"The Plan"

 

May 13, 2004

 

By Julie Kay Smithson

 

London, Ohio

 

propertyrights@earthlink.net

 

(submitted to the Garrard Central Record, Garrard, Kentucky, for publication centralrecord@alltel.net)

 

Garrard County, Kentucky, homeowners, landowners and business owners are being urged to swallow a Comprehensive Zoning Plan. They are being shown pretty 'word pictures' about how wonderful this Plan will be and how their 'quality of life' will be 'enhanced' by The Plan. They are under the impression that 'public input' is valued and will make a difference, that they have a choice in whether The Plan is implemented. Magistrates are contentious, and after cursory meetings with the public, continue their meetings behind closed doors. Perhaps if the Plan is 'out of sight and hearing' from the public, it will be 'out of mind'?

 

In researching this issue for concerned Garrard County businessmen and homeowners Mike Dotson and Ug Robinson, Property Rights Research has found a document from 2001 that clearly states, "All 120 County Comprehensive Plans have now been approved. The County Plan Review Committee will remain intact but will convene only if major changes to the county plans are submitted."

 

Further funding has been engineered by a coterie of "environmental" groups working closely with federal agencies to garner big bucks, all in the name of "conservation." "By using $17 million of the Phase 1 funds invested in the Division of Conservation's Agriculture Water Quality Cost Share funds, and $5 million from the Kentucky Nature Conservancy, as matching funds, Kentucky was able to obtain an $88 million grant from USDA. This project is the largest agricultural and environmental conservation program in Kentucky's history." - Source: The Kentucky Agricultural Development Board http://www.kyagpolicy.com/board/documents/010921_minutes.pdf (16 pages)

 

At a grantwriting workshop in Louisville on October 13, 2003, a plethora of "environmental" groups learned from Andy Robinson how to get even more money for their Plans -- including The Plan for Garrard County. Mr. Robinson has even written a book on the real agenda for such Plans: "Selling Social Change (Without Selling Out): Earned Income Strategies for Nonprofits". Source: http://forestry2.ca.uky.edu/Annualr.pdf (36 pages)

 

Garrard County residents are facing a Trojan Horse in The Plan, one that intends to use zoning to steal property rights.