Town Planning Officials Travel to Communist CUBA to Learn About Farming

City planner gets urban agricultural tips from trip to Cuba

DOVER — An international trip gave City Planner Chris Parker a chance to learn how to implement urban agricultural strategies closer to home.

In November, Parker was one of 400 people — eight from the Granite State — to attend a conference in Cuba and learn more about the practice of urban agriculture. Parker was among several city planners nationwide to participate. Overall, representatives from 39 countries took part.

Parker said the conference was an opportunity for him to learn more about a subject that has interested him for several years. The City of Dover currently has a community garden, about a half-acre of space located off Sixth Street, where participants grow mostly vegetables. He said he hopes his time in Cuba will help him find innovative ways to encourage others to participate in this unusual brand of farming.

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Now you have to ask, why would we need urban gardening? And why would we need to let a COMMUNIST COUNTRY who can’t feed its own people, teach US about gardening?

Dover’s Cuban Aggie!

Dover Taxpayers, it looks like we have other citizens who understand Dover City Planner C. Parker’s Cuban Escapade Scheme.

Fosters, you printed a response from Mr. Parker on Jan 10, 2014. Mr. Parker mentioned he “hoped his time in Cuba will help him find innovative ways to encourage others to participate”!

Mr Parker wants us to believe he’s interested in Cuban agricultural strategies. A communist country, is more aligned to Mr. Parker’s ideals, as long as he maintains that level of superiority and control here.  Right! Like Che Guevara redistributed land to the peasants. Maybe he should have bought Che’s tedious “Guerrilla Warfare” or read Che’s own accounts on how this once Medical Doctor, relished in mass murder as a “tool” of political influence. At least if he had read the book, Mr. Parker could have consolidated centralized power as Che recommended. Much different than Al Qaeda’s loose “franchise” model of terrorism today. Maybe he should have bought a copy of “Farming Magazine,” (Amish, Mount Hope, OH) from about two years ago, when they did an entire multi-page story about Cuba’s gardens as a need to provide food. Because as most know, Cuba is WAY short of basic FOOD!

Who were the eight other NH attendees to this conference? Why aren’t they “celebrating” this totally functional trip? Most of us aren’t “HIP-Hop Stars, so we can’t just fly over to a communist country. How did he get there and was it US State Department approved? Was the trip  public or privately funded?..OH! $460 came from city funds. What are their positions/titles within the community? I certainly hope someone from the critically acclaimed Strafford County Regional Planning “team” was in attendance. They certainly wouldn’t want to leave any “regulatory stone” unturned. There are probably differing “compliance” factors in Cuba. I’m sure they could learn about better “compartmentalization” to help all these SOLONS avoid the dreaded “Right To Know Law”

Agriculture takes 20% of the working population to produce 10% of the food. Cuba imports 80% of the food it consumes, and then rations it to the public.

Cuba imports 90% of it’s fuel. That 1949 De Soto coup don’t run on water! One would think being in the “Torrid Zone” they would have a longer growing season than New England. Yet, it’s still not enough in a communist country.

You know, on any given day, I could see someone in their garden and ask how their plants are growing. Most likely they’d be glad to share more information than I ever wanted. Politicians are above that! They would rather go somewhere where people might think they’re important. I guess there is nothing like a trip to Cuba to “mind-meld” with people who know how to control their subject!

Isn’t  it good to know where our “potentates” stand? I hope Mr. Parker’s next venture will be to the Antarctic in July to learn how to make snow cones. But then again, what would the rescue cost be? Taxpayers should call for an outside investigation of this mess, and the entire details made public!

– Lou Archambault, SMSgt USAF (Ret)
Rochester

Feds Trying to Take Over Planning and Zoning in NH

An excellent citizen letter on the subject was published today in the Laconia Daily Sun.

To The Daily Sun,

On Thursday, January 30, Gerald Coogan, an unelected official who’s on the payroll of the Lakes Region Planning Commission, sent in a correction to another local newspaper about the “official” website for the massive federal top-down planning program called the Granite State Future.

I went to both websites, www.granitestatefuture.org and www.GraniteStateFutures.org and was stunned at how the official website is lacking in-depth information about what’s going on with this federal planning and zoning program.

Why is that? Why doesn’t the official website contain the following scary statement on their home page taken from one of the official Granite State Future documents? The abstract of the Granite State Future project summary says on page 15:

“Anticipated barriers (to incorporate the Granite State Future plans), including N.H.’s strong tradition of individual property rights and resultant resistance to planning and zoning; and a currently strained state budget that will limit state agency’s capacity to conduct future planning efforts.”

Ouch! You didn’t have to get an A in high school English to understand that.


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Mills Scenic Byway Another Thing You Don’t Need

Come Learn More About the Proposed Mills Scenic Byway!

Come share your input, comments, and constructive feedback on the proposed 12 mile byway that would travel through Newmarket, Durham, Madbury, and Rollinsford.

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Photo Credit: Eric Gendron

Wednesday, January 29, 2014
7PM to 9PM
Durham Public Library
49 Madbury Road, Durham, NH

The proposed Mills Scenic Byway is a 12.1 mile route that travels through the Towns of Newmarket, Durham, Madbury, and Rollinsford. This route offers a clear depiction of small, yet vital communities, located along the coastal shores of the Lamprey, Oyster, Bellamy, Salmon Falls, and Cocheco Rivers while retaining the character and appeal of historic mill towns. These charming scenes paint an illustration of New England river towns that possess a past that has seen a steady transformation from early sawmills to a thriving textile industry, which has in turn given way to dozens of smaller businesses and residential opportunities.

In the spring of 2012, all four participating communities endorsed the Mills Scenic Byway’s proposed designation by writing letters of support, which were signed by each governing body. The Byway was then given conditional approval by the NH Scenic and Cultural Byway Council on November 6, 2013. In order for the Council to officially designate the Mills Scenic Byway as a state byway a public hearing is required.

Upon completion of this public hearing the State Byway Council will consider designation of the Byway at its next meeting, to be held on May 8, 2014.

For more information:

Kyle Pimental, Senior Regional Planner
Strafford Regional Planning Commission
603.994.3500
kpimental@strafford.org

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Letter to Reps and Editors

Dover residents nearly had taxes imposed on their roofs, driveways and walkways. You will see this “impervious surfaces” tax rear its ugly head in every town, eventually, if it is not stopped. To highlight the importance of letters to the editor, here is one very excellent example of a letter a Dover resident sent to her representatives and could also have been sent to her newspaper:

Honorable Members of The House Municipal and County Government Committee;

I wish to express to each of you my strong support for HB 1573. Here in New Hampshire — the “Live Free or Die” state — we must take a strong stand against yet another Federal Government intrusion based on the Marxist concept of central planning. HUD’s mandate to Regional Planning Commissions to “mitigate” private and individual property rights is in direct violation of our Constitution with no accountability to the taxpayers. Planning Boards — if needed at all — should be elected locally, funded locally, and accountable locally. The whole movement being perpetrated by HUD is clearly in lock-step with the U.N. Agenda 21 — which has a clear mission of forcing the United States into surrendering its sovereignty to a central world plan of redistribution of resources controlled by a group of third world thugs. A clear example of this nefarious plot occurred last fall here in Dover, New Hampshire.

Christopher Parker, Dover’s Director of Planning and Community Development went on a junket to Cuba for the stated purpose of “implementing urban agricultural strategies.” If he wanted to learn about agriculture, he could have taken a short trip to The Thompson School of Agriculture at U.N.H. in Durham — one of the very best schools specializing in the subject. Why would he go to Cuba, which has a tropical climate, and is a communist country with socialized agriculture and central government planning? What is Castro’s Cuba good at? Mr. Parker’s claim that Dover “has been working to boost participation at the community garden” is the main reason for going to Cuba, and that “he hopes his time in Cuba will help him find innovative ways to encourage others to participate in this unusual brand of farming.” With government spending at record levels, our city fathers think that it’s a priority to expand a half-acre community garden? All this begs the question: Did he go to Cuba to learn about agriculture and help local farmers, or did he go to learn how to increase government’s control of (i.e., socialize) farming? America has been the “world’s bread basket” because farmers have been free to do what they do best: grow food. The Soviet-style state-controlled farms that Cuba has had have been repeatedly shown to be failures. Why, then, the trip? Was it to learn better farming methods or to learn techniques to get government’s nose into yet another segment of American enterprise? We’re in the throes of coping with the introduction of socialized medicine, and now the seeds are being sown for the next step in the destruction of American exceptionalism: socialized agriculture. I smell what could be a rat, but it is probably the stench of the Marxist U.N. Agenda 21 lurking in the shadows.

Respectfully submitted,
Jean L. LaBrack
Dover, NH

Jean eventually did submit to Fosters and it was printed.

Big Turnout for HB 1573

Yesterday supporters of HB 1573 (a bill to rid us of this regional nightmare in NH) was heard before the Municipal and County Government Committee of the NH House of Representatives.

Rep Jane Cormier, the sponsor of the bill, kicked off the testimony.

Reports were that the chairperson, Rep. Porter, said at the opening of the hearing that it was the biggest attendance by the public she’s ever seen at any of her committee meetings.

It was standing room only. Many packed along the wall and a few in the hallway.

So many wanted to testify, that each person was only given three minutes.

According to one activist in attendance, “Everyone testifying AGAINST the bill, of course, had a dog in the fight. Some financial interest. All testifying in SUPPORT also had a dog in the fight, “our private property RIGHTS.””

You can still write to the committee in support of this bill!

Follow its status here.


If the above video does not appear on your device, use this direct link: http://youtu.be/uyOGCwS-peU

Regional Invaders Are EVERYWHERE

Behold western New York’s regional plan, “One Region Forward” and their slick website. It’s a virtual PR campaign for Agenda 21.

One Region Forward

It has all the familiar buzzwords and doesn’t attempt to hide what it is about. No need to translate for those of you who are experienced in fighting this, but for newbies to this site, we’ll give you a little overview.

Sustainability – What does this even mean? This is the hook, the scare tactic, that makes people think if they don’t hop on the regional bandwagon, something terrible will happen. Chances are the ‘data’ they are using has long been debunked. Chances are it came from the United Nation’s IPCC. Create the problem, then provide the solution. This is called the Hegelian Dialect.

Public Engagement – Only a very small percentage of the population even know what these unelected groups are plotting for controlling their “…land use, transportation, housing, energy and climate, access to food, and more.” The wording is almost exactly the same as what we have seen for Granite State Future in NH.

Visioning – Whose ideas are these anyway? These sessions are where these unelected boards for the shadow government known as regionalism are duping a small percentage of the public into thinking these ideas came from them. If your area is doing visioning, it’s best to get to these sessions ASAP and start challenging them. They will try to ‘lead’ you to the ‘right’ decisions. This is called the Delphi Technique.

Why We Plan – Make no mistake about it, this is not about anything other than herding the populace into metropolitan areas for the purpose of CONTROL. This is called New Urbanism. As the site says “One Region Forward is directed by a steering committee composed of government, nonprofit, and academic organizations with capacity and experience in transportation, housing, economic development, community health, public engagement, and regional planning.” So your tax dollars are funding a bunch of unelected soviet-style boards, who are partnering with academics and special interest groups, and corporations and crony capitalists, to determine where you can live, how you can travel, what you can eat, how much medical care you can receive, how much energy you can use, and even what your children will learn in school!

New Urbanism – Events with speakers from the Congress for New Urbanism are featured prominently on the sidebar. Some of these folks come straight from the Kyoto agreement meetings of the 1990s. Others are Democrats like John Norquist, who leads the Congress for the New Urbanism. They are either stupid or complicit. We think it’s the latter.

Sustainable Communities Planning Grants – One Region Forward, like every other of these poisonous programs, is made possible by the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning program from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Our federal government is fully committed to promoting the policies put forth in Agenda 21 as we see from the Congressional testimony of Nancy Pelosi and the listing in the Federal Register, as previously laid out by the UN in Kyoto in the 1990s, using illegally created agencies such as HUD, EPA, and the DOT and YOUR OWN TAX DOLLARS. Sadly people must learn that this money is not free, it is their own tax money, and in fact, it is being used against them.

It clearly states:
“The program is part of the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a collaborative effort between HUD, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to coordinate federal investments in smarter ways and to help regions develop plans and strategies that tackle the inter-dependent issues of housing, land use, transportation, environmental stewardship and economic development. The Erie and Niagara County Consortium leading One Region Forward was one of 29 communities out of 140 applicants nationally to win this competitive grant in 2011.”

Niagra may have ‘won’ this grant, but the people won’t win anything once the mandates are forced upon them as part of the agreement. In fact they will be giving up more and more of their rights and freedoms if they participate in this supposedly voluntary effort, an effort that is more about control by the global elites.

It is a deal with the devil.

Florida Regionalists Propaganda Machine

Florida’s regionalists are not happy with the activism of the Florida citizens who wish to pull out of the “Seven50” (now reduced to Three50) program.

They in fact blatantly lie about the situation with Westchester, claiming that Westchester did not fulfill its obligations under their own HUD grant.

This of course is NOT true. HUD wanted MORE than was asked for in the grant.

Once again they are calling Rob Astorino a liar.

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Gilford Says No More Dues to the LRPC

Gilford BudCom strikes 2014 funds for regional planning commission

As more and more towns are seeing the folly of regional government, they are voting to withdraw from the regional planning commissions as well as opting out of Granite State Future.

GILFORD — The Budget Committee voted last week to eliminate $8,500 for funding for the Lakes Region Planning Commission from the proposed 2014 town spending plan.

LRPC dues are part of a line item in the Planning Department’s budget.

According to Budget Committee Vice Chair Kevin Leandro, the vote came after very little discussion on a motion by member Sue Greene. He didn’t recall the actual vote but said at least seven members of the 12-member committee supported withdrawing, including Chair Phyllis Corrigan.

Greene said yesterday that in her mind the LRPC is an additional layer of government and politics not needed by the town of Gilford or its residents. She also said she couldn’t justify the $8,500 an year.

About two-thirds of the funding for regional planning commissions comes from state and federal sources and Green said the LRPC expends $369,000 to its employees in salaries alone.

“Planning decisions need to be made by local planning boards,” she said. “It’s another area where local decisions are impeded.”

Good for you Gilford. Your residents will thank you.