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This video exposing former Assemblyman Michael Allen was created by a campaign manager for his opponent, Marc Levine. Based on our reporting of Michael Allen to the Fair Political Practices Commission for corruption, he was unseated after just one term in office. There is some justice after all...
Take a look: http://vimeo.com/73723263
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Greg Sarris, 61, Graton Rancheria Tribal Chief on 11/3/2013 at meeting of North Bay Organizing Project in Santa Rosa said: “… last night the tribe opened its casino. That casino is currently employing 2,500 people all of whom have medical, dental and retirement and wage above the minimum…and I love walking around and seeing all the brown faces and hearing all the Spanish in that building. We’re also—you hear a lot about the casino—but we also have 250 acres aside from it. We are planting those 250 acres in organic vegetables and with us we are going to hire low risk prisoners and undocumented workers. All of that with a living wage with medical, dental, and retirement.” And he also said: “So we want to make a difference. And it’s not just in the environment and in jobs but in social justice. We know that there are public officials here today and that you better listen. You better start coming over to our side of town over there listening to what we have to say because now I’ve got what you’ve always had…it's called money. Listen carefully each of you. Until you come out and talk to us and listen to us and answer to what happened, I will take my money and run a spotted chihuahua and try to win. And I mean it.” This month the 1,300-member Graton Rancheria tribe will open its Graton Resort & Casino, an $800 million development with 3,000 slot machines and 144 gambling tables spread out over 340,000 square feet is expected to generate revenue of more than $530 million a year by 2016. Just beyond the parking lot is 250 acres of undeveloped land. It is currently being discussed as the site for vegetable farming but the tribe has also said it eventually plans to add a hotel. Here is the audio file with the introduction of Sarris beginning after approximately three minutes. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0pKAcmsTRI5TFJYbHlMQ00tLVk/edit?usp=sharing North Bay Organizing Project--what is it? Our Mission: Unite people to build leadership and grassroots power for social, economic, racial and environmental justice. Once upon a time the Dibs family of Santa Rosa had a small business selling used cars. They owned the lot and had it paid off, and made a nice living for their family. In 2009 the City of Santa Rosa targeted them for an eminent domain action. The City wanted to widen Santa Rosa Avenue right there at the Dibs' property. First they low-balled the Dibs and then they finally agreed to pay them a fair price---the City said it really needed that land quick--that widening had to happen NOW.
So the Dibs family moved to a property that they leased, that wasn't as good a location for them. The City of Santa Rosa then did nothing with their old lot and didn't widen the street. And it still hasn't. Now, the Dibs' have come, hat in hand, to beg the City of Santa Rosa to let them buy Bob's RV Center on Santa Rosa Avenue at Highway 12. Well, the City will let them buy it but they won't let them move their car lot onto a lot that was used for selling RVs because 'it's a different use and we don't want to see car lots on Santa Rosa Avenue anymore.' What does the City want to see? Smart Growth. Apartments over shops. That's the VISION for Santa Rosa Avenue. The City's General Plan/Comprehensive Plan says that MIXED USE is the preferred development for Santa Rosa Avenue. They don't care that it has been an historically car-related street, the old Auto Row. No, that's just not sustainable. Now the goal is to narrow the street down to just a couple of lanes and have a median strip and wide sidewalks and the walkable bikeable dreamland of community and joy (as long as you go along to get along). Except that isn't what people can build there because they'd go bankrupt in a minute. Just like the building owners at 10th and Healdsburg did. The former owners. They went bankrupt building a 4 story mixed use apartment building where the ground floor retail not only never rented up but never even got completed. Go look in the windows. Bare pipes and concrete. So. Where does that leave the Dibs and Bob Montgomery, the owner of Bob's RV Center who would like to retire? Yes, you guessed. Another empty lot on Santa Rosa Avenue coming up. The City is blighting the Avenue themselves by not allowing businesses, legal businesses, taxpaying businesses to get a use permit. The City is preparing the Avenue by depressing the land values so that their crony developer can come along later, buy it cheap, and build Smart Growth with subsidies. When the City held those visioning meetings for the General Plan it didn't matter at all what you had to say. It was SMART GROWTH and that was it. And that's the news from Santa Rosa. WE WILL STOP THIS. FIGHT PLAN BAY AREA. www.StopPlanBayArea.com The Post Sustainability Institute based in Santa Rosa has filed a lawsuit against MTC and ABAG to stop the unconstitutional regionalization of the San Francisco Bay Area. If we lose this suit Plan Bay Area will overlay restrictions for land use over the entire nine county 101 city Bay Area. The Plan calls for 80% of all future population increase to be housed in just 4% of the land area. This is just a fraction of the land area within existing Urban Growth Boundaries, and nearly all of this small area is fully developed now. In addition to residential restrictions, 66% of all new employment/commercial development must be in the same areas. That means that mixed use high density development in extremely limited locations around the bay will be all that will be approved by planning departments for the next 25-28 years. Plan Bay Area has been approved by MTC/ABAG and IS NOW CURRENT POLICY--ONLY LEGAL ACTION CAN STOP IT.
The Post Sustainability Institute/Freedom Advocates lawsuit is the ONLY lawsuit against Plan Bay Area that addresses the unconstitutionality of the Plan, and of regionalization. This lawsuit is the ONLY one that challenges the Plan itself. This is not going to go away if you ignore it. Your participation is needed to keep this lawsuit active. DONATE NOW AT STOP PLAN BAY AREA . COM Here is the latest column from Dick Spotswood at the IJ. He's absolutely right, but doesn't see that Plan Bay Area is really not about making sense...it's about social engineering and control. Packing people into dense city centers without adequate transportation options is the goal. Empowering unelected boards. Destroying existing jurisdictional boundaries and replacing them with 'regions'. Amazing, isn't it? Not if you understand UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development.
We appreciate it that Dick Spotswood is the ONLY journalist in the Bay Area who will write the truth about Plan Bay Area. Thank you, Dick. DICK SPOTSWOOD * THE SUNDAY MARIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL A column on government and politics published Sunday, August 4, 2013 #467 © A copyright of The Marin Independent Journal. HIGH DENSITY DEVELOPMENT: REAL BENEFITS OR SPIN? NOW that the fractious debate over Plan Bay Area is over, Marinites might want to see what true high-density housing looks like. All they need to do is drive to Corte Madera. Two minutes off Highway 101, at the corner of Tamal Vista Boulevard and Wornum Drive, the curious can see for themselves. Once completed in early 2014, the 180-unit four-story apartment complex at 195 Tamal Vista presents a fine opportunity to learn if high-density, supposedly transit-oriented development delivers the environmental and social benefits promised by its advocates. This San Jose-style massive apartment block on the site of the old WinCup plant has both good and bad aspects. Built by big-time developer MacFarlane Partners, the looming structure consists of 162 market-rate apartments and only 18 units for lower-income residents. MacFarlane's business plan calls for "high-density, urban-style living." Plan Bay Area is all about construction of high-density housing near transit corridors. This project, approved before the plan was adopted, provides an example of what's encouraged. Tamal Vista is immediately adjacent to a transit corridor, Highway 101 and the north-south bikeway. There's no question that it's high density at 40 units per acre. Corte Madera, a town inaccurately criticized for dragging its feet when it comes to building housing, delivers big time. Further, it's in a mostly commercial area where massive construction doesn't degrade single-family home neighborhoods. It replaces a factory that employed a hundred workers who often commuted from out of the county. The project is privately owned, so it pays property taxes for schools, police and fire. What's wrong, other than a massive design wholly inappropriate for Central Marin? The connection to transit is illusory. The seven-minute walk to the scruffy freeway bus pad is useful if potential residents work in San Francisco's Financial District, Golden Gate Transit's destination. The reality is that the old Financial District isn't the job magnet it was 25 years ago. It's a 20-minute walk from Tamal Vista to Larkspur's Ferry Terminal. Few daily commuters will make that trek. They could drive, except the ferry's parking lot is jammed. The 10-minute walk to the Town Center shopping mall hardly makes this "urban style" living. Most residents will drive to Safeway, not walk. That 195 Tamal Vista has only 18 affordable apartments makes a mockery of what high-density new urbanism is supposedly about. There's little need in Marin for more market-rate housing. What's wanted are homes for working folks whose jobs are already in Marin. This project does little to deliver them. Once finished, 195 Tamal Vista will produce more traffic at an intersection that's already near capacity. Wornum Drive is where the Transportation Authority of Marin plans to locate a new freeway off-ramp, making an already bad situation worse. Corte Madera had little choice but to approve the high-density project. The town was under pressure from the Association of Bay Area Governments and activists to build more housing. This was one of the few sites where it made sense to build big. This construction now makes an ideal test ground for the concept of high-density housing. Corte Madera should monitor what happens once 195 Tamal Vista opens. Find out where the new residents work. Are their jobs located nearby or far away? How many apartment dwellers either use transit or instead drive to work, shop and play? What's the project's real-world impact on local streets? The results should disclose whether suburban high-density urban-style housing provides the environmental benefits that supporters claim or if it's just marketing hype from real estate developers. __________________________________________________________________________ OTHER THOUGHTS: "We hang petty thieves and appoint the great thieves to public office." Aesop __________________________________________________________________________ Write Dick Spotswood at [email protected] I’m scheduled to give you an update on what’s happening around
the nation and I will, in a minute. First, I want to talk about One Bay Area/PLAN BAY AREA and Agenda 21/Sustainable Development. Keep in mind that globalization is the standardization of systems. Making systems uniform so that they can be managed through a computer with the most efficiency and control is the goal. When the systems are controlled the people are controlled. Efficiency is the mask for this totalitarian takeover. Regionalization is the interim step to globalization and, ultimately, to a single central control. In order to implement regionalization local political boundaries must be blurred and erased. Although the forms may exist for a period of time, there will be no actual power in the local governments. Unelected boards and commissions will dictate local action for common good. The common good is identified as that which fragments and destroys social cohesion. Individuals will serve the Communitarian ideal. So this is a circle that is made tighter and tighter as time progresses. Dissent necessarily becomes a threat to the common good and individual expression will be restricted to whatever supports the common good. The individual who functions well in this society is insane. We’re seeing the results of this pressure now in our culture. You know that an integral part of Plan Bay Area is the identification of Planned Development Areas in specific narrow locations in existing or proposed transit corridors. When this plan was being developed as the Compact for a Sustainable Bay Area back in 1997-2003 much of the funding was expected to come from Redevelopment property tax diversion. Conceptually the idea was that areas could be declared blighted under the Health and Safety Code and then bonded debt could be sold to pay for high density development---development for which there is little demand so it needs government subsidies. Redevelopment areas could be rezoned via Specific Plans which also made them perfect for smart growth. Transit oriented development and infill development could be designed into the Redevelopment projects and would basically be immune to challenge because of the Health and Safety Code blight findings. Redevelopment in California ended in 2012 and this is an inconvenience for SB 375 and AB32-- the Sustainable Communities Strategies laws that implement Agenda 21 for land use here in California. HUD grants, the Partnership for Sustainable Communities Grants, the One Bay Area Grant program, and Transportation grants all step up to fill in the infrastructure financing gap. We know that even though CARB has established greenhouse gas reduction targets of 7% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 15% below 2005 levels by 2035 it doesn’t say how to do that. Rather than having, say, better CAFÉ standards or increasing bus service, we’re seeing mass transit fare increases and service reduction all over the Bay Area. Money for high speed rail will bleed us for decades, and the North Bay SMART train won’t even link to the ferry system to San Francisco. If it’s not making sense you can be sure it’s Agenda 21. The Hegelian Dialectic is at play here: Create a crisis and then propose the solution. The so-called compromise is the plan you would never had considered without the crisis. Now I want to talk about action. Legal action. When PDAs were proposed to cities they had no idea that PDAs were a restriction on development inside of the Urban Growth Boundaries for a generation. Cities thought this was just a way to get funds for development and infrastructure in their core transportation areas. The One Bay Area Preferred Scenario, already passed by MTC and ABAG, states that roughly 80% of all new housing units are to be built in the Priority Development Areas. Enforcement appears to be based on whether or not the affected cities will be receiving transportation grants to support the new development. Non-compliance would mean less money for the cities that do not go along with the plan. One Bay Area states that 66% of all new employment is to be within PDA boundaries. Properties with commercial space, office buildings, factories, and industrial uses could be worthless under this plan if they are outside the PDAs. How would permits be granted and employment rights be given? Do the quotas for the PDAs have to be achieved first and then go to the respective 20% and 34% figures? What if those numbers are not achieved? What criteria will be used to decide who gets development rights and who doesn't? It is significant that ABAG population projections are roughly double those of the Department of Finance. ABAG and MTC project the Bay Area population to increase by 2 million by 2035, while the Dept of Finance estimates just 1.7 million by 2060. Over-predictions of population virtually guarantee that we will not reach the target development thresholds set by MTC/ABAG. Most cities have voter approved urban growth boundaries. The ordinances "encourage residential, commercial and industrial growth in areas served by urban services'. Development is to be encouraged on all property within the UGB. Within these boundaries property owners have a reasonable expectation to develop their property supported by city infrastructure in accordance with local regulations. The PDAs ignore these Urban Growth Boundaries and effectively create new ones; the new non-voter-approved PDAs for 25 years. This is a violation of local and state law. In addition to that, under the 5th amendment of the US constitution, the takings clause states that no land shall be taken without just compensation. Effectively creating an artificial restricted new Urban Growth Boundary within the existing Urban Growth Boundary is a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment of the US constitution. Most cities in California have increased density in all of their zoning—not just on residential zones. The General Plans have increased development potential at the same time that it will be restricted by One Bay Area. Furthermore, state law permits all single family residences in California to build a second unit if certain criteria are met. This law effectively upzoned all single family properties so that most have development potential. What the PDAs do is damage every SFR --single family property-- that does not have a second unit on it. That means most of us have legal standing. I have agreements with three law firms to independently review One Bay Area's Final Draft Plan when it is released next month. We want to stop this plan. If MTC and ABAG are able to push this through we will lose our constitutional protections all across the nation. We're not interested in a CEQA challenge. This is a fight to stop the plan itself. We need to get ready to get our wallets out because this will be the fight of the century. One last thing about this: When Hitler marched into Austria he met little resistance. Why? Because the dissenters had been rounded up in a single day and arrested. How were thousands of people identified in such a short time? Every gathering, like this one, had its spy. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a spy here in this room. This is a very serious action we are proposing and could have far reaching impacts on the entire country. So with that in mind I will say that if we lose against the MTC we will sue the cities and the counties. And as far as the news from the nation goes, the Resistance is growing fast and growing strong. There are people all across the country who will contribute to this fight. This year, 2013, will be the year that we reach critical awareness of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development. This year is the year that we break through. DONATE TO STOP THIS PLAN. CLOSE TO HOME --Submitted to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat
May 6, 2013 Rosa Koire Executive Director Post Sustainability Institute We are suing to stop Plan Bay Area, the nine county land use and transportation plan which is a violation of your constitutional rights and a shocking overreach of the experiment in regional governance. Our nation is a constitutional republic with a framework of direct election that rises from local government through county, state, and up to the federal level. This framework ensures that the peoples’ rights are protected and that our voices are heard. Plan Bay Area is designed to empower a layer of regional government between state and county, and ultimately between state and federal which renders our voices irrelevant. These regional boards are not elected by the people; the board members are selected out of elected officials who support regional goals. Regional boards like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) are holding the purse strings for state and federal transportation and grant dollars. MTC and ABAG have fabricated Plan Bay Area though they claim that it was crafted in response to the needs and desires of Bay Area residents. Most people have never heard of Plan Bay Area. Of the seven million residents of the Bay Area approximately three tenths of one percent have participated in the so-called planning sessions. These planning sessions were tailored to elicit responses that favor high density urban development (Smart Growth), the preferred scenario of Plan Bay Area. Those voicing a dissenting opinion were virtually ignored, labeled as NIMBYs, or as political fringe. As a liberal Democrat, registered since 1974, I recognize this kind of smear as a way of chilling our civil rights by attempting to intimidate those who reject Plan Bay Area’s blatant violation of property rights. PLAN BAY AREA violates the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution by taking property rights without just compensation. By the creation of Priority Development Areas this Plan restricts 80% of residential development and 66% of commercial development to just a few small areas of your city--until the year 2040. If your property is outside of the PDA (96% of property is outside) you will likely not be able to build or expand your building--and you won't be paid for this loss. PLAN BAY AREA violates the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution--the Equal Protection Clause. Owners of properties in the Priority Development Areas will receive development permits at a rate of approximately 80 times more than owners of property outside of the Priority Development Areas. PLAN BAY AREA violates voter-approved Urban Growth Boundary ordinances. Because the Priority Development Areas are within the UGBs but are much smaller restricted areas they are in violation of ordinances that clearly state that development must be encouraged out to the limits of city services: Urban Growth Boundaries. These ordinances are found throughout the Bay Area and cannot be changed without voter approval. PLAN BAY AREA permanently strips all development rights from rural properties in the nine county Bay Area. Plan Bay Area is effectively taking conservation easements on all rural lands without paying for them. PLAN BAY AREA restricts development rights of property within the Priority Development Areas, too. Construction will be limited to mixed-use high density Smart Growth development. Existing buildings are likely to be out of compliance with your city's General Plan (legal non-conforming) and permits to make additions or changes will likely not be granted. This Plan is dependent on tax subsidies and handouts and will devastate the Bay Area for more than a generation. Property rights are a foundation of our freedom and are non-partisan. Join us now in stopping Plan Bay Area. GOT PROPERTY RIGHTS? NOT UNDER PLAN BAY AREA/ONE BAY AREA.
A power legal challenge is being launched against this new regime of restricted property rights. Please click here for more information and to donate.  If you're new to learning about UN Agenda 21/ Sustainable Development you'd be understandably confused about what it is and how it impacts you and your area. You may be wondering how something that affects every aspect of your life including education, health care, law enforcement, energy, land use, and economic development could have eluded your attention for more than 20 years.
How could this have happened? This is a public relations campaign--the biggest. Your government knows that if you knew what the plan was about in 1992 you would have objected to living under a dictatorship. You would have objected to having your educational system converted to a social indoctrination camp. You would have been distressed to learn that representative government was to be transitioned to non-representational government by appointed boards and commissions that you have no control over. So the propaganda campaign was in full force to hide the source and goals of 'Sustainable Development.' It's only recently that the press even admits that UN Agenda 21 exists. Did the United Nations chose to call it the 'Agenda for the 21st Century' purposely in order to block further investigation? It sounds crazy. Up until very recently anyone who referred to UN Agenda 21 was labeled a 'conspiracy theorist' or a nut. Now the press acknowledges its existence but says it is a non-binding, twenty year old plan that has no impacts on local government. The United Nations, you are told, is ineffectual and the US just ignores proclamations and agreements it doesn't like. The rallying cry of Communitarianism pervades your newspaper, television, workplace, and school room as you are encouraged to 'give back,' to volunteer and to think about the common good. If you question you are considered selfish and you won't be invited to the communal bike rides and neighborhood parties. If you're like us you were a young progressive Democrat in November 1992 and thought Clinton was doing fine (well, a bit later we thought Don't Ask Don't Tell was rotten, and the war in Kosovo looked like a battle to control the heroin trade into Europe, and we thought it was nuts to give loans to people who couldn't afford them). Yes, you thought Clinton was doing fine now that Bush was out of office. You were excited to be part of a movement to encourage recycling and creative reuse. You felt good about yourself and thought Republicans were a bunch of flag-waving rednecks who ate raw meat and slept with their spurs on. You didn't know any Republicans personally, and you didn't want to. Your magazines--Earth Island Journal, Mother Jones, The Nation--were full of the degradation of the planet and the destruction of biodiversity. You were disgusted with developers, oil men, and big corporations and you blamed all of this on Republicans. After the Clinton impeachment trials you were even more convinced of the viciousness of the Republicans. You joined MoveOn.org and hosted political parties in your home. Later, 8 years of Bush Jr cemented your outlook even further. Hanging chads, yellow cake uranium, Jessica Lynch, Shock and Awe, Valerie Plame, Karl Rove, mailing anthrax to the Democrats, all of this and more drove a huge wedge in between the parties. As a Democrat you wouldn't even consider hanging a flag up on July 4th--people might think you were a Republican. Meanwhile, all of this time, the Sustainable Development machine moved forward. Both parties (feeding on corporate dollars) supported it, furthered it with legislation, strengthened the Environmental Protection Agency, and brought UN Agenda 21 principles into every federal agency--without your knowledge. When you did hear about it from the corporate owned mainstream press it was in glowing terms about saving the planet. You watched and suffered as your school systems were subjected to Goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind and Outcomes Based Education and Common Core never knowing that no matter how much money was thrown into these experiments in teaching and testing that your children would come out less able to live independent creative lives. Those who were diagnosed with learning disabilities were doused with drugs and warehoused for a dozen years--the silent illiterates. The kids who did well were overloaded with homework and staggering schedules that made office work seem like a relief. Right around 2002 the planning revolution exploded across America as Growing Smart: Legislative Guidebook with Model Statues for Planning and the Management of Change was brought into every planning department, university and college in the nation. Written by the American Planning Association and funded by a partnership between the federal government, Siemens Corporation, and wealthy foundations, this is the blueprint for the new laws and regulations being trotted out by your local city council and county supervisors. This planning revolution was sponsored by the President's Council on Sustainable Development (1993-1999) as the first major step in bringing UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development into the US. Every federal agency changed their policies to adhere to it. Those federal agencies are giving grants to local governments to implement it. The tracks of UN A21/SD are everywhere but the corporate press has lied about it for 20 years. When the press isn't pretending that it doesn't exist it does the next best thing: mocks anyone who questions or calls out Sustainable Development as a corporate takeover plot to eliminate pesky national boundaries and representative government. Using the lie of 'consensus' the corporation-funded non-profits go into neighborhoods and propagandize for programs and plans that give the illusion of strengthening the voice of the people. Instead that so-called consensus crafts public opinion and blocks anyone from dissenting. Yes, if you disagree with governance by unelected boards and commissions you'll be shamed and cut out of the herd. Money talks, baby. Left, right, center--money talks. Now that the Democrats are on top the rhetoric has changed but the big money corporations are still calling the shots. BP is Green! Siemens (the Nazi corporation) makes high speed trains and light rail and owns water rights and solar and wind and makes huge amounts of money from GREEN. Siemens also funded Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook. IBM (Nazi collaborator) makes biometrics technology and smart grid and retinal scans and systems for water agencies to monitor you. If you're a Democrat and you start saying the Emperor has no clothes you'll be rejected, mocked, shamed, and smeared. Not many people will be brave enough to QUESTION AUTHORITY if it means rejection from the tribe. Most Democrats will ignore objections to Sustainable Development as a right wing Republican attempt to sway hapless followers. It's easier than standing up and recognizing that the 1% is using green to manipulate the left. And the press? The corporate press is tasked with selling this to you and using the hard sell. The threat is that you'll be destroying the planet if you don't go along. They make it sound so good that you won't ask the question: If this is so good why has it been a secret for the last 20 years? If this is so good why was the economy pumped and dumped? If this is so good why are my kids struggling to read? If this is so good why did I lose my house? If this is so good why are we still in Iraq and Afghanistan? If this is so good why is every single land use plan in the United States identical? If this is so good why are corporations persons? If this is so good why can't Democrats and Republicans work together? If this is so good why was the National Defense Authorization Act passed? If this is so good why are we subject to domestic surveillance? If this is so good why are we on Prozac, Wellbutrin, and every other drug prescribed to make us not care? If you're identifying yourself as a Progressive Democrat you'll be inclined to think UN Agenda 21 is some fantasy of the right wing and laugh it off. Do you have the guts to admit that you've been wrong? Or will you listen to the corporate press and be duped? What does it take for you to realize that the left and right are fighting the same fight? It's the banks and big corporations buying off the government and non-profits. Global governance. New World Order behind the green mask. AWARENESS IS THE FIRST STEP IN THE RESISTANCE. |
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