From the January 2002 Idaho Observer:

Bellingham activist carries LaVerkin torch to local press and county council

BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- At its December 11, 2001 public meeting, Citizens for Liberty formally presented the Whatcom County Council with information in support of a declaration that the county become a UN-Free Zone. The group also supplied the council with a UN-Free Zone ordinance modeled after the one implemented by LaVerkin, Utah, last July 4.

Prior to his group being on the agenda with the county council, the Bellingham Herald published a guest editorial by Citizens for Liberty Chairman Ben Hinkle December 3. Hinkle's editorial, under the heading, “World body threatens American freedoms, was fully 21 inches long. In the column he was able to eloquently express why the Whatcom County Council must declare a UN-Free Zone.

Hinkle explained that UN members, American citizens included, will be subject to the decisions of a world parliament, pay revenues to a world taxing authority, be forced to appear in an international criminal court and be forced to enlist in a UN army.

Americans will also be disarmed if UN policies are enforced on American soil. “It is the moral and sworn obligation of elected representatives to protect the people against the intrusion of oppressive government. And our precious Constitution will be overruled, superceded and emasculated by the newly adopted UN Charter for Global Democracy. We, therefore, demand that Whatcom County Council adopt an ordinance declaring Whatcom County a UN-Free Zone,” Hinkle said to the residents of his northeast Washington county.

Rather than adopt the ordinance, Councilman Connie Hoag made a motion to send a letter to Congress on behalf of the council expressing concerns about the UN usurping national sovereignty. Councilman Marlene Dawson seconded the motion.

“The motion was voted down 2-4, one member being absent,” said Hinkle, who believes that council members' ignorance on this issue “is tantamount to treason.”

Activists from the city of Post Falls, Idaho experienced much the same treatment when they proposed their town adopt a UN-Free Zone ordinance modeled after LaVerkin. Post Falls Mayor Clay Larkin and his council could not get past their political correctitude to see that the last several presidential administrations have been betraying the sovereignty of the American people to the global socialism being advanced at gunpoint by the UN.