By way of back­ground, the fol­low­ing ques­tion was emailed to Matt Gro­cott, Vice May­or of San Car­los, Cal­i­for­nia (men­tioned in our post Let­ter: Bil­lion­aires and U.N. agen­das on July 28). Matt has served on the City Coun­cil since 2001. Sue Lem­pert writes The Dai­ly Fetch, a news blog cov­er­ing the San Mateo/Silicon Val­ley area. Would that all our local gov­ern­ment offi­cials were as informed, and will­ing to tru­ly rep­re­sent and serve their constituents!

Dear Mr. Grocott, 

Your name was men­tioned in Sue Lem­pert’s col­umn about a week ago in ref­er­ence to iclei and UN Agen­da 21. I under­stand that all this high den­si­ty hous­ing, retail & office is in ref­er­ence to this Agen­da 21. So local gov­ern­ments approve these projects and are not sub­ject to a vote by its cit­i­zens? I won­dered why/how these projects got approved. I heard El Camino will be reduced to 2 lanes for cars and one lane for mass tran­sit North & South. Is this true accord­ing to Agen­da 21? Your response would be appreciated.

Matt replied:

Hel­lo ____-

I am glad you took note of the top­ic that Sue Lem­pert raised when she inter­viewed me for her col­umn. It is not a top­ic many peo­ple are edu­cat­ed on or know much about. Even Sue, who has been involved in local gov­ern­ment for decades, claimed not to know any­thing about it. Not too sur­pris­ing, giv­en the com­plex­i­ty of the plans and machi­na­tions of how it is all being brought to reality.

To com­ment briefly, yes, the HD hous­ing over office/retail, placed along a tran­sit cor­ri­dor, fol­lows a blue­print laid out by the Unit­ed Nations and ICLEI. If you use the inter­net to search top­ics like the Rio Sum­mit, Agen­da 21, ICLEI, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, you can find out more than you might imag­ine on the topic.

Local gov­ern­ments approve Gen­er­al Plans that fol­low the guide­lines of Agen­da 21 and they approve projects, yes. The orga­ni­za­tion of local gov­ern­ment does not require a vote of the peo­ple to approve; your vote comes into play when you vote for your coun­cil mem­bers at the city lev­el and at the coun­ty lev­el, your board of supervisors.

By the way, the state is also involved in numer­ous ways. For exam­ple, Sen­ate Bill 375 and Assem­bly Bill 32 are both pieces of leg­is­la­tion that fol­low the Agen­da 21 blue­print. Take it up a notch and you will also find work­ings of the same in oth­er states and in the fed­er­al government.

If you query politi­cians, plan­ners, etc, about the Unit­ed Nations, Agen­da 21, ICLEI, etc, you will usu­al­ly get a blank stare or a denial that they know any­thing about it. If you look up my name on the inter­net, specif­i­cal­ly on YouTube, you will find a coun­cil meet­ing where I was chal­leng­ing our city’s mem­ber­ship is ICLEI. Dur­ing the dis­course I had with our then Assis­tant City Man­ag­er, you will find a denial of know­ing, as I men­tion above. It is typ­i­cal. Also denied is any influ­ence that the Unit­ed Nations or ICLEI has on state and local gov­ern­ment. But if you look at the evi­dence of what is hap­pen­ing, denial is not plausible.

Last­ly, regard­ing the EL Camino, there is a plan­ning doc­u­ment being pro­duced that has been in the works for at least ten years. It is known as the Grand Boule­vard Ini­tia­tive or GBI. It does call for bus tran­sit lanes and bike lanes. In many cities along the El Camino, to achieve those goals, the vehi­cle lanes would need to be reduced unless the cities were to use emi­nent domain to increase the right-of-way. The Grand Boule­vard Ini­tia­tive also fol­lows the Agen­da 21 blueprint.

Thanks for writ­ing and seeking.
Matt Grocott
San Car­los City Council
650–802-4163 (VM)