Medford City Council passed the Values-Aligned Local Investments Ordinance, prohibiting investments in companies involved in weapons, prisons, fossil fuels, and human rights violations. President Isaac Bears emphasized the importance of aligning public funds with community morals and combating dehumanization. The ordinance received a majority vote, making Medford the first municipality in Massachusetts and the third in the U.S. to implement such a measure. Councilor Emily Lazzaro highlighted community support for this bold decision, appealing to moral responsibility and the urgency of action. Resident Claire Sheridan urged the council to advocate for humanity globally.
"If we have these public funds, we are not going to invest them in this global effort that disregards and dehumanizes people in so many different ways, whether that's for political gain or for private profit - or in many cases both - in a never-ending cycle of destruction and violence," Medford City Council President Isaac Bears said at the Tuesday meeting. Bears sponsored the ordinance.
Medford became the third municipality in the country - after Dearborn, Michigan and Portland, Maine - and the first in Massachusetts to bar investing public funds in companies that contribute to or are complicit in 'severe violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.'
"Our community requested this and it is really bold. It would be the first time that a city in Massachusetts did it," City Councilor Emily Lazzaro said at the meeting. "In this case, to ignore the requests of our community and our own morality, to me, it's not an acceptable path. I think this is a perfect moment for us to be bold."
Medford resident Claire Sheridan who attended Tuesday's meeting said she supports the ordinance and urged the council to "stand up for humanity here and abroad."
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