Politics & Government
Independence Day Reminder for 2015
The threat of regionalism is real and freedom is not free.
In honor of Independence Day 2015 we are reprinting this story from 2013 as a reminder that each and every one of us must work toward the preservation of our freedom. We continue to explore the dangers of regionalism, as it is being promoted by the 9 Regional Planning Commissions, unelected boards that help to create various ”master plans” for NH’s towns under the guise of ”sustainability”. These plans are based upon a utopian notion formulated at the international and federal levels, driven by NGOs such as the American Planning Association, and which have created more taxpayer burdens than they have solved.
Andover NH Constitutional Freedom Alliance, 2013
Many thanks to the Andover NH Constitutional Freedom Alliance for hosting this “debate” between Tim Carter of Meredith, (former) organizer and Chairman of the Lakes Region Tea Party, and Gregg Carson, Field Director for the federal government’s HUD agency presence in NH (HUD = Housing and Urban Development) regarding the “Granite State Future” program.
Find out what's happening in Bedfordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Please click on the link to view the video courtesy of Government Oversite: youtube.com/watch?v=gHefD20m5hI
We appreciate the work of Ed Comeau, a spectacularly talented videographer. His website contains many videos of other town and county government meetings.
Find out what's happening in Bedfordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Please visit Granite State Future for more information on HUD’s Granite State Future program, the plan to implement Agenda 21 locally in NH.
Summary of Video
In his introduction, Attorney Carson spent a lot of time trying to convince people that he was a “conservative”. One attendee made it clear how calculated that seemed and said he felt it did not matter.
Carson claimed he was not there as a representative of HUD, but nevertheless is taking money from HUD by virtue of his position, so we assume he approves of HUD programs and came to this forum to defend them.
Carson lost a bit of credibility early on when he used the word “conspiracy theory” with regard to the concerns of those who brought up Agenda 21. This is the same old tactic to discredit an argument before it even starts. It proved to some that Carson was not prepared with valid arguments to support his positions.
Tim Carter on the other hand, did not talk about who he was to justify his positions, but instead, gave evidence of all the things the attendees were questioning, straight from facts found in the GSF’s and the Regional Planning Commission’s own documents (i.e. the sources of their funding, the true origins of the program, the requirements of those towns that take the money, the way the sessions for public input are conducted, etc. to name just a few things).
Carson claimed the RPCs are not funded except by grants, but in fact they have huge operating budgets (outside of the grants) funded by our local and state tax dollars, as we saw from Greater Nashua Tea Party’s wonderful prior research. Some have operating budgets as large as $1.5M, including salaries and pension benefits, which is pretty darn good for serving on a supposedly “advisory-only” committee.
Funds from GRANTS pay for the GSF program but the towns are NOT free to do as they wish with the money once they sign on, DESPITE the numerous “listening sessions” that are held. These listening sessions or “charrettes” as they are sometimes called, are held as required to collect input from the public. In the end that input is often ignored and the public is led to believe that the collection of predetermined ideas came from the community. The grants contain specific outcomes that are REQUIRED. So whatever happens at these listening sessions matters little no matter how much Carson tried to claim the ideas originate from the community. Further, we have heard from RPC members that they will go ahead with their plans no matter how much they are opposed. Fact is, all these plans are completely similar everywhere in the country, and the world!
Towns cannot do anything unless it fits into the regional plan... approved by the feds. And that plan has already become a “done deal” once the grant has been signed.
Carson said he wasn’t going to debunk Agenda 21, still pretending that it didn’t exist and that people didn’t know what it was.
If someone won’t even acknowledge the existence of something, then they won’t have to debate its existence, or its merits.
And you wouldn’t want to have to debate its merits, because it doesn’t have any.
And obviously, since one of the biggest complaints is that these listening sessions are dog and pony shows, is it any wonder due to the fact that the RPCs employ PR firms such as NH Listens to steer the conversations?
Carson tried to quell the fears of one woman who realized that one of the Water Sustainability Commission’s goals was to take control over all water resources in NH as property of the state. He claimed he would stand with her for her rights to her private well. She replied that if he was going to stand up for her rights, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it (by representing HUD we assumed she meant).
Carson later suggested we talk to the people who represent us on our RPCs. Some of us have done that, and sadly, these folks still believe that regionalism is only about sharing firetrucks and refused to address the problems of an unelected board, run by NGOs, that is subject to little or no oversight by the people. The NH legislature’s bill review committee, made up of participants chosen from those who had served on planning boards or the RPCs themselves, had the same attitude; they were all for the RPCs and refused to address any problems the public had with RPCs in general, and thus nixed any legislation to solve those grievances.
Carson often disagreed with his own statements within minutes of speaking them.
Carter made the point that almost all of your elected officials have no say in the GSF program. The RPCs are another layer of government that bypass them. And those plans, conceived by the federal government, are going to align with each other so that they are uniform all throughout the state. Carter read a lot of the program’s own words, for example, on the GSF website it states:
“Traditional Settlement Patterns & Development Design - keep the traditional New Hampshire landscape intact by focusing development in town centers and village areas, while leaving open and rural areas for agriculture, recreation, and other suitable uses.”
And just who is to decide what those other suitable uses might be? Is building one of them, or is that considered “sprawl”?
Attorney Carson claims he and others in the federal government don’t know what Agenda 21 is. We suggested they go to the state department website and read up on it. Here is a direct quote:
“Good governance at all levels is critical to our ability to make good on our Agenda 21 commitments. While national governments will make the political commitments, we rely upon regional and local governments to implement new policies in the context of local situations, to enforce environmental regulations, to innovate and adapt solutions that will succeed in unique environmental, social, and political realities. Some of the most creative solutions to our sustainable development challenges are emerging in the U.S. from our state, regional and local governments. We should encourage communities to do integrated planning, to develop sustainability plans and a local Agenda 21.”
Social and political realities? We suppose this has to do with the new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Ruling coming down, without a vote of Congress, from HUD.
Included in the plans will be requirements to equalize neighborhoods that are too rich or too homogenous in race, etc. based on the idea that even if you can’t afford it, you have the right to live wherever you wish.
The bottom line is, ”we’re going to implement a top-down plan locally, and we’re going to pretend you asked for it and created it while denying where it came from originally”.
Very clever indeed.
In a future article we will explore how this is related to the proposed Bedford Overlay District, which many residents voted for without knowing it was part of the RPC’s ”master plan” for our town. We‘re pretty sure they didn‘t know what exactly was in the plan they were approving, the driving force behind it, or the shocking implications it will have for our way of life under these new affirmative action rules, and most of all our tax bills.
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