Iowa City just says no to nuclear weapons

People working on nuclear weapons likely will receive a fresh reminder that they're not welcome in Iowa City.

City officials want to re-install signs on major streets entering Iowa City declaring the city a “Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.” Unless the City Council objects - and no one brought it up at a work session Monday night – the signs will go up.

The signs are actually required under city code.

A city ordinance, which Gazette archives say was approved in 1985, establishes “the city as a nuclear weapons free zone in which work on nuclear weapons is prohibited. The people of the city find that the presence of nuclear weapons facilities within the city is in direct conflict with the maintenance of the community's public health, safety, morals, economic well being and general welfare.”

Interim City Manager Dale Helling, in a memo to the City Council Monday, said most of the street signs have disappeared or been subject to vandalism over time.

The Iowa Department of Transportation will not authorize their re-installation on federal or state primary highways because they do not aid drivers and are not a part of a national standard on signs, he wrote.

But the signs could go on Herbert Hoover Highway, North Dubuque Street, Melrose Avenue, South Riverside Drive and Sand Road, Helling wrote.

Iowa City is famously liberal, but that's not to say everyone thinks such efforts are worth the city's time.

In a 2003 Gazette article, former Mayor Ernie Lehman, who was not on the council in 1985, referred to the nuclear-free ordinance sarcastically as the council debated an anti-war resolution.

“Not once were we attacked with nuclear weapons,” The Gazette reported Lehman saying. “If I had any assurance whatsoever this resolution would be half as effective as the Nuclear Free Zone ordinance I would call a meeting this minute and pass it.”

Violating the ordinance is a simple misdemeanor or municipal infraction.