APA Admits it is “Left Leaning”
Is the American Planning Association ‘left-leaning’?
So it would seem from the statements of Jill Sterrett, President of the American Planning Association, made on their website last March of 2012.
Posting on Washington State’s American Planning Association website, she lamented that “The Tea Party has taken a stand claiming that the United Nations’ Agenda 21 (which originated at the 1992 UN Earth Summit and is intended to promote sustainable cities throughout the world), is a plot to take away individual rights and liberties.”
Addendum: They have since taken down the page, but it is archived here: http://web.archive.org/web/20120316054424/http://washington-apa.org/newsletters/article/march_presidents_message_march2012 and we also saved it as a PDF file: March President’s Message — APA Washington.
“What’s more, the Tea Party groups who are concerned about this issue, called the “Agenders,” believe it is their role is not merely to testify against local plans, but also to disrupt public meetings and halt the approval process. Have they appeared in your city?” Sterrett continued…
This is quite interesting since the initiatives being undertaken in NH by the nine regional planning commissions have employed PR firms such as NH Listens or Action Media to ostensibly invite local citizens to give input at public meetings. Apparently, opposing some of the plans of the APA minions is not acceptable input? Why bother inviting the public, we ask?
In truth, we all know that once a person attends one of these input meetings, they see that it is all ‘facilitated’ toward the ‘proper’ conclusions, by way of the Delphi Technique — the way in which the meeting is conducted. These facilitators are trained ahead of time by companies such as NH Listens and Action Media
Sterret continued…
“When I first heard of this, at last September at APA’s leadership meetings, I thought that this was surely a fringe element limited to some of the more conservative states—not our beloved left-leaning Washington. But now, I have heard from friends and colleagues around the state who have seen it happen in their towns. It is here.”
There you have it — Sterrett admitting that left-leaning is what she, and these initiatives, are about. Based on the much-discredited climate change theory, apparently APA-directed regional planners, while providing forums run by the PR groups that pretend to ‘listen’ to the concerns of locals, in reality feel that you locals have no right to stop any of their initiatives.
Perhaps it’s time to contact Sterrett and inform her that allowing private corporations to partner with quasi-government agencies such as these unelected regional planning boards, then allowing them to suck our tax dollars into projects that are handed to favored contractors, is called ‘crony capitalism’ and not exactly how our government works. Further, if this process were even legal, or truly local, APA’s minions would not have to hire PR firms to convince people that the ideas came from the grassroots.
Perhaps you’ve been a victim of Action Media, one of the PR firms hired to ‘neutralize the opposition’?
“Our clients’ work is about power: how are resources used, and who gets to decide? Our work is about the power of communications to shift the advantage, to mobilize support and neutralize opposition.“