Should the City Council continue to pay Dues to the United Nations and follow their guidelines?

In what is perhaps the most incredulous act of political indifference, the City Council, on April 3rd , voted 4 to 1 against a public request for an open discussion on the issue of Agenda 21. The rationale was extreme as vice-mayor Campbell and council member Schwartzman professed an innate ability to judge a “contract” on its merits regardless of the origin of the design. The irony of this and other comments by our City Council was that up until a few months ago, each publically professed no knowledge of Agenda 21 nor of its goals; go figure.

Councilmember Hughes is to be congratulated for making a motion to hear an overview of Agenda 21 as a way of helping educate the public. The City Manager took a position discounting the whole subject as an emotional issue regardless of the facts and information to the contrary provided in books and brochures. The most egregious positions were taken by Mayor Patterson and Council member Strawbridge, who suggested that the subject be assigned to the Community Sustainability Commission to be evaluated and imparted to the public. This idea is incredibly arrogant since the Community Sustainability Commission in its entirety is established under the precepts of Agenda 21 and does not present a balanced view of the Sustainability (environmental) subject.

In essence, all but one of our City Council does not want the public to learn that this City pays annual dues to the United Nations’ NGO (Non-Government Organization) titled ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives). Agenda 21, in all of its forms, is dedicated to eliminating private property rights, individual and collective sovereignty, individual ability to exercise self-determination and regionalization of all decisions virtually eliminating the ability of any City to make decisions for its citizens. The City Council continues to support the proposals, committees, and commissions designed or created by ICLEI thinking they will be able to differentiate between what is good for Benicia vs. what constitutes an abdication of our City’s Sovereignty. How is that working for us so far? Let’s see the Council adopted the Climate Action Plan, the Community Sustainability Commission, Historical Preservation Review Commission, and established two Priority Development Areas to name a few; all are identified and created using Agenda 21 guidelines but hidden from public knowledge under different names so no one would know they were authored or sponsored by the United Nations. Each of these entities has or will negatively impact private property rights and intends to do more so in the near future.

I believe most people, including myself until recently, do not have a clue as to what Agenda 21 is nor how it will impact our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. I will be publishing a series of articles to help the citizens of Benicia understand what Agenda 21 is and how insidious its goals are to our future. I assure each reader that this has nothing to do with Democrat/Republican or conservative/liberal within our great country but is an effort of other countries to cut us down to size and overthrow our way of government from within.

I do not expect everyone to agree with me. However, I do challenge everyone to learn all you can learn about Agenda 21 and form your own opinion. More importantly, it is vital that you let your City Council know what you think so they will not simply ignore the concerns of its Citizenry.