By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff
EDITOR'S NOTE: this issue is especially relevant to Charlestown where the CCA Party and in particular Council member George Tremblay have been depicting RhodeMap RI as Texans have been portraying Jade Helm - as a precursor to government takeover. Charlestown's wingnut state Representative Blake "Flip" Filippi introduced H-5713, noted below, to allow municipalities to opt out. Filippi and our other local wingnut state Rep. Justin Price both co-sponsored H-6041 also noted below. This article offers some insight into the reasons for the CCA and right-wing freak-out over RhodeMap.
PROVIDENCE — The heated debate surrounding RhodeMap RI’s economic
plan recently veered toward the issue of race during its latest legislative
showdown.
Mike Stenhouse, CEO
of the conservative advocacy group Rhode Island Center for
Freedom & Prosperity, leveled the first race-related remark as
he questioned the federal motives behind this new state economic development
plan.
“Who are these people that seek to mandate skin color and income
level mixes in our own neighborhood?” Stenhouse asked during a May 21 hearing
for four bills (H6041, H6042, H6043 and H5713) that are aimed at
allowing municipalities to opt out of portions of the affordable housing and
land-management portions of RhodeMap
RI.
Rep. Kenneth Marshall, D-Bristol, fired back, challenging Stenhouse’s claim that this new state guide plan mandates affordable-housing rules and cedes municipal power to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
“I took a little offense to some of the words you came out with
about the state and HUD mandating the color of one’s skin being put in your
neighborhood. And I have to tell you I take offense to that,” Marshall said.
“Personally, as an elected official, I don’t see the color in anybody’s skin
because we all have the right to live within a community whether they have the
ability to afford it or not. And that’s what made this country great.”
Several opponents of RhodeMap RI promptly sought to clarify that
their objections aren’t fueled by racism.
“I don’t see color,” Coventry Town Council President Glenford
Shibley said. “I trained policemen for 29 years — all different nationalities,
all different colors. So, I just wanted to get that in for the record.”
But Joe Buchanan, a member of the RhodeMap RI Social Equity
Advisory Committee, said racism is inherent in the opposition to RhodeMap RI.
He criticized opponents for not participating in the public workshops but
instead trying to dismantle the project after the work was finished.
“They are coming in at the last minute and try to dictate and
bully and say these racist statements that they don’t want to see poor black
people, poor white people come to their communities,” Buchanan said.
Steve Fischbach, an attorney who also serves on the Social Equity
Advisory Committee, said opponents of RhodeMap RI have an “ugly agenda.”
“There is no reason why they would have singled out affordable
housing and to attack social equity if they weren’t racist,” he said, “and
that’s what they are and they need to be called out for that.”
RhodeMap critics have targeted the HUD program that has
issued grants to local planning authorities in 2010 and 2011 for sustainable
planning. In all, HUD has awarded more than $165 million to 74 grantees in 44
states.
 |
Our local state Senator Elaine Morgan (R-Hopkinton)
posted this screed
on Facebook. Tea Party conservatives have been treating
RhodeMap
like a Rhode Island Benghazi - a secret conspiracy that was rolled out
in almost FORTY public forums and meetings. Morgan LIES
when she says
she had been "researching it for six months." In fact,
she
never heard of RhodeMap until she heard the Tea Party alarm bells.
Also note that Morgan couldn't even get her own party label right. She's an "R," not a "D." |
Rhode Island was one of the first in the country to receive a HUD
sustainability grant and is using the $1.9 million to update the state guide
plan: the plan used by cities and towns as they make periodic updates to their
comprehensive plans. It’s called RhodeMap RI.
The state Division of Planning held more than a dozen public
workshops on its economic development plan called Rhode Island Rising.
Last December, the 29-member State Planning Council approved the plan.
Since late last year, opponents, led by an aggressive campaign
organized by the R.I. Center for Freedom & Prosperity, have fought the
plan, scaring people into thinking that federal and state agencies will take
control of municipal governance and property rights.
Similar campaigns nationwide have succeeded in turning back
HUD-funded planning efforts by linking the program to broader conspiracy
theories, such as the international planning guideline adopted by the United
Nations in 1992, known as Agenda 21.
“In recent years, Agenda 21 has become an effective rallying cry,
organizing tool and bludgeon that right-wing groups have been using to beat
back local sustainable growth and anti-sprawl initiatives, including everything
from bike paths to smart meters on home appliances,” wrote the civil-rights
advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center in a 2014 report. “The attacks have caught city
councils, planning commissions and smart-growth advocates across the country
off guard, leaving them scrambling to mount a defense.”
Stenhouse claims there is a connection between Agenda 21 and
RhodeMap RI, but he believes that local opposition to the new state economic
plan is caused by its inclusion of issues that are unrelated to the economy,
such as affordable-housing quotas defined by race and income.
Such objectives should be established by the General Assembly,
rather than state and federal bureaucrats, Stenhouse said.
HUD spokesman George Gonzalez told ecoRI News that there is no
link between Agenda 21 and the department’s sustainability grants program.
Funds were awarded, he said, “based on a local vision and based on local
participation.”
Stenhouse, though, called RhodeMap RI “a Trojan horse for an
agenda out of Washington, D.C.” He described the livability principals and
growth centers as plans for “utopian villages” and “just fuzzy talk of green,
walkable neighborhoods.” He said RhodeMap RI creates a “constitutional crisis”
for the state by affording the Division of Planning unchecked authority over
municipalities.
Kevin Flynn, head of the state’s Division of Planning, said his
office has no such power. “There’s absolutely nothing mandated in the economic
development plan that forces a community to do anything that relates to growth
centers,” he said. "It’s clearly up to them.”
Affordable housing, Flynn said, is a just a piece of an economic
development plan that seeks to build an economy that offers access to
transportation and suitable places for underserved populations to live and
work.
“It is at the heart of an economic development plan,” Flynn said.
“It is not a housing plan. ... Does it reference housing? Absolutely it does.
Those issues are not separable.”
Municipal planners from across the state testified in support of
Rhode Island Rising, saying it’s based on years of research and experience.
Some rebuked the naysayers for spreading unfounded fear.
Ashley Hahn, a town planner in Rhode Island for more than a
decade, said the Division of Planning has no authority to mandate housing and
land-use decisions.
“They can’t tell you what your zoning is,” she said. “It’s not
legally possible. So this idea that this document somehow usurps local control
and forces a community to zone itself in ways that it doesn’t want to is just
absurd. ... It’s a crazy notion.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: Thank you, Ashley, for some common sense. Ashley used to be Charlestown's Town Planner and was one of the few people in town hall with the guts to stand up to Planning Commissar Ruth Platner.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Thank you, Ashley, for some common sense. Ashley used to be Charlestown's Town Planner and was one of the few people in town hall with the guts to stand up to Planning Commissar Ruth Platner.
Nevertheless, opponents, including several members of the General
Assembly, declared that RhodeMap RI poses a grave threat because of its
connection to affordable housing and eminent domain laws.
“The bottom line is (the legislation) keeps the power in the
state, doesn’t let the federal government decide what we are going to do as far
as our statewide planning and housing,” said Rep. Justin Price, R-Exeter, a
sponsor of the one of the bills that allows municipalities reject Rhode Island
Rising.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Price, a right-wing extremist who could be even crazier than Charlestown's own Flip Filippi (actually Lincoln's own), defeated Larry Valencia of Richmond in the 2014 election.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Price, a right-wing extremist who could be even crazier than Charlestown's own Flip Filippi (actually Lincoln's own), defeated Larry Valencia of Richmond in the 2014 election.
The bills were held for further study. A hearing for Senate
companion bills is expected in the coming weeks.