Harbison: What is Your Mayor Doing?

Jim Harbison

The 79th Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors held its meeting in June 17-21, 2011 in Baltimore, MD. Mayors from across the nation attended and “represented” their cities. From my perspective I would say they misrepresented my values and supported positions I strongly oppose. The Mayor of Las Cruces was there and it is a good chance your mayor was a participant as well. The record of their proceedings can be found here.
These mayors get together each year to discuss issues and build consensus to formulate national policy initiatives. They are a powerful group that lobbies, individually and collectively, for more money for their cities. Money that by the way is collected from the tax payers. The resolutions they pass send strong messages to the U.S. Congress about the type of legislation they want to be passed and the social programs that should be retained or created.

I would bet you are unaware of some of the resolutions adopted during this last conference. Without going into great detail of all the resolutions contained in this 192 page document I will highlight some of those that impact our freedoms or property rights, increase government control or raise our taxes. Most of them can be directly linked to the social programs enumerated in the various chapters in UN Agenda 21. They cover nearly all aspects of our daily lives including open space, nuclear weapons, immigration, public funded housing, urban redevelopment, climate change and environmental protection, controls over public lands, educational policies, public transportation and high speed rail, restrictions on residential and commercial development, agricultural reform, electric vehicles and even red-light cameras.

There is a common trend in all the adopted resolutions. They propose expansion of both the national and local governments and greater government control over our daily lives. They are clearly designed to restructure America. It seems it will be impossible to satisfy the unquenchable demands for more of your tax dollars to support these programs. The “wealthy” middle class taxpayers will again be contributing a disproportionate share of the financial burden to support their mayor’s liberal policies.

They passed a resolution to implement the Dream Act expeditiously and adopt comprehensive immigration reform and asked for $1,825 billion next year for affordable housing. Another resolution assumes we are all advocates of the electric vehicle and willing to contribute significant taxpayer funding for research and development to get 1-million electric vehicles on the highways by 2015. They also requested $556 billion for high speed rail.
There were a host of climate change and environmental resolutions that each mayor adopted on your behalf including funding Climate Showcase Communities at $20 million per year.

Did your mayor seek your opinion when they voted to reaffirm the right of state and local governments to exercise liens or assess special taxes or other property obligations for energy efficiency improvements? I didn’t think so. And if the costs of goods and services weren’t high enough they proposed creating an Affirmative Sustainable Procurement Program where all products purchased will need a third party validated climate neutral certificate guaranteeing that there are no hidden carbon liabilities And lastly, I know we must be thrilled to know that our mayors recognized the vital work of United Nations Association of the United States of America in cities across America and encouraged us to become well-informed about international issues and how they affect our communities. Finally, something I can agree with. We all need to know what our mayors, as well as the United Nations, are doing to fundamentally change and dismantle our society.