Supervisors adopt UN Agenda 21 bankrupt solar and green programs

A m e r i c a n P o s t – G a z e t t e

Distributed by C O M M O N S E N S E , in Arizona

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Solar companies like Solyndra are going bankrupt after billion dollar bailouts by the federal government, and are now under investigation. “Sustainability” has been exposed as a disguised word for the UN program Agenda 21 that seeks to undermine US authority and implement radical environmentalism that will crush our freedom and liberties. The UN is making agreements at the local level with city councils, county supervisors, and other local boards. Our local communities must put a stop to this.

Yet the Maricopa County Supervisors are not listening and have gone ahead and made agreements with the UN subverting our authority to these agreements, and are actively implementing solar energy even though these companies are under investigation. Is this troubled Tempe-based solar company, one of two largest solar companies in the US, the company the Supervisors have contracted with? Read more from the Arizona Republic article:

Maricopa County pushes going green

3 years after program launch, 103 sustainable measures in effect

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Oct. 22, 2011
The Arizona Republic

The buzz word in Maricopa County government is “green.”

Maricopa County adopted its “Green Government” program more than three years ago with the idea that energy and resource conservation is good not only for the environment but also for residents and for the county’s bottom line.

“Everything we do, we’re going to do with an eye to reducing our carbon footprint,” said county Supervisor Don Stapley, who spurred the county’s sustainability initiatives in 2008. “If the county does that, and sets that example, I think the citizens of this county will also embrace and follow that leadership.”

The three-pronged approach to sustainability is a growing national trend, experts say. As budgets tighten, more local governments have adopted sustainability as a money-saving measure.

Maricopa County officials identified 144 sustainability measures that they deemed plausible. Since the program began in June 2008, county officials say, 103 measures have been successfully implemented, 31 have been launched and the remaining 10 have not been started.

“It’s important to know that sustainability . . . really is a three-legged stool. One of those things is economics. If things don’t make sense economically, we’re not going to do them, just because that’s a crucial component of sustainability,” said Jonce Walker, Maricopa County sustainability manager.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors this week approved an agreement with Arizona Public Service Co. to install solar panels on the roofs of three county buildings, the latest step in the county’s solar-panel installation process.

Among the projects the county has completed in recent years: installing solar panels on jail buildings to heat the showers and at the county-owned Buckeye Hills Regional Park to power the park complex, including a shooting range.

Adding solar panels

Earlier this year, 228 solar panels mounted atop the county’s White Tank Branch Library and Nature Center generated excess energy. The excess energy was credited to the county’s account, then directed to the APS electrical grid for other customers to use.

The county’s green initiatives run the gamut.

For road projects, the Maricopa County Department of Transportation uses rubberized asphalt recycled from old tires that would have been thrown away in landfills or stored on the ground, posing potential fire threats.Four county buildings have received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification: the downtown justice center, Estrella Mountain Regional Park, the former Santa Fe Freight Depot site that recently reopened as a satellite site for the Assessor’s Office, and the White Tank facility.

The U.S. Green Building Council issues LEED certification to projects that meet certain energy-conservation criteria.

Maricopa County’s green policy is comprehensive, especially because county officials did an inventory to establish an energy-consumption baseline, implemented a wide range of measures and tracks its progress closely, said Don Knapp, spokesman for ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA, an international association of cities and towns that works toward sustainability, clean energy and climate action.

Knapp said local governments across the country are recognizing that going green increases efficiency in government operations, creates jobs and saves money for taxpayers.

“In these tough economic times, you need to look at initiatives that have multiple benefits,” Knapp said. “It’s really a no-brainer.”

One of the challenges facing Maricopa County officials is changing the culture of employees and residents. The Valley is not known as a hot spot for green activism.

“If sustainability is going to work here, it can work anywhere in the world, I think – at least the country. We’re not a Portland, we’re not a Seattle. We’re not a San Francisco, New York. We have our own very unique challenges,” Walker said.

For example, the Valley since 2006 has experienced rapid growth in population – and, consequently, in waste. Maricopa County has the fourth-largest population among U.S. counties, with 3.8 million residents. That means there is a lot of waste that can be reduced, both within county departments and among residents in the community.

Comments

Taxpayer activist says:

November 5, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Local communities around the country are pulling out of Agenda 21. We live in a conservative county. Why are our county supervisors adopting Agenda 21? We should be running from it! Read why here: http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/2011/Oct/ICLEI_Virginia_withdraws.html

Phineas T. says:

November 5, 2011 at 1:36 pm

Follow the money. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that First Solar must have contributed heavily to the Supervisors reelection campaigns and now it’s time for payback with cushy contracts. That is how these Supervisors have operated for years. You grease my back, I’ll grease yours. Don’t believe me? Go over their campaign finance reports sometime. All the biggest developers and contractors in town contribute to the Supervisors campaigns and in return get the best contracts in town. Time to vote all the corrupt skunks out of office.

- VSB says:
  
  November 6, 2011 at 12:00 am
  
  Sock Puppet No. 2 aka Phineas T.,
  
  What evidence do you have that any of the projects mentioned in Michelle Ye Hee Lee’s article had anything to do with First Solar? Can you give us the information on the contracts?
  
Pork pork pork says:

November 5, 2011 at 1:40 pm

I’m going to start a solar business and get free subsidies from the federal government, then expensive contracts from the County Supervisors. Yeah we’re in a recession, and the County is raising our property taxes because it’s strapped for cash, but as long as the County Supervisors are giving out money like candy to their pet liberal causes, I might as well get on the gravy train. Screw you taxpayers, I don’t care how unsuccessful the solar subsidies will end up being, it’s all about the almighty dollar. The Supervisors and me hate the Tea Party. Responsible spending? Blow it out your ear!

Alicia says:

November 5, 2011 at 4:19 pm

Agenda 21 is one of the worst possible choices for any people who wish to live free, exercising their own sovereignty. If we agree to turn over control about how we live, even on the micro-level, to the control freaks at the UN, then we ought to support Agenda 21, but if we want to determine how warm or cool our houses, are, what kind of cars we drive, what we plant in our gardens, how densely populated our neighborhoods are, and so on and so forth, we need to fight this madness with every ounce of our abilities. Moreover, we must seek ways to bury this movement so it never can ever again be resurrected to enslave either us, or our descendants.

Imagine high rises mixed in with our single family homes. Imagine giving up control of our thermostats to some anonymous control center far removed from where we live – don’t let it happen. This Board of Supervisors needs to be run out of town on a sharpened, rusty rail. They need to be decorated with tar and feathers. Enough is enough from his horrid gang of thieves.

- VSB says:
  
  November 5, 2011 at 11:55 pm
  
  Sock Puppet No. 4 aka “Alicia”,
  
  Can you explain how putting solar panels on county buildings leads inevitably to a future of high rises being mixed in with single family homes or of remote control thermostats?
  
  And why should the board of supervisors be “run out of ton on a sharpened, rusty rail” for apparently saving taxpayers money over the long run by putting solar water heaters on county jail buildings?
  
True Conservative says:

November 5, 2011 at 6:56 pm

I seem to have missed something in the AZ Rep article.

Where did the BoS state they were adopting “Article 21?”

In other words, what the hell are you guys talking about?

- Conservative American says:
  
  November 5, 2011 at 9:25 pm
  
  Do you support and approve of the designation of the National Organization for Marriage by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an “anti-gay” group?
  
  - True Conservative says:
    
    November 5, 2011 at 9:33 pm
    
    Oh, it’s all about black helicopters and flouride … thanks for the clarification.
    
    - Conservative American says:
      
      November 5, 2011 at 11:58 pm
      
      The Southern Poverty Law Center has labelled the National Organization for Marriage as an “anti-gay” group. Do you agree with and support that label?
      
      - True Conservative says:
        
        November 6, 2011 at 12:36 pm
        
        If you want to discuss the SPLC, open a thread … otherwise your cyber-stalking is just, well, creepy.
        
        
        Conservative American says:
        
        November 6, 2011 at 6:52 pm
        
        Oh noes! Creepy? Why do I care about “creepy” after you wrote this?
        
        “True Conservative says:
        November 4, 2011 at 7:39 am”
        
        “In other words, Con Am, you support and endorse a racist eugenics society.”
        
        “It’s not that you’ll turn a blind eye to blatant racism in the fevered support of the candidate you man-crush on, its that you are a full-blown apologist for this behavior.”
        
        “You’re disgusting. Plain and simple: You’re a revolting human being.”
        
        “The Republican Party is not the party of racists – it’s time for people like you to move on.”
        
        And there’s that “man-crush” again like when you wrote this:
        
        “True Conservative says:
        September 22, 2011 at 9:59 am”
        
        “Is that your message, like a sixth grader you declare that anyone who doesn’t share your man-crush for Pearce must be a faggot?”
        
        Shane sees fit to allow you to get away with saying those sorts of things but you are accountable to me because you said those things to me.
        
        Don’t start something unless you’re prepared fo finish it. I’m on you like stink on poop now. Stop sniveling, little girl. Deal with it.
        
        
        True Conservative says:
        
        November 7, 2011 at 4:21 am
        
        C-R-E-E-P-Y!
VSB says:

November 5, 2011 at 11:48 pm

Agreements with the UN? LOL! When did the board of supervisors make an “agreement” with the UN? Can you tell us? Can you show us the “agreement”? LOL!

And what do putting solar panels and solar water heaters on county buildings have to do with investigations into ill advised subsidies, loans, and tax incentives for Solyndra and First Solar? Solyndra and First Solar are solar panel manufacturers. They make solar panels. They don’t put them on buildings. And they don’t make solar water heaters as far as I am aware of. What information do you have that Solyndra or First Solar had anything significant to do with the solar panels or solar water heaters put on county buildings? These accusations are completely baseless.

Governor Jan Brewer has also recently been touting the rise of the solar industry in Arizona to third place in solar jobs:

http://azgovernor.gov/dms/upload/PR_101811_SolarReport.pdf

Is Governor Brewer now part of a UN conspiracy too? LOL!

CD6 Businessman says:

November 6, 2011 at 8:54 am

Where is the connection between the two articles? The title of this post appears to have zero fact in it. It did get my attention though and I will be looking in to this more but wish there would have been more substance than what was presented.

wanumba says:

November 6, 2011 at 5:31 pm

WIth the amount of subsidy money disappearing into “solar” companies with zip returns, it reeks of Nigerian 419 fraud, not “energy efficiencies.”

If a business has a product that actually works, it don’t need no subsidy.

VSB says:

November 6, 2011 at 10:57 pm

Again what does subsidy money to First Solar or Solyndra have to do with Maricopa arranging with completely different companies to put solar panels and solar water heaters on a few county buildings?