You’ve read about how some towns are members of Smart Growth America, an NGO that is pushing regionalism, urbanism, trains, and compact housing among other things.
Be aware that your town may be seeking training from these folks in the way of free annual workshops.
Read about it here:
http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/technical-assistance/free-annual-workshops
*FREE* Event: 9/19 Smarter Community Development in NH
What: i2i Symposium Series “Smarter Community Development for New Hampshire”
Where: Take Root Coworking – 359 Central Street, Franklin, New Hampshire 03235
When: September 19th, 9:00am-12:30pm
Cost: FREE*
Registration:*You must register to attend. Registration ends 9/12. Register HERE!
The New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA) invites you to experience internationally acclaimed sustainability and regenerative community planning expert Bill Reed to discuss new ways New Hampshire can address community development in the 21st century.
Bill will lead an engaging conversation that will focus on holistic community development strategies that will help New Hampshire communities build effective, long-term visions that take into account local evolving economic and social patterns.
Attendees will enjoy a breakfast supplied by local businesses and have the opportunity to learn more about the great work being done to revitalize downtown Franklin.
Deadline to register is September 12. Space is limited.
(Perhaps you can still register…)
The Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce is planning some regional-style discussions for September 8, 2016-January 12, 2017. If you want to stop things such as transit-oriented neighborhoods, and compact cities, now is the time to speak up!
Name: IMPACT: Regional Issues Series
Date: September 8, 2016
Time: 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
Website: Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce
Register Now
The economic climate of New Hampshire and our Souhegan Valley region is changing and creating challenges to continued growth. A number of factors are impacting these changes, such as demographics, our business climate and the rural/suburban nature of area and state. In this series, we will examine five of the factors affecting or prohibiting the potential economic development of the Souhegan Valley and New Hampshire as a whole.
From September to January, the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce and Nashua Regional Planning Commission will host a speakers series, bringing a panel together to discuss these factors. Our purpose is to educate, spark discussion and broaden understanding of the issues to our citizens.
Series Topics:
Regional Transportation – September 8 at the Milford Town Hall Auditorium. Would a regional transportation system make sense for the Souhegan Valley? Is it necessary and would the impact be positive? We will discuss the potential for extending bus service from Nashua, how a potential rail project would impact our region, and what would be the return on investment to our towns. Special Guest Speaker is NH Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Victoria Sheehan.
Workforce Development & Population Health – October 13 at Souhegan High School, Amherst. Local businesses are facing a crisis in the lack of a plentiful, skilled workforce. Although the unemployment rate is low, businesses cannot find the workers they need to grow and meet demand. We will examine the reasons for this crisis and discuss how our education system, demographics and health of our residents affect this issue.
Infrastructure – November 10 at Pine Hill Waldorf School, Wilton. How does the physical (roads,bridges, water and sewer) affect our communities’ potential for growth? What about the digital (broadband and cell phone coverage)? Maintaining infrastructure is one of the topmost challenges and expense facing our towns.
Energy – December 8, Hollis Social Library, Hollis. New Hampshire is one of the most expensive states for energy for bother residential, commercial and industrial. The high cost of energy directly affects our manufacturing sector, the number one provider of jobs in our state. We will look at how energy costs impact our potential for growth.
Tourism, Arts & Culture – January 12 (snow date Jan. 19), Brookline Town Hall. The Creative Economy, attracting visitors, the NonProfit world and more.
All workshops are free and open to the public.
Barack Obama is spending the next months dismantling the last shreds of our free market America.
HUD is his weapon and he wields its new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule like a concrete block. He batters communities into changing or ignoring their own zoning laws and allowing the government to dictate community planning.
Local officials submit to the government out of fear they will lose grant money or face bankrupting lawsuits.
As civil rights plaintiff firm Relman, Dane and Colfax said, just the threat of removing the money is enough to bring most communities in line. If it takes lawsuits to force them to abide by HUD, says attorney Michael Allen, “My firm stands ready to do its part. Anyone with me?”
Legal motivation is only the beginning. On June 8, 2016, the AFFH program evolved into a master plan that enables federal control of virtually every aspect of local planning and community living.
For months, the agency warned officials that the new AFFH was merely a platform for HUD’s aggressive interpretations of the Fair Housing Act. Interpretations that impact education, transportation, jobs and housing. Affordable housing is now nothing more than a launch pad for total community control.
Please help me stop this insidious program.
In June, HUD sent an official letter stating their intention to partner with the Departments of Education and Transportation to introduce “socioeconomic diversity” into elementary and secondary classrooms.
Here is why.
HUD is not content with people living in in areas they can afford. The administration argues if low-income families cannot afford to live in affluent areas, then local zoning laws are depriving them of opportunities. That means the community must correct the imbalance or risk facing charges of economic segregation and discrimination.
That is what happened to Baltimore County when three HUD residents joined with the local NAACP to complain to HUD that they did not live in prosperous enough areas. HUD forced the County to build 1000 new affordable homes and move 2000 section 8 recipients, all into affluent areas.
Obama then moved beyond affordable housing into classrooms.
He wants to desegregate schools that have been integrated for decades, using enforced diversity quotas. The administration will convert existing federal offices into regional Equity Assistance Centers for “the preparation, adoption, and implementation of plans for the desegregation of public schools.”
Got that. Obama says your community is guilty of discrimination if people live in neighborhoods they can afford, and HUD will address the problem by desegregating your school and calling it “socioeconomic diversity.” This change will happen regardless of local officials’ opposition, regardless of local school board decisions and regardless of voters’ choices.
SFL is fighting this in communities right now and, please, we need your help.
DOT is involved in the partnership because, according to Transportation Sec. Anthony Fox, “too many people lack the transportation options they need to pursue…high quality education, good paying jobs, and affordable housing.”
That means the HUD partnership will soon dictate planning outcomes that include high-density housing and mixed use developments near transit-oriented living.
Does that sound like regional planning? It should. The new AFFH application requires grant recipients to merge their zoning plans with those of the larger region, thereby enabling the region to annex the nearby smaller communities.
HUD’s platform has spilled over to Common Core in an effort to control what HUD calls, “adult outcomes.”
In Westchester County, still fighting back from 7 years of HUD’s relentless attacks, the government is shutting down parents that oppose Common Core.
Obama is threatening to withdraw Title I funds, the education money the feds send to the states, if the County has more than 5% of its students skipping the Common Core high stakes testing.
Obama knows that nearly 20% of parents already pulled their children from the damaging tests.
In spite of three laws prohibiting the federal government from interfering in local educations, they are not only interfering, they are hostilely taking it over and silencing any opposing parents or school boards.
We must stop HUD and all federal agencies from crushing local rule and turning community members into subjects.
H/T: John Anthony
This information is courtesy of John Anthony the Founder of “Property Value Defense”. He is but one of the few people keeping us informed on what other towns are doing in other states to keep HUD influence out of local affairs.
Ringwood is a wooded community in a beautiful lake area of northwestern, NJ. Over the years, the borough has accepted HUD grant money as a pass down from larger Passaic County.
In July 2015, HUD underwent a radical change. While the agency’s grant names and terminology remain the similar, HUD took copious latitude in redefining their authority under the Fair Housing Act; and their revised enforcement methods establish severe legal risks never before encountered by most communities.
HUD’s “radicalization” can be hard to grasp, especially when jurisdictions have a long history of accepting their funds, as was the case with Ringwood.
In this edition, I included excerpts from the Borough’s public minutes. They are an excellent record of what can happen when local public officials stay informed and works together with community members.
EXCERPTS FROM JULY 19, 2016 MINUTES FROM RINGWOOD NJ
Pam Herbig, 14 Maple Road, Ringwood
I am here about the Passaic County Community Development Block Grant Program, I oppose the grant, and it is in conjunction with HUD. You should have sufficient time to read and understand about this program. If you continue to accept the HUD grant, we will be forced to prepare detailed taxpayer finance studies of our schools, retail, housing and other community agents to HUD. Mr. Obama is trying to pass this. I request you postpone this resolution until you have time to go over it, I think it will be a detriment to Ringwood, we don’t need this in Ringwood. If you don’t accept it, we won’t have it.
(You will notice that Mayor Speer already knows of the HUD changes. He also makes it clear he is “in favor of going for the CDBG program for this next cycle.”)
Mayor Speer
I have been looking at this since 2013. Stanley Kurtz does great reporting on what is going on with this fair housing rule. They have a gag order against Westchester County. He can’t even speak to his people about what they are doing up there. I am by nature opposed to any kind of Federal zoning. I am in favor of going for the CDBG program for this next cycle.
We are part of the Passaic County CDBG jurisdiction. In Passaic County you have four cities that go on their own for CDBG funds. There are 12 towns that are in the jurisdiction of Passaic County. We are going to be grouped in whether or not we sign this agreement. They are going to be producing a document, an AFH document for this next round. That is going to discuss the demographics of the Borough of Ringwood and its housing opportunity. In the previous three-year cycle of CBDG, it was called an analysis of impediments. I am not too concerned about them forcing development down our throat especially when we have COAH. We have to try and meet some kind of standards somewhere. The Highlands Council came out and told us we have three or four buildable lots in Ringwood.
Al Frick, Wayne, NJ
I have been following HUD for the last eight years. I grew up in the city and I moved to the suburbs. If you have taken CDBG grants before, everything changed in July 2015 with the affirmative fair housing was always in there. They added 377 new pages. In one section they say we won’t change your zoning, but if your zoning happens to conflict with the Fair Housing Act, then that is of concern. They never really spell out for you what the Fair Housing Act now happens to control. Once you sign on the line, you sign a contract that you will do whatever the plan turns out to be for that Fair Housing Assessment.
The data that you must use is HUD data. You must invite participation from the community, civil rights groups, community developments, community development organizations and developer. When these people are in on your plan, they have to be in for every step of the way. If they don’t like what you are doing, they concede. There are a lot of strings attached to this that was not attached before. You have the zoning issues, the call for participation from outside groups, and the identification of solutions. HUD will provide you with a list of 40 barriers that you should consider. Once you take the money you can’t get out of it.
(Al makes an important point below. The wording in the AFFH ruling is accurate, but somewhat deceptive. Actually,HUD wants nothing to do with a community’s zoning laws. However, to affirmatively further fair housing, grantees may be required to ignore or change them themselves. In other words, HUD is in control.)
The rule does not impose any land use decisions or zoning laws on any local government.
However a paragraph later says, but we will assist recipients to adjust their land use and zoning laws to meet their legal obligation to Affirmative Fair Housing.
Nancy Masasi Wanaque, NJ
Some of the things that Wanaque said is we want the funding for our roads and sewers. We don’t use it for housing. It doesn’t matter. If you sign up with a resolution, you are agreeing to follow all the rules of COAH and the AFH, you are going to fill out this application. You are providing them with the information that you are not compliant with these new regulations. This Council is from a region, not local people. You can have civil rights groups from other areas to come in to your town and tell you what they think you will need. I would ask you to consider not voting for it until you have thoroughly vetted the entire process and know what is going on.
Connie Hernandez, 18 Pequot Terrace
I am against the HUD program. A long time ago there was talk about putting apartments on top of the hopping areas. We don’t have the infrastructure for a lot of additional kids and transportation. Can you consider not voting on this resolution tonight?
(As you can see, the Council moved to delay the vote and study the HUD issue further.)
On a motion by Councilman Marsala, seconded by Councilwoman Schaefer the Council tabled Resolution 2016-171 I order to educate themselves in the changes to CDBG.
Ryan Bolton, 28 Glen Road
Thank you for having the public comment section going on for so long, he also thanked the Council for scheduling the public hearing dedicated to the petition.
At the next meeting in August, the Council voted on the HUD issue. Two members, who were also Passaic County employees, abstained. The remaining four attending Council members voted unanimously to reject accepting HUD money through the County.
This is what happens when informed public officials and community members work together.
In a bold move, HUD partnered with the Departments of Transportation and Education to create a massive alteration in the way children experience school. The program is designed to help low-income families grow financially. Instead, it accomplishes something much different.
HUD Moves to Dictate Classroom Diversity
by John Anthony, Sustainable Freedom Lab
HUD is the ‘gold’ standard of dangerously unchecked bureaucracies. “Dangerously” because the agency’s zealous moves already threaten property owners’ choices and undermine the authority of local public officials.
Now HUD wants to move that control into the classroom.
In a joint meeting with members from the Departments of Education and Transportation, HUD presented their plan to embed socio-economic diversity in America’s schoolrooms.
Based on controversial reports, often using HUD provided data; the agency concludes that people living in wealthier areas have a better chance for success. Therefore, they reason, to create upward mobility for voucher recipients, HUD must relocate them into affluent neighborhoods and schools.
The agency is pulling three federal departments together to micro-manage the racial, ethnic and economic mix of students in America’s elementary and secondary classrooms.
“Diversity benefits all students in our schools,” said U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr., one of the leaders of the administration’s program. “Students who attend diverse schools will be better prepared to live and work, and be active citizens in today’s world.”
Unfortunately, Sec. King has little idea of what it takes to prepare students. In 2014, he was forced to resign as New York State Commissioner of Education, partially for blaming the failures of his Common Core implementation on “ignorant” children.
Kings performance was so abysmal; New York’s largest teachers union unanimously approved a vote of “no confidence” in his policies. That “failure” is now the US Secretary of Education.
As Jessica McNair, an Oneida County, NY educator commented, “Congress [must] take power out of the hands of the Department of Education. Otherwise, John King will continue to wreak damage on our public school children and their schools.”
McNair’s remarks were prescient.
Rather than promote education, King wants to transplant HUD recipients into more upscale “areas of opportunity.”
Under the Obama administration’s progressive educational approach, local control of education is a dinosaur. Reading, writing and arithmetic are incidental. Diversity is their new key to prosperity.
HUD proposes the development of regional Equity Assistance Centers to provide technical assistance to school districts to increase socioeconomic diversity and desegregate their schools.
For Obama, this is another step toward reducing what he calls, America’s “legacy of housing discrimination and segregation.”
HUD fuels its new classroom diversity with its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. Under AFFH, HUD ignored Congress’ constraints in the Fair Housing Act. The agency granted itself authority over housing, education, transportation and now, “socioeconomic diversity.”
The administration contends their plans are too important to be confined to any “one jurisdiction’s borders” and promotes regional solutions to accomplish its goals. HUD wants state and local educational agencies to select new sites for schools, have boundary-free open enrollment and establish more charter schools.
The Secretary wants to create better land use and planning strategies. Working in tandem, HUD, ED and DOT encourage communities to align public transportation routes, sidewalk construction, and related bus stops with schools and housing facilities. HUD wants complete streets, mass transportation, and a community participation process.
If this sounds like a backdoor to regional sustainable development, rather than economic mobility, you are right. The Department of Education even blames the urban planner’s archenemy, ‘urban sprawl,’ for decreased economic opportunities. Suddenly the replacement of local governments with unaccountable regional councils is for “the children.”
For now, HUD’s socioeconomic diversity program is voluntary. But with millions of dollars in planning and training of staff to operate Equity Assistance Centers, it will soon be more than a voluntary option.
As explained in the report, Agency Tyranny, HUD’s AFFH rule obligates grant recipients to affirmatively further fair housing for all projects involving fair housing and urban development. If that strategy fails to convince hesitant communities to comply, there is always the threat of a disparate impact suit.
Shifting voucher recipients from one classroom to another does little to provide the drive, experience and emotional maturity necessary for success. It does even less to create good-paying jobs.
HUD is exploiting parents’ desires to help their children, as cover to replace local government with regional authorities using the legal muscle of AFFH.
It is time to recognize that incompetent bureaucrats and out of control federal agencies are the real enemies of economic mobility.
We’ve warned about the VMT (vehicle miles traveled) tax before, and there are people considering it. Link to I-95 Corridor Coalition added.
NH shouldn’t tax our odometers
By Rep. RICK LADD
NEW HAMPSHIRE’S STATE GAS TAX is currently set at 22.2 cents per gallon. This price is slightly less than the 24 cents per gallon paid in Massachusetts and much less than the 30 cents per gallon paid in Maine. With the exception of the 4.2 cents per gallon increase in 2014, New Hampshire’s tax on gasoline has remained relatively flat over the years.
The Department of Transportation, along with a number of departments and agencies, rely upon this source of revenue in order to support daily operations; however, with the increasing numbers of fuel efficient and electric vehicles, the department’s operating revenue has decreased.
Some vehicles are simply traveling farther on the same amount of gas; therefore, less gas is being used. This is a win for the consumer and environment, but decreasing revenue is counter-productive to highway and bridge maintenance.
In an effort to remedy the revenue issue, there appears to be an effort by several states to pursue a study of a mileage-based tax. Rather than being taxed for gas used, drivers would be taxed on miles driven. The mileage-based tax concept presents a whole host of bothersome issues such as financial hardship to those dependent upon high volume highway use and for all, privacy issues regarding how the government would collect and track data.
Accordingly, it is somewhat shocking to learn that a federal grant application was submitted by the Delaware DOT on behalf of the I-95 Corridor Coalition, a consortium of 16 states. It proposes pilot programs in five states — Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and another yet to be determined — designed to learn more about mileage-based user fees, and to evaluate implementation alternatives.
The total cost of the grant program is $2.98 million, of which $1.49 million comes from the federal government, with the remainder coming from individual states with matching funds. Connecticut has committed $300,000, Delaware and Pennsylvania would each pay $290,000 in cash, and Vermont would contribute $30,000 for planning and analysis. Instead of cash, the pilot program application reflects New Hampshire’s match share in the amount of $580,000 in toll credits.
Can New Hampshire afford to redirect more than a half-million dollars of toll credits needed for road maintenance and red-listed bridges in order to support a fee-per-mile taxation study?
The state budget-making process is built upon prioritizing needs and doing so through an open, transparent process involving public input. Redirecting toll revenue midstream during a budget cycle is contrary to that process and invites needed legislative oversight.
Mileage-based taxation generates a number of serious issues, of which protection of personal information and data is foremost. How is Big Brother going to obtain data identifying miles driven, and will this information remain protected and confidential?
If a scheme such as this does move forward, how will the state ascertain taxable miles driven in New Hampshire versus miles driven in another state or country? If mileage-based taxation becomes reality, how will North Country residents be impacted where traveling longer distances is required for work or other daily needs?
And, if a fee-per-mile study becomes reality in New Hampshire, how would this taxation scheme apply to vacationers from out-of-state?
Learning about the I-95 Coalition fee-per-mile study application and of New Hampshire’s decision to pilot the program with $580,000 from state toll credits is unsettling to this member of the Legislature.
—
Rep. Rick Ladd, R-Haverhill, is in his fourth term in the New Hampshire House.
The latest from John Anthony at Property Value Defense…
HUD’s Rickety World of Worthless Words
When public officials first learn how HUD’s new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule can force communities to overturn voters’ decisions and ignore their own zoning laws, often their first comment is, “Let’s check with HUD. We can’t afford to lose the grant money.”
Officials are rightly worried. HUD’s own documents show the agency has markedly increased their legal actions against grant recipients.
But, according to the Ninth Circuit Court, assurances from federal agency representatives may not be worth much:
In 1999, Big Meadows Grazing of Flathead County, Montana entered into a conservation easement with the US. Department of Agriculture. Prior to signing the contract, agency representatives assured Big Meadows that both parties would participate in restoration activities on the “eased” land. They estimated a needed riparian fix would cost $80,000. The government even provided a “manual” outlining the intended work and relationship.
Several months later, over Big Meadows’ objections, the government completed a massively larger “fix” than discussed, and billed the grazing association for $486,000. Outraged at what they considered deception, Big Meadows sued the government.
The results were devastating.
The court decided that “the Manual cannot bind the government because it… [was not] promulgated according to the Administrative Procedure Act.” As for the assurances of cooperation from government representatives, the court was blunt, “We will not review allegations of noncompliance with an agency statement that is not binding on the agency.”
Assurances, written notes and even manuals offered by federal representatives, unless they are in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act, which includes entry into the Federal Register, are nothing more than non-binding words.
As Big Meadows learned, those words can be costly.
Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing is a binding rule with the force of law. It relies on grassroots civic groups and legal advocates to compel local communities to bend their zoning laws to the government’s will.
Worse, as Douglas County, CO discovered, HUD’s legal requirements are a moving target, hard to define and harder to hit.
No matter what your HUD representative says, in a court of law, it is the contract that matters.
If HUD Says This, Call Your Attorney
HUD representatives offer grantee communities much AFFH advice. Some is valuable and others misleading. Here are the two most frequently cited remarks our members have shared regarding HUD advice, and PVD’s response.
HUD comment:
“Our HUD representative told us we did not have to worry about our Community Development Block Grant funds under AFFH, because our community has a much different situation than Westchester County.” (Westchester was the first county sued under the False Claims Act for failure to affirmatively further fair housing. It became the basis for HUD’s new litigious direction.)
PVD response:
Every jurisdiction that has faced HUD actions from compliance reviews to lawsuit intervention is unique. Westchester County, Marin County, Rockford, IL, Dubuque IA, among many others are each different situations resulting in various legal actions based on the False Claims Act, supposed civil rights violations and Disparate Impact issues.
To suggest that your community can accept CDBG grants that fall under AFFH with little concern because it is unique is misleading.
HUD comment:
“AFFH should not be a large concern because your community is already in compliance.”
PVD response:
There is little way for HUD to know if you are in compliance until you complete the new Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH). Even then, according to the Federal Register, HUD’s acceptance of an AFH “does not mean that HUD has determined that a jurisdiction has complied with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing under the Fair Housing Act; has complied with other provisions of the Act; or has complied with other civil rights laws, regulations or guidance.” §5.162(a)(2)
In addition, AFFH requires that instead of refraining from discrimination in housing as in the past, fund recipients must now work to end it by taking steps that go far beyond the construction of affordable housing.
Finally, HUD’s new expansive interpretation of the Fair Housing Act allows the agency to oversee community economic diversity, classroom socioeconomic diversity, encourage planned communities to foster upward mobility for low-income families and involve the Department of Transportation to assist in reducing poverty by “establishing access points for opportunity and mobility.”
Using AFFH as a platform, HUD has expanded affordable housing into large scale social engineering.
Stay informed and stay in control,
John Anthony, Founder
Sustainable Freedom Lab and Property Value Defense
Visit PVD on FaceBook and consider donationg to John’s group, as with Tom DeWeese, they provide the results of major research into what is happening with this situation.
*Neither PVD nor Sustainable Freedom Lab are attorneys. This email is not intended to provide legal advice. As always consult your legal advisors before entering into any agreement with the federal government or any other entities.
Here is an invitation to a presentation on Complete Streets movement, a which was inspired by the US’s goal to effectively enforce the UN’s MDGs and SDGs.
If you live in this area, you are certainly going to want to attend this breakfast.
Please note at the bottom, the numerous NON-governmental groups that are promoting this, who represent the various aspects of your lives that the government hopes to control. Too fat? Complete Streets will encourage you to walk. Don’t want to use gas or oil? They expect you’ll walk or bike. Want housing? They would love it if you chose a compact apartment in the city… even if the area is NOT citified.
“Low taxes” are a hook, but in most cases these boondoggle projects cost the taxpayers dearly in unused transportation systems and other features. 25-34 year olds are in fact, wanting to leave the cities where they attended college and strike out on a plot of land of their own, as is the American Dream.
From the Lakes Region Planning Commission:
What are Complete Streets?
How can they benefit our communities?
The Lakes Region enjoys a strong base of diverse industries, civic engagement, and a high quality of life. Creativity, efficiency, and adaptability are hallmarks of both private and public enterprise in the region.
And yet:
The population age 65+ in this region will rise from 15% to 34% by 2030. Seniors want to live where they can still be active even after they give up driving.
Major employers increasingly tend to locate in communities where their executives want to live: ones that invest in their downtowns, and in recreation, schools, and safety. Low taxes are part of the picture, but far from all of it.
25 to 34 year-olds with a college degree are increasingly moving to places where they don’t have to drive to get to work and entertainment.
People are looking for opportunities to live more active lifestyles, as decreased physical activity has been linked to type 2 diabetes, cancer, stroke, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and premature mortality.
The annual medical costs for obesity in New Hampshire are estimated at $302 million.
How do we address these needs? How do we make our streets more inviting and accessible to everyone, whether they arrive in a vehicle, on foot, on a bicycle, or by other means, regardless of age or ability?
On Friday, July 29th, come find out why 663 communities across the nation, and five in New Hampshire, have adopted Complete Streets to increase economic vitality, safety, and public health. We’ll gather at 9:00 am at the City Hall in Laconia for a light breakfast and a brief presentation with questions, then go outside to see real life examples. We’ll lead one group on foot and on the bus, or you can join the second group on your own bicycle for a short ride, coming back inside to enjoy some refreshments and compare notes. Wear comfortable shoes and bring a raincoat, just in case!
This event is brought to you by the Bike-Walk Alliance of NH, TTransport NH and HEAL NH in partnership with Lakes Region Planning Commission.
For more information, contact Rebecca Harris, RLHarris@TransportNH.org
America’s homeowners should be shaking in their shoes. The federal government has decided that people who have worked, saved and planned so they can buy homes in nice, safe neighborhoods of their own choosing, are racists. They charge that it is a “social injustice.” The government now claims that it’s unfair unless everyone can have the same, whether they earn it or not. And it doesn’t matter whether they can afford such a home. We’re told that it’s racist to deny someone an equal home, just because they don’t have the money for it. White privilege, don’t you know.
Related Links
“A World Government Constitution Under The UN Already Exists – The US Is Involved Up To Our Eyeballs”
How Sustainable Development Goals are Being Met