Anti-war group wants city's support
Every Wednesday, members of Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice gather on the Kimball Street Bridge in downtown Elgin to protest the war in Iraq.
This week, they brought the issue indoors.
Group members on Wednesday asked the Elgin City Council to pass a resolution asking for the orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from overseas.
But Mayor Ed Schock says its not the city's place to take formal action on a matter of national policy.
"I think the track record of the council has been, on issues like this that aren't directly related to the city, we haven't had much of an appetite for that," Schock said. "Each of us individually might want to do something, or are doing things. But it's hard to make the link that it's an official act of Elgin."
It might be different, he said, if Elgin residents were to vote on a referendum against the war. But that hasn't happened here.
"We're supposed to act on behalf of all the citizens," he said. "We don't know how all the citizens feel on this."
The response is nothing new to Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice.
Group members said they made a similar request six years ago, asking the council at the time to pass a resolution opposing the war.
The council declined.
But group members decided to give it another shot now that they had numbers to back up their claims.
More than 3,800 American troops have been killed, and another 28,000 injured -- 12,600 of which have not returned to duty, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
That's in addition to all the Iraqi citizens who have been killed during the war, group member Mary Shesgreen said, also citing the economic and emotional costs of the war.
The group could not be reached for further comment Thursday.
But they've laid out their views on their Web site, www.fvc4pnj.org.
"We oppose military solutions to world problems," the Web site says. "We believe that the best way to counter terrorism is to eradicate poverty, ignorance, racism and disease and to promote peace and justice."