Beware of Strangers bearing Gifts

Private meetings quiet PUBLIC dissent.

Bay Area planners attempt to meet secretly with opponents of Smart Growth

 Editor's Note:  Opponents to ABAG mandates are from all political points of view. One of the most vocal is Rosa Koire from Democrates against U.N. Agenda 21- a group in Santa Rosa that was formed as a result of Smart Growth redevelopment.  The followers trace the genesis of the aggressive ABAG plan back to UN Agenda 21, an environmental protocol crafted in 1992 mandating radical changes property rights through central planning for environmental reasons. 

I do not subscribe to the same analysis.  I am a believer in  "follow the money and power" to understand the whys of Smart Growth.   Smart Growth developers have co-opted the environmental movement to build highly profitable, high density housing and gaining access to billions of dollars in development funds, grants and special government help in the name of "saving the planet".  We taxpayers are asked to pay for this folly.

The letter below is instructive as to the beaucratic shuffle that opponents face when trying to create true conversation and accountablity from the politicians and central planners. ABAGs goal it seems, is not to engage in true open debate but to quell all dissent.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democrats Against U.N. Agenda 21, posted today about attempts by Bay Area planners attempts to meet secretly with opponents of its less than transparent One Bay Area planning process. The One Bay Area planning process is a charade of self-fulfilling outcomes designed to reign in growth, suburbs, and private use of automobiles. See the letter sent to Rosa Koire, from ABAG planners, and responses from Koire and East Bay Tea Party activist Heather Gass.
See the PDF on the APA playbook on how to handle opponents of Smart Growth
In addition to Koire’s response on her site see same from Heather Gass

Ms. Bullock,
I still don’t know what this meeting is about and how it would benefit me to attend. An informal meeting, with unelected officials and no agenda, to discuss “issues, matters and dissent” doesn’t warrant my time. The “issues and matters” I care about are the same as those expressed by hundreds of others who attended the winter workshops.
As a member of the public and a tax payer I expected the “open dialogue” you are now requesting and a robust conversation to have occurred at the open meetings held in January. Sadly that did not occur. To now ask for an informal, private meeting with a handful of private citizens and no agenda is puzzling. Hundreds of people dissented at these meetings. Hundreds of tax payers showed up to ask questions and got NO answers!! The questions were all written down and to this date NONE of them have been answered.

The public was promised that their questions and the answers to those questions would be posted on the MTC website, but to date there is no evidence that this has happened. May I suggest that MTC/ABAG staffers spend their time answering the “issues and matters” that were raised by ALL the taxpayers at the winter workshop meetings and post them on the website rather than waste more tax payer money holding private meetings with me.

When MTC and ABAG decide to hold real town hall forums with the public the process will be meaningful. Hiring paid meeting facilitators is a waste of tax payer money and clearly does not adequately provide a forum for the public to participate. The phony virtual workshop is a sham meant only to boost your public input numbers. Without identifying who or where these online votes are coming from they are meaningless. And with predetermined choices the online workshop is merely a rigged video game.

I suggest you post the questions and answers from the public forums to your website now.