What is it with this vampire of a town?  We thought we killed mandatory green building retrofits.  THEY'RE BACK.  

I hope you like living in Sonoma County's version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers---look around, are your neighbors willing to have you be subjected to illegal search just so someone can see if you have insulation in your attic?  Better get your comments in to the City Council.  Do it now.  It's the resurrection of the old vampire.

Read about it here 
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Please refer to my following post (1/09/12) for the set up on this story.  VIDEO UP ON OUR VIDEO PAGE.

Two nights ago about 50 citizen activists turned a ONE BAY AREA public Delphi meeting in Santa Rosa, CA upside down.  WE REFUSED TO BE GOOD GERMANS.
 
What happened?  We spoke out, video'd (video is on our 'Videos' page), entered the meeting without signing in, refused to be railroaded, continually corrected the government/consultant lies and called them out, did not participate in the phony 'voting', did not give our names to the establishment press, brought in cameras and signs, flyered warning the organizers not to violate the open meeting laws, and did not get arrested although police were called. We exercised our rights as Americans. 

BUT, we can learn from this video---we need to do more civil disobedience than was exhibited by this brave group.  If you sit passively the facilitators will assume you agree with the plan.  If you show up, SPEAK UP: Do Not Sit Passively.  Hold Up Signs.  Get out of your comfort zone.  This is no time to go along to get along, or to sit quietly. 

Who are we?  A coalition of independent citizens from all over the SF Bay Area, Democrats, Property Rights Advocates, Tea Party members, Republicans, Libertarians, non-affiliated Independents---brave Americans standing together to resist tyranny.

What is ONE BAY AREA?  A regional plan to direct federal and state transportation dollars over the next 25 years to specific cities that have agreed to ONLY approve smart growth and ONLY approve it in limited pre-designated areas of just a few towns in the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Using ridiculously inflated population projections, ONE BAY AREA states that future housing must designed in one of their 'approved' smart growth models and developed in a Priority Development Area.  What is that?  A Priority Development Area (PDA) is a so-called transportation corridor---usually a busy street with a bus line or near a proposed train station.  This PDA can be as small as a half-block or as large as a square mile.  All of the projected new population for the next 25 years will be accommodated by housing within this designated area.  No other housing developments will be approved for the next 25 years---or the city will not get their piece of the transportation funding.  We're talking about 200 Billion dollars of federal and state transportation dollars for the SF Bay Area over the 25 year term. 

Do you see what this will do to property values outside of the specific PDA's?  It will destroy them.  Do you see what this does to individual cities?  It destroys their sovereignty.  ONE BAY AREA is a regional plan that breaks down boundaries and pushes UN Agenda 21.  Northern California is one of 11 Mega Regions in the US.  It includes 31 counties, 48,000 square miles, 15 million people, and part of TWO STATES--California and NEVADA.  Do you see how this happens?  We thought we had 50 states, but now we have ELEVEN MEGA REGIONS.  Using transportation dollars, grants, legislation (SB 375 & AB 32 in California), and pressure, your government is destroying your ability to be self-determining.

Video is up now on our  site (video page) and on YouTube. Watch it and USE IT.  We guarantee you that you'll have a chance real soon.
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NOTICE
YOU ARE BEING DELPHI’D

This meeting is designed to manipulate and direct public opinion to approve the
One Bay Area Plan

The Delphi Method is being used to create the illusion that this is your plan and that you have some part in crafting the outcome.  This is a technique developed by the RAND Corporation in the 1960’s which is used by meeting facilitators to block opposition and discard opinions that do not support their plan.  This propaganda
method uses peer pressure to shame and silence you.

ONE BAY AREA is being used to regionalize the SF Bay Area and erase the city, county, and ultimately, State boundaries.  Your transportation tax dollars will be used to build apartments and condos in designated areas of your city---and nowhere else.  Your money will directed to favored developers building stack and pack housing.  You are losing the ability to direct your elected officials through this plan to destroy local representation.  This is happening across the US.  There are now 11 Mega Regions designed to replace States.  Northern California is one of the Mega Regions (it includes part of Nevada), with over 48,000 square miles and 15 million residents.

ONE BAY AREA is UN Agenda 21
ATTEND THE MEETING: FINLEY CENTER, W. COLLEGE AVENUE 5:45 PM
NOTICE

YOU CANNOT BE DENIED ACCESS TO THIS MEETING

 

OPEN MEETING LAWS IN CALIFORNIA:

THE BROWN ACT

 

Meetings of public bodies must be ‘open and public,’ actions may not be secret, and action taken in violation of open meeting laws may be voided.  (Section 54953(a), 54953(c), 54960.1(d)

 

 

WHO IS COVERED?

·        Local agencies, including counties, cities, school and special districts (Section 54951)

·        Legislative bodies of each agency—the agency’s governing body plus ‘covered boards,’ that is any board, commission, committee, task force, or other advisory body created by the agency, whether permanent or temporary (Section 54952(b))

 

 

WHAT MUST HAPPEN?

Under the Brown Act an agency must:

·        Post notice and an agenda

·        Notify the media

·        Hold meetings in the jurisdiction of the agency in places accessible to all, with no fee (Section 54961(a))

·       Not require a ‘sign-in’ or registration for anyone

·       Allow non-disruptive recording of the meeting

·       Allow the public to address the covered board


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I just received this from a citizen who was concerned enough about her safety in the center of Santa Rosa that she spoke out.  For a related post please scroll down to my 10/12/11 post below .

Dear Mayor, Councilmembers and City Manager,  
Thank  you for your time, I know each one of you must be extremely busy dealing with all that is on your plates. I spoke last night regarding the Occupy issue. My name is Joyce Garcia. I’m writing you because of an incident that occurred before the doors opened to the City Council Chambers last night.  

I arrived about 10 to 15 minutes before the doors opened. Not realizing the doors were locked, I walked pass several people to go into the building. Not able to enter the building, I turned around and stood on the side, placing my tablet on the rail, writing what I intended to say during my 2 minutes. I must note that I arrived alone and was did not expect what happened to me. I was approached by Lisa Maldonado, a Union Leader. After she greeted me with a polite, “Hello, how you doin’”, she then introduced me (to whom it wasn’t clear because there were 30+ individuals there) by my full name and as a member of the NorCal C.R.U.S.H.,  then she added, “....which stands for Conservatives....what?” which was clearly to get me to engage in a conversation where she knew I was out numbered. This was clearly a maneuvered tactic she used to intimidate me and point me out to the Occupiers as a person who opposes them.  

Regardless of my statements that I agreed with many of the issues, just not their methods, she made it clear to those 30+ people whose eyes were now all on me, one in the crowd who did not agree with them, that I was disingenuous and was part of a group who created a Facebook page “Stop Occupy Santa Rosa”. This is an out and out lie.   If you can put yourself in my place at that moment. Last week I was one of two people that I know of who spoke in opposition to allowing the Occupy movement to camp out. That was not an easy thing to do in such a overwhelming pro Occupy crowd...especially when many on the council outwardly were in support of the movement, claiming they too were one of the “99%”.

I was pointed out in a crowd where I believe many of the people recognized me as speaking out against their movement. I was called out by my first and last name, surrounded by a crowd who do not welcome my opinion. I was accused of being apart of a FB page who wants the movement to stop. I was, and am still shaken. I was intimidated by a Union leader and pointed out to many people who may or may not wish me harm because of my opinions. I chose not to be silenced by the obvious skilled intimidation tactics and spoke up anyway because I know too many people who refused to be in attendance at regular council meetings because they are intimidated by the presence of the Occupiers, and I am speaking on behalf of them!   I watched as council members were being threatened by these people during a council meeting, only to turn around and be intimidated by a Union leader. This is unacceptable and should not be tolerated!

I know that I speak for many....please stand up to these people and uphold the laws and ordinances that are set in place for ALL individuals. I fear for the police! I know they are being targeted as the bad guys when they are only doing their jobs. Do what is necessary and right and I know that you will have overwhelming support from the citizens you represent.  

Respectfully and with much concern,       Joyce Garcia
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Today's Santa Rosa Press Democrat published some  "Let them eat cake" comments by Valerie Brown and Jake Mackensie regarding the SMART train failures.  They'd said that the folks who are calling for a repeal of the 1/4 cent sales tax to pay for the ever-widening cost of the train were 'never in support of SMART'-- implying that it was a sour-grapes movement.

I posted this comment on WatchSonomaCounty.org:
Don’t forget that many of us who opposed SMART in the first place did so because we could see the serious flaws and outright lies in the propaganda.

We are not opposed to mass transit, not opposed to public transportation, and not opposed to trains.

We are opposed to fat cat bureaucrats making deals with land owners who have donated to their political campaigns. We are opposed to bait and switch. We are opposed to big pensions and endless consultant fees. We are opposed to arrogance and ignorance in our elected officials.

The Santa Rosa Neighborhood Coalition will do whatever we can to assist REPEAL SMART. Let’s get those petitions out to the community and derail this gravy train to nowhere.

Rosa Koire
Steering Committee
Santa Rosa Neighborhood Coalition

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I got something funny in my email the other day.  One of the websites I subscribe to had published an article by Cynthia Boaz, an assistant professor at Sonoma State University, who is a left-identified political scientist who has involved herself with middle east issues.  Her article was entitled "Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox 'News' Uses to Brainwash Americans."  

I had contacted Cynthia Boaz about a year or so ago because she commented on a newspaper website that she had been 'purged' from the email list of a local group, Sonoma County Conservation Action, because she had criticized a politician that they support.

Here's what she wrote:
My question: has Debora Fudge disclosed – in the name of full transparency- that she took $500 for her supervisor campaign from the Coddings? It’s on her financial report, but did the rest of the SMART board know of her vested interest in the Codding site and conversely, does FPPC know of the cozy relationship between the Coddings and SMART board? How is that not a conflict of interest?? Or something much worse? SCCA banned me from their Facebook page (and deleted all my previous comments, even ones that had nothing to do with Fudge or this race) after I asked this question there, in response to their celebratory post about this announcement. It’s sad that a nonprofit whose mission is supposedly embedded in values like transparency, accountability and the public good prefers to reflexively defend “their” candidate rather than engage in serious public debate. Just because their candidate Debora Fudge does it (take developer money and hands out political favors) does not make it right.

Here's what I wrote to her:
'Dear Professor Boaz,
I was interested to read your comment that you had been scrubbed from the SCCA facebook page along with all of your posts.  I thinks it's far more serious than sad that an inflexible ideology has devolved into a purging of reasonable inquiry.  The so-called progressive politics of the North Bay are rigidly isolating dissent and, through struggle meetings and other tactics regularly employed to chill intelligent debate, causing many to withdraw from the community.'

She never responded.  I guess she slipped back into the fold.

So imagine my amusement at reading her July 2 article on the fourteen propaganda techniques used by Fox News to brainwash Americans.  I was laughing through the first 5 or so because the Left, via media, local groups, Democratic Party operatives, lobbyists, UN boosters, labor 'leaders' and various obedient lackeys, had used these techniques on ME.  A liberal. And apparently had used a few on HER too.  I didn't read all of them---I really should see if they all fit, but they keep crashing my computer.

Hey, before you get too smug about this please realize that Fox News does use those techniques.  So do others.  Don't be duped. Clear your vision.  That's the only vision you should be having---clear vision---since it's pretty hard to see with the wool pulled over your eyes.
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There are Delphi meetings going on all over the nine county Bay Area right now.  Put on by www.OneBayArea.org they are public/private meetings organized by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Association of Bay Area Governments, and local agencies and groups.
As you know, a Delphi meeting is set up on the premise that the organizer is 'welcoming the public's input' but the truth is that the outcome of the meeting was determined in advance.  The public is there for a propaganda session and to give the illusion that there was public buy-in.  Typically participants are given crayons and paper like children and told to 'design' a perfect community.  This utopia was miraculously envisioned in advance and is produced on colored maps with lots of pretty pictures of middle class people recreating. 
The goal is to homogenize the Bay Area and the nation with 'smart growth'--mixed use developments subsidized by your tax dollars, with ground floor shops and two to four stories of residential units above.  Very little parking, very little open space, few private outdoor areas.  Constructed right next to a busy street or rail-line (active or not), these condo and apartment developments discourage private vehicles.  Planning documents for each and every city and county are standardized and brought into alignment with this idea.  No one can get anything built that does not conform to this plan, and only subsidized developers (cronies) can get their projects built.  Banks won't lend on these projects without government guarantees because they often have high vacancy, crime, and poor maintenance.  Typically the retail space never rents up or rents for far less than the developer expected.  Often the developer has gotten a private loan from an elderly investor who then loses everything.  Up here in Sonoma County we have developers Alan Strachan and Orin Theissen as the most infamous for that behavior.  And you'll recall that Alan Strachan had been poised to offer 'Green Energy Loans' as a boondoggle pushed by the sponsors of One Bay Area. 

This is social engineering.  These developments are designed for the minimum of privacy, and to allow controlling energy and water agencies the option of limiting your usage without your input.  In the guise of environmentalism the stress of living will increase through greater regulation and restrictions.

PLAN TO ATTEND THIS MEETING (read about Delphi meetings first)

Sonoma County* Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 5:30-8:30 p.m.
The Glaser Center
547 Mendocino Avenue, Santa Rosa
Register

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This summer, the Post Sustainability Institute in collaboration with SRNC will be hosting the Behind the Green Mask Conference in Santa Rosa, CA. 

With leaders and activists speaking on topics ranging from UN Agenda 21 to Redevelopment Reform to Exposing New Urbanism to SMART METERS, to Recognizing Communitarianism, the conference will be a forum for those in Northern California and beyond to share information and learn more.  This is a non-partisan event. 

Contact us for details.
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The more you know the harder it is to just condense UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development into a short paragraph.  On the one hand we just want to say: 'Take my word for it,' and on the other hand there are the skeptics who think we’ve made it up since they didn’t read it in the local paper or see it on FoxNewsCNNMSNBCCSPAN.

Everyone is being impacted by it, but since your government uses different names for all of the programs (it’s alphabet soup), you don’t recognize that there is a connection when you hear, for instance:

Your 10-year old child won’t be automatically going to the middle school in your neighborhood but has to apply for admission. S/he may end up across town where you’ll never attend parent/teacher night, never become friends with other parents, and not volunteer in the classroom (and hear the lesson) because you can’t make it home from your job in time.

Your business is being subjected to a Business Improvement Tax by your local government and you have to pay even though your customers now have to put money in the meters, pay huge parking tickets, and can go to the Mall with free parking.

You inherited a piece of land from your folks but now you find out that it’s impossible to build anything on it because the County has an ordinance that won’t allow you to install a septic system on your 40 acres. And the Biotic Resource Corridor that it’s in won’t allow development anyway. And besides you’re in the ‘viewshed’ so bicyclists can look at your land as they ride a nearby trail, and a building would ruin that.

You don’t believe that you’re being ‘forced’ out of your private vehicle but then you notice that even though Libya produces only 2% of the world’s oil your gasoline cost just jumped up 15% since Gaddafi started shouting. You also have noticed that there’s talk about a ‘Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax’ in your town council that would charge you for long commutes. You moved there to buy a house but the market has crashed and you’re not going anywhere for a while.

You, of course, were an avid fan of the Smart Train idea and voted for the 1/4 cent sales tax hike in perpetuity, but now the train is a distant hope since they underestimated costs, and the money went to repair the tracks (for freight) and big pensions for staff. All of those SMART Growth condos by the tracks are now going to hear freight train whistles and smell the fumes 6 feet away.

You’re sick of being called an “Oil Addict” and can’t understand why innovations for energy efficient vehicles have never been funded by your government. Until now, when you can pay $40,000 for a compact that gets 35 miles to the gallon…

You came home from work and noticed that your energy company had installed a SMART METER without asking you, and now you’ve heard that they can shut it off remotely, monitor your use, reduce your allotment, and generally mess with you any time.

You attend your church or civic organization meeting and find out that you're going to be walking around your neighborhood with an 11-page questionnaire that is so comprehensive that you'll be embarrassed to ask the neighbors to fill it out, but you have to because you're a MANDATORY VOLUNTEER.  You'll be reporting back to the organizers of the Neighborhood Summit, the Leadership Institute of Ecology and Economy---it's a public private partnership that is all about getting as much information about you as possible and then using it to manage you.

You’ve gone from saying you’d never bother to learn computers to checking your email every half hour, and your kids never look up from their I-whatever when you talk to them. Their classrooms are so crammed with kids that even you think remote learning might be a good idea, and, hey, textbooks on-line should save money—they can update them, change them, change history with a click of the mouse—Great!

You just came back from a vacation in Mexico and noticed the retina recognition and fingerprint readers at every customs officer’s station, and it made you nervous. Of course they’re not using them on everyone yet, but how long will it be? You’ve also read that they have miniature drone spy hummingbirds that can fly 8 miles, in and out of windows, and record sound and video! Who? Your government. What else do they have? Do they know you’re reading this?

You go to a neighborhood association meeting out of some sense of civic duty and see that they’re electing officers to the association. You’d like to nominate your neighbor but you can’t because the by-laws say that any candidate has to be okayed by the board first. You try to make a comment but you are boo’d by your ‘neighbors’ in bike helmets and spandex. It’s clear that they have a candidate who will be elected and claim to speak for the entire neighborhood.

Call it Smart Growth. Call it Sustainable Development. Call it Form Based Zoning. Call it Capacity Building. Call it Consensus Building. Call it Green Building. Call it Wildlands. Call it Homelands. Call it Outcome Based Education. ETC. Hey, it’s not “What is Agenda 21″, it’s “WHAT ISN’T AGENDA 21″ It’s not Republican, and it’s not Democrat. It’s not Libertarian, and it’s not Independent. It’s COMMUNITARIAN.

Satisfied? Are we making this up? Have you noticed? So? WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT? Listen, no one is holding a gun to your head; you’re not losing your job if you speak out. Will you please go and talk to your neighbor, friend, co-worker, partner, coach, financial advisor, lawyer, clerk, you get the idea…. SPEAK UP. SPEAK OUT. STOP AGENDA 21 NOW.

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From the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
"Assemblymember Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, selected the idea for “benefit corporations” as the winning entry in his annual “There Oughta Be a Law … Or Not” contest, which this year garnered 120 entries.

Huffman introduced Assembly Bill 361 and very quickly picked up a powerful co-author in Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Van Nuys, who is chair of the Assembly’s budget committee.

The idea for the law came from Trathen Heckman, founding director of Daily Acts in Petaluma; Jeff Kletter, CEO and co-founder of Kinesys in San Rafael; Chris Mann, CEO of Guayaki Sustainable Rainforest Products in Sebastopol and Stuart Rudick, founding partner of Mindful Investors in Mill Valley.

Under the proposed law, owners of California businesses could voluntarily distinguish themselves as “benefit corporations” by operating with “an eye toward the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit,” as Huffman put it in a letter to his Assembly colleagues.

These companies could consider the needs of a community first, without fear of legal action from shareholders for not maximizing profits."

The following is a comment by Kay Tokerud, SRNC:
Ten percent of America’s workforce is for non-profits. Now, for profit companies want preferential treatment if they qualify as ‘community benefits’ corporations? Who decides what is beneficial for the community? This is a crude attempt by some to get on top of the heap by claiming that their company does something better than all the rest. Certainly they are after something. Jobs, contracts, political positions, perhaps?

Remember the Accountable Development Coalition? They have claimed to be the community and they, of course, are the community’s spokesperson who will decide what benefits the community. This is crazy. The community is made up of individual voters who will say what they want whenever there is an election. There is no legal definition of community benefits and there is no group of people who have the right to decide what benefits the community. This is part of the process of the blurring of lines between individual rights which are the law of the land and this new concept being promulgated by unelected people who want to have some additional rights to determine what is best for all.

I can’t call it socialism or communism because it isn’t. It does have a name however, it’s COMMUNITARIANISM. This is a hybrid form of government being pushed that ‘balances’ the rights of the individual with the rights of the community. Trouble is, there are no legal rights of the community in the law. That’s made up. Communitarianism has already advanced in the European Union and is taught at American universities as a form of governance. They will impose this on us if we let them.

Don’t be fooled. We are going down a slippery slope when individual rights can be balanced away because of someone’s idea that the community (whatever that is) is more important than an individual. There ought to be a law against this type of thing happening in America. Oh, there is, it’s called the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Why is it that everyone who refers to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is considered to be an extremist now?  As a liberal Democrat I don't see why the founding law of our nation is considered to be right-wing.  It isn't.  It's American.

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