Public Comments on the Capital Region Sustainable Development Plan Town of Ballston by Diane Clements February 26, 2013

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen of the Ballston Town Board and fellow residents of the Town of Ballston. My name is Diane Clements. I appreciate this opportunity to make a public comment concerning the Capital Region Sustainable Development Plan. My family has resided in Burnt Hills for 32 years. We have enjoyed Saratoga County and believe it has been very well managed by our form of government. My family comes from a background of preservation and appreciating the beauty of the outdoors. We own property on a local lake, and our lake association checks the purity of the water; no one has to mandate or coerce us to do this. It is the right thing to do. We manage our own forest land with the assistance of trained foresters. This is private responsible management of resources which I know with education, everyone can achieve. In the time I have today, I present to you that Governor Cuomo's Cleaner Greener New York and the Capital Region Sustainable Development Plan have little to do with private responsible management of resources, but everything to do with changing the form of government for our town, county and state, from local control by elected officials to top down implementation by commissions with an agenda conceived from afar which would control every human endeavor.

To begin, I know that representative government is ideal, and a form of government which has been rare historically as well as in the world today. New York has a history of admirable statesmen such as John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States. He was a member of the First and Second Continental Congress and was very instrumental in causing the Constitution to be ratified by writing the Federalist Papers along with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. In 1777 John Jay helped to write the constitution of New York and from 1795-1801 held the position of Governor of our state.

On the inauguration of the New York Constitution in 1777 he stated the following:

Let virtue, honor, the love of liberty and of science be and remain, the soul of this Constitution. Vice, ignorance, and want of vigilance, will be the only enemies able to destroy it. Every member of the state ought diligently to read and study the constitution of his country and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated, and be the better prepared to defend and assert them. Fellow towns people. Now is the time to be vigilant. I fear we have become like the Gulliver who is being tied down by thousands of tiny strands imperceptibly put in place by the unheeded Lilliputians. Regulations, taxes, laws at all level of government have gradually left the guarantees of freedoms in our state and federal constitutions barely recognizable. Comfort, safety, health, jobs, the environment, and convenience, have been used as reasons to give government power over us. The proper role of government, to protect our

freedoms so that we can live in peace and prosperity, has been forgotten.

Through research I now consider the Sustainability Plan to be more than a tiny thread of control over us. It is major. Its Agenda has a traceable history. To most people, sustainable development, is what I thought I had been doing privately.

However, the seed and philosophy in Cleaner Greener NY and the Capital Region Sustainability Development Plan began in Vancouver in 1976. The American delegate to this UN conference signed off on a rather startling plan. The Vancouver Plan of Action stated that private property was too valuable to remain in citizens hands, that the wealth it created was socially unjust, and that developed countries needed to build human settlement zones rather than allow sprawling land use. The UN's Brundtland Commission continued this plan, in a report titled, Our Common Future. It declared that social equity, environmental justice and economic prosperity could come together to create "sustainable development," if humans and property were managed properly. (Managed by whom we might ask?) See pages in SDP Their broad slogan of Sustainability concealed a radical program of wealth transfer and acquisition of private property, by public agencies. The US Senate refused to approve the proposed UN treaty, but the agenda moved ahead anyway: In the late 1980's, UN NGOs transformed the Brundtland report into a global action plan called Agenda 21, which means the UN Agenda for the 21st Century, introduced in 1992. (Hold up cover page)

At this Rio Conference, Maurice F. Strong, Secretary General of the United Nations outlined the teeth in the meaning of Sustainable Development by stating Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class-involving high meat intake,

use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing-are not sustainable.

ICLEI the (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) was formed to implement Agenda 21 in local communities around the world. Saratoga Springs is registered as an ICLEI community. Chatham, NY was listed a member and no one there could remember who signed them up. They have rescinded that membership.

The US Senate never approved the UN Rio Treaty.

But, Pres. Clinton, by Executive Order, formed The Presidents Council to implement Agenda 21 in the U.S. through all Federal agencies.

Since 1994, Federal agencies have worked with the authors of Agenda 21 to write regulations implementing this brand of sustainable development throughout the U.S. (Andrew Cuomo was part of this as HUD director)

The results are programs like the HUD-EPA-DOT Partnership for Sustainable Communities, and Challenge Grant programs. Executive orders gave Agencies authority over our nation's rural lands and gave HUD the authority to bypass local and state governments to directly engage in community planning.

In 2012 Governor Cuomo conceived the Cleaner Greener Communities concept. (Show Cover) He regionalized New York into 10 regions. (Show Map) In the table of contents the topics disturbingly reflect the UN agenda of Climate Adaptation, Land Use and Livable Communities, Smart Growth, Initiatives on everything involving human existence, and environmental justice. The plan is to implement the initiative by a regional form of government administered from Albany. The promise is always to make government more efficient and less expensive. It has been tried in many large metropolitan areas of our

country. The cost of government never decreases because the bureaucracy never decreases. However, regional government means local control is lost.

The Capital Region Sustainability Plan is designed to implement the goals of Cleaner Greener New York. This top down plan uses the resources of NGOs, Commissions, and Planning experts to transform our communities to meet the goals of Cleaner Greener. Funding for the master planners comes from NYSERDA, a public benefits corporation which is funded by us through our power bills, and through Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiatives which are cap and trade schemes which are charged to local businesses. These expenses to businesses and power generation companies passed directly to the consumer. So we are paying for the plan to control us.

The chapter on Climate Change (formerly called global warming), on page 30, states that NYSERDA bases its policies of man made climate change on the Global Climate Model of the IPCC the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was established by the United Nations. The IPCC has been discredited by scandals of making up false reports and computer models to fit the UN agenda rather than science. A leaked report in December confirmed other reports that the Computer Models have exaggerated greatly the dire predictions of global warming. They also have released deceptive reports on the cause of climate change. 31,000 scientists in the US have signed a petition urging the US government to reject the kinds of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) policies proposed by the UNs IPCC. Thousands of scientists around the world have joined in to oppose the consensus of man made global warming. I bring this up because it is quite probable that the whole Capital Region Sustainability Plan is based on false premises. The wording of the Sustainability Plan implies that all of the implementation of the Plan will be in cooperation with local municipalities. The individual needs of the local governments may be considered, but only insofar as they apply to green growth, green jobs,

green education, sustainability limits of green house gases and emissions. Page 32 states that all local zoning codes will be changed to comply to establish green districts and sustainable land use. Every human action must be seen through the lens of green. Top down planning is just the opposite of free enterprise and growth based on the investment of private monies in private businesses. Why should public monies be used to support one business over another? There is no mention of the protection of private property rights in this proposal. Private property is to be controlled by an elite commission, supposedly for the common good.

Where does this leave the local town official, and what should be done?

I say counter the Sustainability Plan with a resounding no. Not in our town and not in our state. Join the ranks of thousands around the country who are rejecting sustainability plans. (Hold up articles of successes) There are concerned citizens in other regions of NYS who are making their objections known. Westchester County and the Town of Duanesburg have withdrawn from ICLEI. Supervisors in Broom County are considering resolutions to reject SP. In our own county Charlton has passed a resolution to reject, and others such as Clifton Park, Halfmoon, and Wilton have resolutions under consideration.

If receiving grants is your main concern, if all of the towns reject the plan, then New York will have to continue to give grants as it has in the past. Private enterprise and freedom will unleash prosperity for our town. Lets resist restrictions and welcome prosperity.

I say we should continue the fight against unfunded mandates. Without these, our town and county could afford all of the projects it needs. Lets work with our state representatives to end this state practice of passing their initiatives on to the towns. Sustainable Development is just another one of these programs.

Thank you for considering rejecting SD and passing a resolution stating this and please call me for any more information or resources.