passing the impeachment resolution could hurt Nederland’s chances at federal grant money.
“My difference is, we’re a town; we do town business,” he said. “We have different priorities, and I think we elect officials who can take care of our state and federal issues.”
Scott Franklin, the town trustee who proposed the resolution, dismisses such arguments. What the president does affects town residents and becomes town business, he says. In a democracy, big and little voices count the same. If not Nederland, then where?
“All politics is local,” said Franklin, a former professional rock climber who now runs a solar electric company. “And we have to speak up, or we’re not on the map. You can be a one or a zero. … It has to start somewhere.”
Franklin’s resolution would ask Rep. Mark Udall, Nederland’s congressman, to draw up articles of impeachment against the president.
Nationally, 11 communities have passed resolutions calling for Bush’s impeachment, according to the group ImpeachPAC. Aside from San Francisco, they are mostly small towns in California and Vermont.
The Democratic Party in San Miguel County, in southwestern Colorado, has also passed an impeachment resolution.
Reasons are familiar
Franklin’s reasons for why the president deserves impeachment are familiar.
They range from allegations of waging the Iraq war on false pretenses to the detainee-torture scandals to domestic wiretapping.
Few in Nederland would disagree with him.
“I think there are more than just the president who need to be impeached,” said Phillys Wright, who has lived in Nederland for 22 years and is a member of the Mountain Forum for Peace, a local activist group.
Franklin says he has a petition with the signatures of more than 150 Nederland residents supporting the resolution.
But there are others who have doubts.
Frank Lutz, a retired professor whose Marine grandson has served in Iraq, said he doesn’t think the town board should pass the resolution, even though he thinks Bush has done impeachable things.
“It’s ridiculous for this little town board to take up this issue when we have other things to worry about,” Lutz said.
Trustee Roger Cornell worries that the resolution could become divisive in the community and said the board shouldn’t try to speak for the entire community on this issue.
Still, Franklin thinks the resolution will have enough votes to pass tonight. Even if it doesn’t, Franklin said he won’t be disappointed.
“Honestly, whether this passes or not is almost secondary,” he said. “It’s creating this debate, stirring this debate. That’s important.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
