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Joe Dill: “I can’t believe that we are actually thinking about throwing the baby out with the bath water.”
Greenville County Council has approved on second reading a proposal by Councilman Jim Burns to once again attempt to give exclusive decisions on planning and land use in the county to the County Administrator, under the overall supervision of 12 council members.
A final vote is set for the council meeting scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 20, 2007.
The second reading vote on February 6 was 7 to 4 with Burns and Chairman Butch Kirven being joined by three Democrats, Cort Flint, Xanthene Norris and Judy Gilstrap plus two Republican newcomers, Fred Payne and Willis Meadows.
Joe Dill, Lottie Gibson, Bob Taylor and Tony Trout voted in opposition. Greenville County Council currently has only 11 members. The District 20 seat, formerly occupied by Scott Case, will remain vacant until filled by a special election.
Fred Payne does not see a need for independence of the Planning Commission from the county bureaucracy. He sees the proposal as something “to make everyone more accountable,” and allow the professional planners to work more closely with the other staff.
Dill, an outspoken critic of the Burns motion, said we should leave things as they are. “If we don’t like the way they think, change the members of the commission – we appoint them. If they are not working with the staff, appoint new commissioners” he said. “I can’t believe that we are actually thinking about throwing the baby out with the bath water.” Dill said that if this proposal is implemented, a few months later we are going to have serious problems with workload and may have to hire more people.
Burns said the change is needed to facilitate future decisions. He said, “We set goals for the administrator to develop a comprehensive plan for the growth of the county and we have not given him the tools to do that.”
The comprehensive plan referred to by Burns has, in fact, already been developed and is only awaiting formal approval by the Greenville County Planning Commission and County Council.
The plan, developed mostly out of public view, is called “Vision 2025.” Vision 2025, although touted as a “growth plan” developed by a cross section of the local community, is actually an implementation of “United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda 21” unveiled in 1992 during the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), commonly known as the “Rio Earth Summit.” Some Republicans may be surprised to learn that the Rio Accords were signed by then President George H. W. Bush, who pledged US support for Agenda 21.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), now Speaker of the US House of Representatives, submitted a resolution (H.J. Res. 166) to the 103rd Congress on March 29, 1993, urging the President and Congress to “assume a strong leadership role in implementing the decisions made at the Earth Summit by developing a national strategy to implement Agenda 21 and other Earth Summit agreements...”
Although Congress never passed Agenda 21 introduced by Pelosi, President Bill Clinton established, by Executive Order, the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) for the purpose of implementing Agenda 21 in the United States.
The political agenda being carried out in Greenville County, South Carolina, is not unlike the planned political deception successfully taking place in every county and state in the union.
For purposes of political expediency, the local implementation efforts of Agenda 21 are never called by that name. The reason for the deception was explained by J. Gary Lawrence, a planner for the city of Seattle, and advisor to President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development in 1998.
“Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many ... who would actively work to defeat any elected official ... undertaking Local Agenda 21. So we will call our process something else, such as ‘comprehensive planning,’ ‘growth management,’ or ‘smart growth.’”
By eliminating the independence of the current Greenville County Planning Commission, there would be no dissenting voice or public dialogue prior to decisions by County Council on important zoning and land use matters impacting property owners in Greenville County.
The Planning Commission members are appointed by a vote of the Council. The commission staff is accountable to the independent commission. The commission staff and the staff of the County Administrator do not always agree on the best solution to a zoning or property use issue, leaving the final decision to a public vote by Council.
If the proposal by Burns is approved on third reading, the commission staff will be hired, promoted or fired by the County Administrator, who will have the authority to ensure that only one recommendation comes to the Council for open public discussion and approval by the elected body.
Kirven failed to get the measure passed last year, but appears to have the votes to accomplish his goal this year with the departure from Council of three conservative members who opposed the change.
During the 2004 election, according to reports submitted to the South Carolina Ethics Commission, $215,779 was reportedly spent to elect Burns, Kirven and Trout to replace three incumbent Council members. More than $42,000 went directly to the campaign to elect Jim Burns to Greenville County Council. Several of the large contributors have financial and other interests in the control of where growth will and will not be allowed to occur in Greenville County.
Very few individuals involved in implementing Agenda 21 likely have any loyalty to the UN agenda, but see an opportunity for political power or financial gain from supporting and participating in the implementation of the agenda.
Agenda 21 Sustainable Development programs are not Republican or Democrat. They are not conservative or liberal, left or right. Sustainable Development is a plan for global control of every aspect of human life, using land and resource restriction, social transformation through education, and other programs to accomplish this end.
The land use element of Sustainable Development calls for the implementation of two action plans designed to eliminate private property: the Wildlands Project, and Smart Growth. Upon implementation of these plans, all human action is subject to control.
Since all things ultimately come from natural resources on rural lands, the transfer of the landscape from citizen control to government control will make it easy for government and its partners - NGOs, certain foundations and certain corporations - to control what we have, what we do, and where we go.
The UN Wildlands Project seeks to collectivize all natural resources (e.g. water) and centralize all use decisions under government direction, often implemented through public - private partnerships entered into with government insiders.
UN Smart Growth policies include:
Transportation plans that reduce the freedom of mobility, forcing people to live near where they work, and transforming communities into heavily-regulated but “self-sufficient” feudalistic “transit villages.”
Plans to herd citizens into tax-subsidized, government-controlled, mixed-use developments, called “human settlements.” These settlements are sometimes distinguished from one another by how productive or useful the citizens are for society.
Heavy restrictions on development in most areas, and the promotion of extremely dense development, constructed and managed by government “partners,” in other selected areas.
Rations on public services, such as health care, drinking water, and energy resources (and sources).
The transformation of free societies into collectivized societies through Sustainable Development ensures the presence of a ruling elite which, by definition, ultimately excludes all but a very select few.
Robert G. “Butch” Taylor, who has discussed Agenda 21 with Greenville County Council numerous times, reviewed it with them again on the night of the vote. The only reaction was a whispered comment from Burns to Kirven as Burns either intentionally or unintentionally seemed to be disinterested in what Taylor, who is a candidate for Greenville County Council in District 20, was saying.
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