I submitted this piece to the Lincoln Eagle this morning.
Saratoga Says No to Environmental Extremism
Mitchell Langbert
David Chew, a Saratoga freedom fighter, has flung himself
into the Agenda 21 maelstrom, and he aims to show Kingston citizens how to
resist Mayor Gallo's assaults on your freedom, which include Gallo's Block by
Blockheads program and his comprehensive plan now discussed in City Hall under
the chairmanship of Alderman at Large James Noble.
Chew says that, like Saratoga's comprehensive plans, Gallo's
comprehensive plan links with Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Cleaner Greener Communities
regionalization scheme. Gov. Cuomo's
scheme, which he has funded through the New York State Energy Research and
Development Authority to the tune of $100 million, aims to force you to drive a
smaller car and live in a smaller home.
It aims to end the American tradition of electing the officials who
govern you, replacing local democracy with regional soviets.
Chew believes that Saratoga County is a microcosm of what is
happening nationally, including in Kingston.
With just under 27,000 in population, Saratoga Springs is about the same
size as Kingston. Just as, under
Alderman Noble's leadership, Kingston is discussing adoption of a comprehensive
plan linked to the Cleaner Greener Communities program, so has Saratoga Springs
adopted one, and Saratoga County is following with its own.
Chew says that Saratoga Springs has commissioned a 15-member
comprehensive planning committee to review and update the city’s present
plan. The Saratoga Springs Comprehensive
Planning Committee is stacked with insiders with extremist environmentalist
agendas. A third of the planning
committee seats have gone to members of a radical environmental organization,
Sustainable Saratoga. “Sustainable
Saratoga submitted an 11-page position paper that contained extreme ideas that
are receiving undue attention from the paid consulting firm and the CPC
members," Chew says.
Chew says that another organization, Saratoga Preserving
Land and Nature (PLAN), has had undue influence in the comprehensive planning
process. Saratoga PLAN is the local
affiliate of the national Land Trust Alliance, and it has an organization
member sitting on the comprehensive plan committee. The land trust is in the
business of working with federal agencies offering grants and land restriction
programs tied to crippling conservation easement contracts, sale of private
property development rights, and the acquisition of lands for
land-use-management purposes. The land
trusts' stock-in-trade is environmental extremism.
Alderman Noble's son, Steve Noble, is chair of the Kingston
Land Trust, which is listed as a local land trust on the website of the national Land Trust
Alliance, the same national organization to which Saratoga Springs PLAN
belongs. As well, Julie Noble is on the
comprehensive planning board along with Alderman Noble. Julie bills herself as an environmental
educator. The Lincoln Eagle has called Alderman Noble for comment.
Chew points out that Saratoga's politicians are increasingly
overt about transfer of home rule and local power to regional authorities. In our region the regional soviet to whom
Gov. Cuomo and Mayor Gallo aim to transfer political power is Engage Mid-Hudson;
in the Capital Region Cuomo's soviet is called the Sustainable Capital Region.
Both key off Agenda 21. In the Capital
Region, "The politicians, including 23 town supervisors, are talking
openly of transferring power. The corruption is overt; the message has been
reiterated in their minds for many years," says Chew.
On July 11 and July 15 Chew led two groups of local freedom
fighters to comprehensive planning meetings.
On July 11, 25 to 30 local freedom fighters showed up at the
comprehensive plan meeting, overwhelming the mere dozen of green insiders. On July 15 four local freedom fighters
appeared, but given that ten green insiders were again present, the freedom
fighters constituted nearly a third of those present.
John Anthony has proposed a sustainable freedom pledge that
he suggests all city planners and members of comprehensive plan committees
sign. To make a sustainable freedom
pledge, elected officials make a public commitment to maintaining private
property rights--the source of your standard of living. Is Mayor Gallo willing to defend your right
to live in your home?
Some of the members of the Kingston Comprehensive Plan
Committee who should sign a sustainable freedom oath are as follows: James Noble, Julie Noble, Suzanne Cahill, Kyla
Haber, Alderwoman Deborah Brown, Alderwoman Mary Ann Mills, Dennis Doyle, Kevin
Gilfeather, Toni Roser, Ralph Swenson, Michael Schupp, and Judith Hansen.
