Referendum for Cool Classroom

The people in Tokorozawa city, Saitama, decided that the schools around a military base of Air Self-defense Force needed air conditioner in classrooms in the summer as a result of referendum voted on Sunday. Why did they need to vote for that? It was because the mayor decided they did not need it. Direct democracy overturned the decision of people’s political leader.

Tokorozawa city government chose twenty-nine public elementary or mid schools around Iruma Air Self-defense Force Base, which needed to have air conditioning system so that the students could study in the classrooms with windows shut and avoid extreme noise of landing or leaving fighter jets.

The mayor of the city, Masato Fujimoto, abruptly declared that he would review the plan in 2012. For Fujimoto, who was elected seven months after Great East Japan Earthquake and severe accident in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, classroom in cool air conditioning was extravagance. “Luxury life stands on a lot of sacrifices,” Fujimoto kept on saying.

However, parents could not disregard their children studying in hot and humid classrooms everyday. They required the mayor a referendum with signatures of over one fiftieth of eligible voters, which was needed for direct request to local government described in Local Autonomy Law. Receiving the signatures, Fujimoto reluctantly submitted a bill for referendum ordinance to the local congress last November and the congress passed it.

In the referendum on Sunday, about fifty-seven hundred approved the setting up of air conditioner to the classrooms, while about thirty hundred opposed. But the referendum has no legal binding. Voters’ turnout was as low as thirty-one percent. Although the ordinance require one third of approval for the mayor to consider the importance of the result of referendum, the approval votes did not reach that level.

It is still unclear how the mayor will respond to the referendum. There will be next mayoral election this fall. Fujimoto realized how his policy has been unpopular to the parents. City government has already started looking for budget resource to buy air conditioners for the schools.

But neither the people nor the mayor is fundamentally responsible for the air conditioner. It is the noise of aircrafts that is responsible for the environment of students’ study. Supposedly caused by current climate change, Saitama Prefecture is one of the hottest regions in Japan these years. Relocation of military base in Japan is hot issue not only in Okinawa.