By Henry Lamb
from Renew America
Published October 4, 2012
Local governments have two fundamental responsibilities: (1) protect the rights of the citizens; and (2) provide the services the citizens authorize. To meet these responsibilities, local elected officials must look to the future and anticipate what services their citizens may want, and construct plans to meet those needs. This kind of planning will be referred to as Planning 101.
Since 1992, with the emergence of Agenda 21, the entire concept of planning has undergone a major transformation. This new kind of planning will be referred to as Planning 102. Planning 102 is not concerned about protecting the rights of citizens. Planning 102 is not concerned with what services the citizens of a community might want in the future. Planning 102 is the art of transforming existing communities into the utopian communities envisioned in Agenda 21, and shoe-horning local citizens into them.
This process began in 1993 with President Clinton’s Executive Order that created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, which focused primarily on transforming urban centers into “sustainable communities.” The process continues now, with President Obama’s Executive Order that created the White House Rural Council, which focuses primarily on the 16 percent of the population who live on 80 percent of the rural landscape.
This process is being advanced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development through its $95-million Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program. To receive a HUD regional planning grant, all the counties and major cities within the region must sign a Memorandum of Agreement to implement the grant according to the dictates of HUD. It is no accident that the MOA requires the participants “…to support multijurisdictional planning efforts that integrate housing, land use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure investments.” These goals are the same goals specified in Chapter 7 of the U.N. Agenda 21 document adopted by the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in 1992.
The Meramec Regional Planning Commission, which is a part of the Missouri Association of Council of Governments, wants a hefty Sustainable Communities grant from HUD. Dent County, Missouri, is one of the counties that must sign a MOA in order to get this grant.
Fat chance! No way! Forgetaboutit!
A September 26 letter to Bonnie Prigge, Executive Director of the MRPC, begins: “The Dent County Commissioners this morning voted unanimously and without reservation NOT to sign the Memorandum of Agreement for the Sustainable Development Consortium as requested by the MRPC…”
The letter continues:
- “This Sustainable Development Program of HUD, DOT, and EPA is directly, and irrefutably connected with the United Nations Agenda 21. Both President Bill Clinton and most recently President Barack Obama have signed Executive Orders directing all agencies of the Federal Government to work with state and local community governments in a joint effort to “reinvent” government using the guidelines outlined in the United Nations Agenda 21. The tenets of Agenda 21 undermine private property rights and propose extreme environmental, social, economic and educational policies to be implemented worldwide by National, State and Local governing bodies through the use of Sustainable Development planning, programs and policies.” (
- )
The “planning” required by the HUD grant is Planning 102. Fortunately, the Dent County Commissioners know the difference between Planning 101 and Planning 102, and have sent a clear message to the professional staffs of the relevant bureaucracies and to the federal government.
Dent County is not the only county in Missouri that knows the difference between the Planning 101 and Planning 102. Organizations such as the Property Rights Congress, with chapters in several counties, and Citizens for Private Property Rights, have been busy educating voters about the consequences of sustainable development as defined in Agenda 21. They have been busy educating candidates for public office and elected officials as well. That’s why it is now impossible for slick, professional facilitators and bureaucrats to pull the wool over the eyes of many, if not most, of Missouri’s county commissioners.
Missouri has 19 Regional Planning Commissions. The staff of several of these bureaucracies would like to have HUD grants to help advance Planning 102 within their region. Despite the strong and growing push-back by well-informed citizens and elected officials, HUD has been very successful in spending tax dollars to implement policies that originate in the U.N.’s Agenda 21.
With a deficit of $1.65 trillion dollars, growing by billions of dollars every day, why are HUD, DOT, and the EPA trying so hard to spend money the nation does not have, on a program that the nation does not need, that will impose government-mandated restrictions on behavior, that the people do not want?
To one degree or another, since 1993, the federal government has been dominated by people who believe that “government control of land use is indispensible;” that government-control of the economy is essential; and that sustainable development is only government-approved development.
People who hold these beliefs have no place in any government in the United States. Voters put them in office, unaware of their beliefs; voters who have now seen the consequences of these beliefs can remove them from office on Election day.
© Henry Lamb