Take Action by Contacting NH Legislature

We hope you will uphold the part of the Republican platform under “federalism” that explicitly states opposition to “sustainable development” programs. This is NOT the “future we want” for New Hampshire.

Recently you were invited to a meeting with regional planners who were representing and promoting the Granite State Future program.

While we were quite disappointed that most of you chose NOT to attend, those who did attend asked some good questions.

The only thing that might explain your indifference is that like us, you probably always thought Regional Planning Commissions were about sharing schools, police and fire services among smaller towns, helping them financially, and therefore nothing to be concerned over.

But times have changed and the push toward regionalism, fueled by millions of taxpayer dollars, driven by non-governmental special interest groups, has found us dealing with a new layer of government that removes you as legislators, and we as voters, from the process. NH’s unelected RPCs have evolved into unaccountable lobbyists for federal government programs that are based on utopian-style ideas for where we live, work, play, what we eat, how we educate our kids, how much energy and water we can use, and what modes of transportation and communication will be allowed.

Some examples of the results: Parents are already coming to us with complaints about excessive scrutiny of their childrens’ lunches brought from home to school, banning of ice cream for end of year parties, etc. Dover recently rejected a water tax on “roofs and driveways”. We were not aware that anyone in Bedford thought their community needed to build “workforce housing” and we’ve even found evidence of NH RSAs that have expanded the definition of an “abutter” to include RPCs.

Truth is, these programs are nothing more than massive social engineering schemes.

Recently we sent you a piece called “Stop Regionalism by Defunding HUD” http://eepurl.com/Bi8KH

Contained in that piece was a link to a very long but revealing video that featured Andres Duany, a regional planner for the Seven50 Florida regional plan, and a summary of his remarks. He did not mince words about the intended purpose of his plan. Basically it is the same concept outlined in some of GSF’s own documents: (exact wording)

1. Empowering Urban Counties
The most direct and efficient way to create metropolitan government in the majority of metro areas is to empower urban county government. In this scenario, the county government assumes the functions and responsibilities of the municipal governments within its boundaries, and municipalities are abolished.

2. Consolidating Cities and Counties
This involves creating area-wide governmental units, focusing on consolidating municipal governments with their surrounding county governments. Consolidation brings unification of the tax base and centralization of planning and zoning.

3. Combining Counties into Regional Governments
This involves combining several counties in the same metropolitan area into one regional government.

The fact is, federal agencies HUD/EPA/DOT are financing the restructuring of local governmental divisions ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. Whether it is Seven50 in Florida, Plan Bay Area in California, or Granite State Future in NH, they are one and the same, based on the same principles.

If you did not have time to watch the full Andres Duany video, please review the much shorter video remarks of Craig Fletcher, Mayor of the City of Vero Beach, Florida speaking at a City Council meeting demonstrating his reaction to the Duany lecture to get an idea of why the City of Vero Beach, Florida has pulled out of the Seven50 plan:

http://youtu.be/NNQZtLTOYcY [first 3 minutes]

Phyllis Frey, a retired airline pilot, had a lot to say as well:

http://youtu.be/TKNyu8hCQzA [7 minutes]

Granite State Future is just one more of these cookie-cutter plans that actually employs PR firms to fraudulently represent itself to a very small number of people as a “community-based” effort whose ideas came from the public. In truth, these UNELECTED boards make up NEW layers of government at the regional level that will proceed with projects that are pre-determined by HUD grants. Regional planning commissions were created by the legislature to enable towns to work together. Now they, along with “public-private partnership” entities as the major “stakeholders” and beneficiaries, are promoting these done deal programs, and there is not a thing you or the voters can do about it.

We hope you’ll take the time to research this issue further. We think you’ll discover that “sustainable community” programs have the potential of treading on our local control and individual rights after examining more closely their scope, and the policies associated with them.

We hope you will uphold the part of the Republican platform under “federalism” that explicitly states opposition to “sustainable development” programs. This is NOT the “future we want” for New Hampshire.

Please do not be blindsided by those who claim they have never heard of this or simply do not know what they are doing.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Marquardt/kathleen112.htm

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We would love to hear your thoughts on this pressing issue, or at least acknowledgement of your receipt of this email.

Sincerely,

New Hampshire Tea Party Coalition
nhtpc@nhteapartycoalition.org