Someone is planning your future (United Nations)

What could Marion County, Ind., and Lincoln County, N.M., possibly have in common? In Marion County, nearly a million people are packed into 403 square miles, with a density of 2,172 people per square mile. Lincoln County stretches over 4,831square miles, and on a good day, can muster only 19,411 people – that's four people per square mile.

Nevertheless, both counties – as is the county where you live – are targets for transformation into "sustainable communities," as defined in the United Nations' "Agenda 21." Neither Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, nor Lincoln County Planning Technician Curt Temple will admit that their efforts to transform their communities have anything to do with "Agenda 21." They probably don't even know that it does.

"Agenda 21" is a policy document adopted at the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, by more than 170 nations in 1992. It was implemented in the United States by President Clinton's Commission on Sustainable Development, created by Executive Order, with no congressional debate or involvement. The agencies of government set out to implement the recommendations of "Agenda 21" by rule, and by economic "incentives and disincentives." This means, simply, that grants are available to states and communities that do what the feds want, and penalties and fund withdrawals await those communities that resist.

Throughout the 1990s, communities everywhere began to create "visioning councils," with special grants from the feds. These visioning councils set out to transform local communities, and protect them from environmental and social disaster by adopting "smart growth" policies – directly out of "Agenda 21."

One of the high-priority recommendations of "Agenda 21" and the President's Commission on Sustainable Development is to create a "new decision process." This means take the policy-making process out of the hands of elected officials, and put it in the hands of professionals.

This is exactly what Mayor Bart Peterson is trying to do. Indianapolis-Marion County, Ind., already has a consolidated government of sorts. Four communities, and the sheriff, and a few other elected positions remain outside the mayor's control. The mayor wants to further consolidate his government by eliminating these elected decision-makers, and appointing their replacements.

The sales pitch is always the same: more efficient government, reduce the cost of duplicated services, and on, and on. Lost in the argument is the idea that government is most responsive to the people governed when the decision-makers are accountable to the people who are governed. Government officials who are appointed – whether appointed by Bart Peterson, or Fidel Castro – are responsive to the people who sign their paychecks, not to the people they govern.

Another high-priority recommendation of "Agenda 21" is to get people to live within "growth boundaries" instead of wherever they want to live. Despite the fact that Lincoln County's population has declined steadily since 1980, Curt Temple believes 600,000 people will invade his county by 2025, and therefore, the county must plan now to prevent "urban sprawl." He, and his planning commission are deciding where these people may, and may not live.

Curt Temple says: "There is broad consensus in our society that land use and development should be controlled." If that consensus exists, it exists only among planners and bureaucrats. In the West, and elsewhere, there is a broad and growing consensus among Americans that government should get out of the way and leave people alone. In America – the land of the free – people should be able to live wherever they choose and can afford to live.

For government to tell a person, "No, you cannot build a home here," because a planner drew an "urban boundary line" on a map, is ridiculous – especially in a place like Lincoln County, N.M.

The planning craze afflicts virtually every community. The so-called problems these plans are supposed to prevent often become problems that future generations have to correct. The first wave of planning in the late 1960s and 1970s produced high-density housing for low-income families. These high-rise, low-cost apartments became the slums and gang headquarters in Chicago, and other cities, which ultimately had to be destroyed.

Planners have no sacred wisdom, they only have authority. Every time government attempts to engineer society by shaping and molding market forces, the result is failure. Nothing shapes the future as efficiently as a free market.

Elected officials in Lincoln, Marion and all other counties would do well to listen to the people who elected them – not to the professional planners and agency personnel whose first obligation is to justify their own existence. Many Americans are content to plan their own future and don't appreciate being told what they can and cannot do by government bureaucrats.

Here. So I can read it.

received the following e-mail (excerpted): To members of the public interested in state watershed programs and policy: The California Resources Agency and California Environmental Protection Agency, working with 17 departments, boards, offices and conservancies, developed the attached 18 Month Action Plan to implement the 2004 interagency watershed protection MOU and to update the California Agency Watershed Management Strategic Plan. The strategic plan, developed in 2003, included goals to improve watershed program coordination and efficiencies, collective investments, and local involvement in watershed management, and to demonstrate improvements in watershed health. We welcome comments on this plan. Please send them to me (cathy.bleier@resources.ca.gov ) or Rick Brausch (rbrausch@calepa.ca.gov ).

Since several actions in this plan are already under way, the Steering Committee will consider your comments and suggestions at our next meeting. We will also establish a site on the California Watershed Portal to post information about the state's progress on the Action Plan.

I responded: In a cursory review of the document, I failed to find recognition and acknowledgement of the County’s primary role in local land and resource planning as an expression of its constitutionally delegated police powers. ARTICLE 11 of the California constitution entitled “Local Government,” SEC. 1. declares that:

(a) “The State is divided into counties which are legal subdivisions of the State...”

(b) “The Legislature shall provide for county powers…” SEC. 7. further declares: “A county or city may make and enforce within its limits all local, police, sanitary, and other ordinances and regulations not in conflict with general laws.”

In 1937, the State Legislature in providing for county powers required all counties to adopt General Plans. This requirement was recodified as law in 1951 under Government Code 65000, et seq. California Planning Law requires the adoption of a comprehensive plan for the physical development of land within the county. It delegates that authority to local counties and cities: "Each planning agency shall prepare and the legislative body of each county and city shall adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the county or city, and any land outside its boundaries which in the planning agency's judgement bears relation to its planning."

-Government Code Section 65300 Section 65300.7. Recognizes the need for local control over planning: "The Legislature finds that the diversity of the state's communities and their residents requires planning agencies and legislative bodies to implement this article in ways that accommodate local conditions and circumstances, while meeting its minimum requirements." The Conservation Element of the County General Plan addresses the conservation, development, and use of natural resources including water, forests, soils, rivers and minerals.

-Government Code 65302 states: (d) A conservation element for the conservation, development, and utilization of natural resources including water and its hydraulic force, forests, soils, rivers and other waters, harbors, fisheries, wildlife, minerals, and other natural resources.

The conservation element shall consider the effect of development within the jurisdiction, as described in the land use element, on natural resources located on public lands, including military installations. That portion of the conservation element including waters shall be developed in coordination with any countywide water agency and with all district and city agencies that have developed, served, controlled or conserved water for any purpose for the county or city for which the plan is prepared. Coordination shall include the discussion and evaluation of any water supply and demand information described in Section 65352.5, if that information has been submitted by the water agency to the city or county. The conservation element may also cover the following:

(1) The reclamation of land and waters.

(2) Prevention and control of the pollution of streams and other waters.

(3) Regulation of the use of land in stream channels and other areas required for the accomplishment of the conservation plan.

(4) Prevention, control, and correction of the erosion of soils, beaches, and shores.

(5) Protection of watersheds.

(6) The location, quantity and quality of the rock, sand and gravel resources.

(7) Flood control. The conservation element shall be prepared and adopted no later than December 31, 1973.

State regulation of land and resource use on private lands is exercised through specific agencies that have been delegated very restricted authorities by the legislature. These authorities have been codified. These agencies do not have general land use planning authority. These agencies would include the Department of Fish and Game, the Board of Forestry, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Department of Water Resources.

Initially, watershed assessment and planning was done as a framework to support purely voluntary participation in restoration and enhancement projects. With the listing of endangered species and declarations of watercourses as “impaired,” watershed planning has become an indirect way to regionally regulate land, water and other resource use.

It is my opinion that County governments should have the lead role in local land and resource management planning. Local governments should be recognized as having the authority to validate watershed planning that affects the private property of constituents. If appropriate, local governments may then chose to formally adopt policies and ordinances to implement these plans. It is most appropriate that this type of planning occur at the local level through duly elected officials who are directly accountable to the People.

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