Declaring that a Department of Peace is long overdue, on March 3, 2008, the City Council of Albany, CA unanimously endorsed House Resolution 808, calling for establishment of a U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence and voted to urge California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to introduce companion legislation in the U.S. Senate.  Albany Mayor Robert Lieber said that while this legislation may take time to become a reality, we win even by starting this journey for peace.
 
Albany, which is located in H.R. 808 co-author Representative Barbara Lee’s congressional district, is the third city in that district to endorse this legislation.  Berkeley and Oakland are the other Congressional District 9 endorsing cities. Of the thirty-three endorsing cities and government entities, eleven are located in California.
 
In passing this resolution, the City Council followed the recommendation of Albany’s Social and Economic Justice Commission, where Department of Peace grassroots supporters talked about the need for our society to deal with the root causes of violence and to educate our children and ourselves about such nonviolent conflict resolution tools as peer mediation and nonviolent communication. 
 
Comments at the Council Meeting by Grassroots Department of Peace Supporters
At both the Commission and the Council, Department of Peace supporters discussed the murder of an Albany High student over a skateboard, the murder of an Albany young man who was merely enjoying the San Francisco Bay view from his car, and the necessity of an Albany family to transfer their daughter out of the local high school because of ongoing bullying. “We owe it to our children to teach them to deal with conflict and frustration without resorting to wounding and killing each other,” said one supporter.  “We owe it to our children to teach them there are ways of dealing with other countries that do not involve guns, tanks and land mines.”
 
Comments By City Council Members and the Mayor of Albany
Each of the Albany Council members thanked the Department of Peace volunteers for bringing this legislation to the Council’s attention.  One council member acknowledged the importance of teaching conflict resolution skills in the schools.  Another said that with the huge amount of money we spend on the war in Iraq every second of every day, we could be supporting and creating schools and programs which break the cycle of violence.
 
The Mayor said that peace is the highest achievement of a society, a nation and a culture. I couldn’t agree more!
 
Nancy Merritt
Northern CA State Coordinator

 Copy of the Albany Resolution  188.05 Kb