VOLUME 7, NUMBER 8 - NOVEMBER 1, 2002
The Birmingham League of Women Voters sponsored a public meeting at the Martin Biscuit Building on 2nd Av South in Birmingham on Sept. 8th, 2002. The League’s guest speaker, Mr. Ortman, is Project Manager for STV Incorporated, a global leader in transportation.
Mr. Ortman explained that forming a coalition of regional governments and nongovernmental organizations (civic organizations and church groups, etc.) would aid in obtaining grants from the Federal government for public transportation. And the coalition could also publize the need for regional transportation.
A question and answer period followed his presentation.
One attendee asked: "Referencing the meetings that you have attended, do you know if ‘UGBs’ were discussed and would those ‘UBGs’ bring about proper ‘infill’ to aid the progress of 'Sustainable Development?'"
He replied without hesitation, "YES". Without further explanation from Mr. Ortman or the questioner the discussion turned to other subjects.
After the question and answer period a short intermission ensued at which time several individuals asked the person who posed the question: "what is a UGB?" It was obvious from the reaction of the audience that they did not understand the topic.
Following is an explanation:
Moving large numbers of individuals into the population center is commonly referred to as "infill". The graphic below illustrates the concept of proper "infill" with a before-and-after visual. In the "after" illustration, "redevelopment" has taken place. With "redevelopment" comes efficient "land use management." The population in relation to land has doubled. Noting the lot and house sizes this example would be on the low end of the "infill" process. "Low density infill" has been described by Maryland’s Governor Glendenning to be three and one half families per acre. Medium density of human resources is 35 to 40 families per acre. The density (number of families per acre) increases as the town center is approached. In each community planners will determine the "carrying capacity" of every section of the town and assign the appropriate number of human resources who will reside in the specified area. Carrying capacity is the number of all species that can live in an area without harming the environment or another species.
Sustainable Development (the global dominate catch phrase) is an all-encompassing worldview. It excludes nothing from your daily life. But its use in this instance relates to the development and redevelopment of population centers. Each community center will house the highest concentration of human resources (people). Moving away from the center the population density will taper off until the edge of the community is reached and the animal domain begins. What Sustainable Development will ultimate mean to each population center is found in the University of Washington School of Architecture's plan: "A Comprehensive Urban Regenerative Process". The entire plan may be examined at http://www.arch.wsu.edu/information/sustain/home.html. The School of Architecture submitted the plan to the United Nations Habitat II conference held in Istanbul during 1996 and won one of three gold metal awards given by the United Nations. Quoting from that plan, here is what the United Nations and the University
of Washington would have your community do to become "Sustainable":
"Hence, a sustainable community is one which provides all of its own needs for air, water, land (or food and fiber), and energy resources within the confines of its own site." http://www.arch.wsu.edu/information/sustain/modlsust.htm
Catchment ponds will be built for every parcel of land in order to catch rainwater/stormwater and filter containments before releasing the water into the environment. Locally, Helena and Trussville have already enacted the first phase of this ordinance. Trussville's stormwater ordinance may be down-loaded by entering the following web location.www.trussville.org/PDF/comments.PDF.
"a. In addition to any required stormwater detention, stormwater management should be engineered to retain the first ½ inch of storm runoff for residential and the first 1½ inch for commercial and industrial development.
"b. All stormwater releases shall be at non-erosive velocities as may be accomplished by riprap, constructed velocity breaks, elevation drops, or other generally accepted engineering practices." Property owners who have built too many buildings on their property and covered up "nonimpervious" (the ground) surfaces with "impervious" surfaces (roofs, driveways etc) - will have a higher tax rate. Search the Internet for "impervious surfaces" just to get the feel for the trend in local ordinances.
Examples given above deal with the environment, just one aspect of Sustainable Development. The two other components of Sustainable Development are social and economic and will be incorporated as the "Sustainable Society" evolves. This evolution could not occur without the active involvement of the government school system. The following quote illustrates this point. It is from a letter to the editor section of the Birmingham News dated Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2002. The writer expresses a world view that is alien to the concept of God given rights.
Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln: What is taught in today’s classroom becomes tomorrow’s reality.
CHANGING OUR NAMEUGB: "Establishing an urban growth boundary (UGB) is critical to the success of an integrated growth management strategy. A UGB (Urban Growth Boundary) is an established line beyond which urban services such as public sewer, water and transportation improvements will not be provided." This line is designed to make life on the outside undesirable. Thus, local government regulations and ordinances (think of home rule) will result in coerced movement of people to the desired side of the line. Stringent regulations will be enforced on both sides of the line. As water flows downhill, people will generally opt for the path of least resistance, and would move to the side that promises "growth management," "sustainable development," "smart growth" or "new urbanism," especially if federal money is in the offing. Any of these phrases may be used, it just depends on which catch phrase fits best into the planner’s discussion. Little if any objection is expected from a human resource population that does
not understand "inalienable rights."
"...I must share the most important lesson learned during my recent undergraduate years at Samford University: If we fail as custodians of the environment, nothing else will matter, because failure can ultimately result in the demise of most of all living things on the Earth."
After giving it considerable thought we have decided it is time for a name change for our organization. We will no longer be the Alabama Committee to Get US Out of the United Nations. We will be, simply, The Alabama Committee. Our Newsletter will continue to carry The Mustard Seed banner.
We believe that a change in name is appropriate due to our desire to expand the scope of our activities to include other projects. We will, of course, still be concerned with what is happening regarding United Nations activities and the truth is that most of the projects we will be involved with may have UN connections.
We have found, however, that bringing up the subject of the United Nations often has a negative impact on our ability to communicate with individuals who have had little or no previous experience with UN created problems... and that the best way to approach these individuals is to show them how certain government policies will impact them in a personal way.
Many of these individuals have only heard about "positive" aspects of UN activities and thus have a positive bias toward the world organization. An early attack on their belief in the UN is met with a defensive posture that is difficult to get beyond.
We trust that you will continue to find the information we will be covering of interest -- and more importantly, useful to you in your efforts to help us maintain our inalienable rights and our God-given liberties.
DOES YOUR VOTE COUNT?
We haven’t space to completely give you the text of an article by Henry Lamb that appeared on World Net Daily on 10/26/02, but we will try to give you enough to let you see how "Comprehensive Planning" can make your representative government virtually worthless:
"The concept is still valid; it has, however, been circumvented. Our system of government has been completely transformed. Public policy is no longer made by elected officials. Public policy is made by appointed professionals and bureaucrats and rubber-stamped by elected officials.
"Elected officials closest to the people who are governed, are least able to make public policy. City councils, county commissions, and local school boards have had their power to make public policy taken away by higher levels of government.
"In 1976, when Florida's Comprehensive Land Use Planning Act was adopted, the argument was that counties are political subdivisions of the state, and therefore subject to state control. County commissioners are required to comply with laws enacted by the state. Federal law trumps state law. Therefore, the state must conform its laws to whatever Congress decrees.
"Ocie Mills had a county-issued building permit and approval from the State Department of Environmental Protection before he dumped 19 loads of building sand on his private property, preparing to build a home for his son. The feds said his private property was a ‘wetland’ -- waters of the United States -- which the building sand polluted. The judge would not allow Ocie to introduce his local building permit, or evidence of the state's approval, because federal law trumps local and state law. Ocie and his son spent nearly two years in a federal prison.
"The ‘law’ which put Ocie in jail was promulgated through a consent decree negotiated to settle the National Wildlife Federation's friendly lawsuit against the federal government, based on a 1972 law which did not contain the word ‘wetland.’
"No elected official can be held accountable on Election Day for this abuse of government power.
"Government agency officials work closely with the professional staff of environmental organizations in "public/private partnerships" to develop public policy. In virtually every community, there are various "councils" and "commissions" appointed by elected officials to devise the policies to be adopted. This process is supposed to gather the will of the people, but it is actually designed to avoid the will of the people, and incorporate the objectives of the environmental professionals and agency officials.
"Ordinary citizens who attend meetings of these ‘visioning’ and ‘watershed’ and ‘stakeholder’ councils, report that without exception, they are dominated by agency and environmental professionals, led by a professional facilitator.
"The people who are governed by the laws and policies these councils develop, never have the opportunity to express their consent. If they ‘unelect’ their local elected officials, it doesn't matter. The process goes on and the new elected official has no choice but to go along with the system.
"This process is not an accident. Nor is it confined to local communities. It has taken decades to perfect this system which begins at the international level, works very effectively at the national and state level, and is now permeating virtually every local community."
Thank you, Henry Lamb!