Anti-Bearcat Activists to Submit 1,500 Petition Signatures

When the Concord City Council meets at 7 p.m. tonight, one of the issues it will take up is whether or not to approve a federal grant for an armored vehicle for the SWAT team that the city is a part of.

The council will also be eyeing 1,532 petition signatures of the city’s residents who say the council should vote against the grant.

The police and supporters of the grant say they need it to save lives and replace an aging Peacekeeper vehicle. Opponents were upset with the way the grant application was written and don't want to see the city's police militarized. 

Organizers of the anti-Bearcat petition will be spending the day tomorrow scanning all of the signatures, including the zip codes of every signature, in an effort to show, the best of their ability, that the signatures are actual Concord residents, according to the group.

Pam Ean, the Republican activist who recently organized a press conference announcing previous results of the effort, will bring the petitions to the city clerk’s office at 4 p.m.

Kelly Owens, a co-organizer of the effort, said she hoped that the councilors would consider the petition signatures before casting a vote on the matter.

“In the short time frame we had to collect signatures, we found that a majority of residents agreed that the grant request for a BEARCAT is ridiculous and a waste of their tax money,” she said in an email. “I hope that the councilors listen to the residents of which they represent and do the right thing.”

In a previous interview, another co-organizer, Michael Maresco, noted that the numbers would have probably been better had people not been afraid to sign the petition.

The council meets at 7 p.m. at 37 Green St. in the City Council Chambers.