Voters Say No To New 9/11 Investigation
Voters say no to new 9/11 investigation
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...703070306/1007
By John Briggs
Free Press Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Burlington voters Tuesday rejected a local group's call for a new investigation of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, by a nearly two-to-one ratio.
The vote was 3,150 to 1,817. The ballot question passed 39-17 in Lincoln, proponent Matthew Ennis said. The issue never generated much debate in Burlington.
"I'm very surprised," said Marc Estrin, spokesman for the Burlington group, which gained enough signatures to place the question on the ballot. "I was expecting the opposite direction."
The ballot item would have asked Vermont's congressional delegation to push for a new investigation. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch made clear in January that they weren't likely to move in that direction.
The question won approval in Wards 2 and 3 -- 71 percent in favor in the latter -- but lost in the city's remaining five wards, with more than 70 percent of voters in Wards 4, 6 and 7 voting no.
Word that the question would appear on Burlington's ballot spread quickly across the nation among proponents of a new investigation, and The Burlington Free Press received a number of e-mails applauding news that voters would, for the first time, be able to weigh in on the subject.
Proponents of a new investigation have argued that the official probe, reported in the "9/11 Commission Report," was deliberately narrowed and, as a result, inadequate.
"Clearly," Estrin said, "we have to get together and strategize -- decide where we go from here."
He said that while he was surprised by the vote in Burlington, the issue is "complex. It's a very off-putting idea," he said. "Very many smart people who follow the news and don't support George Bush don't want to go there."
