FA Note: iAgenda21 is an affil­i­ate of the Amer­i­can Coali­tion for Sus­tain­able Com­mu­ni­ties (ACSC) — “Sus­tain­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment.” Theirs is the type action that needs to be under­tak­en in every coun­ty in the country!

New Report expos­es col­lec­tivist reg­u­la­tion, insti­tut­ed at tax­pay­er expense, in San Bernardi­no Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia. The report is authored by the Amer­i­can Coali­tion for Sus­tain­able Com­mu­ni­ties (ACSC) whose mis­sion is “Sus­tain­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Government”.

 Report Key Findings

• The San Bernardi­no Coun­ty­wide Vision, through its “Cra­dle-to- Career” goal, aka, Com­mon Core; the Com­mon Core State Stan­dards (CCSS) are a set of aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards, pro­mot­ed and sup­port­ed by two pri­vate mem­ber­ship orga­ni­za­tions, the Nation­al Governor’s Asso­ci­a­tion (NGA) and the Coun­cil of Chief State School Offi­cers (CCSSO), as a method for con­form­ing Amer­i­can stu­dents to uni­form (“one size fits all”) achieve­ment goals to make them more com­pet­i­tive in a glob­al mar­ket­place and com­pli­ant “glob­al citizens”.
• The San Bernardi­no Coun­ty­wide Vision is defined as a “Region­al Vision­ing Plan”, which usurps our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive form of gov­ern­ment and encour­ages top-down control.
• The San Bernardi­no Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan advo­cates a con­sen­sus based deci­sion-mak­ing process via unelect­ed busi­ness­es, non­prof­its, agen­cies, boards, bod­ies and com­mis­sions via “stake­hold­er groups”, there­by cir­cum­vent­ing the cit­i­zen vot­ing process.
• The San Bernardi­no Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan pro­motes envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty* pro­grams, which are anti­thet­i­cal to free mar­ket sys­tems, local prop­er­ty rights and local choice, by defin­ing them as destruc­tive to the environment.
• The San Bernardi­no Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan pro­motes social equi­ty through sus­tain­abil­i­ty as a method to reduce stan­dards of liv­ing via col­lec­tive con­ser­va­tion schemes that lim­it cur­rent lifestyles in order to pro­tect resources for future gen­er­a­tions; by “look­ing beyond local inter­ests” and man­dat­ing that all ben­e­fit equal­ly for the com­mon good.

Report Sum­ma­ry

This report is a crit­i­cal review of some of the ele­ments and region­al goals, (see ele­ments and goals below) of the San Bernardi­no Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan. Specif­i­cal­ly, the edu­ca­tion, envi­ron­ment and water ele­ments are addressed, as well as the cra­dle-to-career region­al edu­ca­tion goal (Com­mon Core). There is added empha­sis pre­sent­ed regard­ing the water cri­sis in Cal­i­for­nia. Also dis­cussed are pro­grams under the umbrel­la of the Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan. Some of these pro­grams sup­port ele­ments of the plan, such as habi­tat preser­va­tion and water con­ser­va­tion. A Coun­ty sanc­tioned non­prof­it fundrais­er is dis­cussed. A wrap up is pre­sent­ed iden­ti­fy­ing some of the poten­tial pit­falls of the plan along with prospec­tive solu­tions. Final­ly, the Appen­dix offers com­mon answers about the Com­mon Core edu­ca­tion stan­dards by Dr. J. David Lehman.

The Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan

What appears to have start­ed out as an idea to curb cor­rup­tion in San Bernardi­no mor­phed into a col­lab­o­ra­tive cen­tral­ized plan. The col­lec­tive goal of the Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan can be summed up in this statement:

“Rec­og­niz­ing the con­straints declin­ing rev­enue has placed on gov­ern­ments; we must build new, and expand exist­ing, part­ner­ships among pub­lic agen­cies, busi­ness­es, and non­prof­it and faith-based orga­ni­za­tions. We must set goals for the coun­ty and region that look beyond our indi­vid­ual interests.”

Ini­tial fund­ing for the plan was $300,000: $50,000 pro­vid­ed by SANBAG and $250,000 pro­vid­ed from the coun­ty gen­er­al fund.  The plan intro­duces ten ele­ments and two region­al goals to pro­mote social equi­ty in the coun­ty. In lieu of our rep­re­sen­ta­tive vot­ing process, a sur­vey was con­duct­ed to include cit­i­zen and res­i­dent input for the plan. 3,656 respond­ed. The total pop­u­la­tion for San Bernardi­no Coun­ty in 2010 was an esti­mat­ed 2,000,000, which means that 0.18% of the total pop­u­la­tion in the coun­ty par­tic­i­pat­ed in this “rep­re­sen­ta­tive” survey.

Solu­tions

1. Read the Social Equi­ty Through Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Report: Order @ Ama­zon, Down­load PDF ver­sion.
2. Opt your child out of the Com­mon Core test­ing. Get the form here.
3. Cities in San Bernardi­no can opt out of the Coun­ty­wide Vision Plan via a res­o­lu­tion. Click here to see sam­ple.

Elect­ed Offi­cials Can Opt Out

Com­mis­sion­er Had­dox OPTS OUT of the Region­al Seven50 Plan: motion call­ing for Mar­tin Coun­ty FLA to with­draw from the Seven50 plan.

*Source: sustainablefreedomlab.org