The photo may give the impression that the nuke-free zone law is about nuclear power. Although the law's purpose says, "Citizens and representatives are urged to redirect resources previously used for nuclear weapons and nuclear power generation towards endeavors which promote and enhance life," the real goal of the ordinance is to make sure city dollars don't end up with companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons: "The City and its officials, employees or agents shall not knowingly and intentionally grant any award, contract or purchase order, directly or indirectly, to any nuclear weapons producer." http://www.codepublishing.com/MD/TakomaPark/?TakomaPark14/TakomaPark1404.html link to ordinance

Inappropriate and poorly chosen photo. A commercial nuclear power plant that generates electricity has nothing to do with Takoma Park's Nuclear Free Zone Act which is entirely and strictly about weapons production.

What is the problem with HP? I was unaware that the HP produced nuclear weapons.

My apologies to anyone offended. I do understand the purpose behind the legislation and did not intend to mislead. The photo has been changed.

Yes it should be granted, although HP is in fact involved in nuclear weapons maintenance and production through its contracts with the US military. I feel this way for a number of reasons, including: Userful (the company in question) has contracted with various hardware suppliers over the years but sole-sources in the US with HP at the moment. Given that the computing services come pre-installed on this hardware, this pretty well establishes the lack of "The availability of goods or services from a non-nuclear-weapons' producer reasonably meeting the specification or requirements of the necessary good or service;" [citing 14.04.060 F.2.d]. But unlike past waivers, this should be time-limited (for this 3-year contract but not beyond); i.e. Userful should ensure that future hardware must not be HP. Also, the computer center provides essential services to residents of all ages, backgrounds, national origins, socioeconomic statuses; loss of access would disproportionately hit those in our community least able to acquire those services elsewhere. We're talking about city residents with many many first languages other than English, and residents without home computers let alone home Internet access; we're talking about both the youngest, and the oldest in our community. In other words, [citing 14.04.060 F.2.b.] this is: "evidence establishing that the necessary good or service is vital to the health or safety of the residents or employees of the City ..." The waiver is appropriate.

Great, thorough comment Jim. Anybody on the other side of the argument care to partake?

I'm not sure what happened to the comment. I didn't remove it and the only other way it can be removed is by the user who posted it.

Yeah, you're right it was definitely not the correct photo to use and I appreciate you and Steve pointing that out. Thanks for the comment!

I am a new member to the Nuclear Free Takoma Park Committee (NFTPC).

The minutes of the June 5, 2012 NFTPC meeting reflect that following a discussion, the committee by consensus advises the City Council to not grant a waiver to the HP computer contract for the City Library.

This consensus decision is based on the fact that tHewlitt-Packard (HP) is listed as doing business as usual with the nuclear weapons industry so a waiver on any City contracts and services is required.

The committee decision to advise the City Council to deny the waiver request was additionally based on the committee's request for additional information from the Library on their waiver request that was not responded to. Additionally, a Takoma Park resident who currently and regularly uses the City Senior Computer Center came to the meeting expressly to oppose the City granting a waiver and spoke in support of upholding the Nuclear Free Zone ordinance.

Paul:

What is the level of "business as usual" that HP is doing with the nuclear weapons industry? Is the company providing professional or technical services in the design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear weapons? Or is it merely selling computer products and systems that its customers in turn use that way?

Please respond. The answer could have serious implications for the City's ability to continue to conduct any business or deliver services.

Paul: I'm definitely interested in the answer as well. I'm wondering how far the ban is taken when it comes to manufacturers.

Is there any reputable computer company that doesn't do business with the DoD or Boeing or northrop or GD etc. (the military industrial complex) that wouldn't be excluded by this ordinance? Sounds like the city may have cut off its nose to spite it's face with this law/ordinance.

That's exactly where I was headed with my question, Rick.

If HP's sales of hardware, software, networking and other information technology products and services to customers involved in the development of nuclear weapons is sufficient to make HP products ineligible for purchase by Takoma Park, then the City may as well give up all of its computers and go back to typewriters, snail mail and posting public notices on bulletin boards at the community building.

Microsoft sells to the Department of Defense. I think it's a safe bet that many (if not most) of DoD's 7 million computers (according to Federal Computer Week) are running Microsoft Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Internet Explorer, SQL Server and who knows what else. It is no stretch to assume those are used in nuclear weapons-related programs. What do you propose the City use in place of them? Not Apple products. DoD has those, too, including iPads and iPhones.

Speaking of phones, don't you think DoD has contracts with Verizon for land lines and any of the several cell companies for wireless?

Good luck finding allowable replacements.

Ken - there are open source (and FREE) equivalents of the MS Office Suite.
(see http://www.libreoffice.org/ or http://www.openoffice.org/ as just two examples.)

the Non-MS software 'MySQL' is behind a large number of existing websites.
And of course Linux provides both client and server operating systems.

So, getting rid of MS as a participant in the nuclear weapons industry would not be as impossible as you make out, and would in fact represent the sort of independence and opposition to corporate monopolists that is part of the character of Takoma Park. The only downside is having to hire IT people who actually know what they're doing, rather than those who have simply passed Microsoft's Certification tests.

Replacing Verizon POTS phone traffic with VOIP solutions could also be effective - though of course the 'net as a whole contains Verizon-owned segments and bandwidth is fungible.

N_J

So all we need is a finding and recommendation.