Subtitle: Once again, Progressive hypocrisy…..Do I say and not what I do, and never mind that other hand….
OR: Ya gotta love it – siphoning off taxpayer money for private interest groups for their hobby.
OK, just one more (I promise): FOLLOW THE MONEY!
And in this case, LOTS of money followed Judith Spang, (NH State Representative from Durhan, Democrat). While Ken Eyring of the Southern NH 9-12 group is defending our property rights against Durham Democrat Judith Spang, I got a tip in from a loyal reader concerning NH Rep. Spang:
The US Agriculture office 2 Madbury Road, Durham, NH paid Judith over $500,000 for a wetlands easement on her land in Merrimack County so if we all own some of the water draining from her land do we get paid also?
Really – half a million water-bucks? She gets to “sell” her private property for sake of keeping water clean! So, I googled her (all emphasis mine) and found a pattern:
1. Girard at Large:
Letter to USDA regarding the wetlands payments
AUGUST 10, 2011
Recently under my Freedom of Information Request I received a reply which did not speak to all of my questions per attached letter nor to those raised at the September meeting in 2010 at the USDA office in Durham.
For instance, you stated you bought wetlands to protect the cleanliness of the water, but I note the Cannon and Kubelka wetland easements bought protect a middle portion of Branch Brook which eventually flows down to Candia through the old landfill and on to the Lamprey River, How does that protect cleanliness? Further I asked about persons who work at USDA having the special interest and relationship to one of the sellers, Cannon? Also that Phil Auger, county extension agent, forester, etc. who works for the program and then serves on the land trust boards receiving money, Never answered!
The WRP program authorized under 16 U.S.C. Section 3837, et seq and regulations at 7 CFR Part 1467 appear to allow “insider payoffs.” I give you the fact that Erick Berglund of Deerfield has been a volunteer in the program being paid $399,040.03 for 49 acres in Strafford County and he also being a member of Bear Paw Regional Greenways and the Deerfield Conservation Commission. Then Judith Spang who sold 91.4 wetland acre easements in Merimack for $510,000, etc.
2. Environmental Working Group – Farm Subsidy Database back this up:
| Judith T Spang Revocable | Littleton, NH 03561 | $510,000 |
In her 6 step response to Ken, you can very carefully see her micro-steps from “Yes, it USED to be that you owned water rights” and then devolves to “its for the common good”; careful, slowly done, slowly the heat is turned up, until it just seems to reasonable that no one and everyone owns all the water. After all, we all want clean water, right? And we know from past history, what happens when no one owns “the common property“. Yet, she herself has profited handsomely by working the system – not directly selling water rights by in selling private property in conjunction of such.
But those folks that aren’t connected to the process, have no knowledge of the process, who lack the insider nuggets of who, when, where, and what, may well suffer losses as their land values dip as their connection to water rights get dribbled away by those who put the environment above Natural Law private property Rights which form one of the philosophical Pillars of our Republic. And she has a history of making sure land is taken out of private hands (or tried):
1. HB 1356, classifying certain land in Litchfield as land to be retained by the state. OUGHT TO PASS.
Rep. Judith T Spang for Resources, Recreation and Development: Respected ecologists have documented the rare/ecological value of Grassy Pond in Litchfield. While owned by the state department of environmental services, the Litchfield Conservation Commission wants to make sure it will be preserved in perpetuity. This bill assures that it will be placed, by statute, on the list of “retained lands” and never disposed of for uses that would degrade it. Vote 15-0.
Disposed of? Degrade it? That makes it sound like any other purpose for land is EVIL, yes?
2. HB 1540-FN, relative to conservation easements on public land. INEXPEDIENT TO LEGISLATE.
Rep. Judith T Spang for Resources, Recreation and Development: There are many benefits to a municipality to own land with a conservation easement on it, including public recreation, protecting public water supplies or satisfying mitigation requirements when it builds on wetlands. However, easements require burdensome stewardship and monitoring that most municipalities don’t want to do. Granting or selling the easement to a nonprofit land protection organization is the perfect solution, especially if it generates income for the municipality. Except for the sponsors, this bill was opposed by virtually everyone testifying. Vote 16-0.
Translation – we cannot trust towns and cities to “do the right thing”. Using a variation of “jobs that Americans won’t do”, notice the phrase of “easements require burdensome stewardship and monitoring that most municipalities don’t want to do“. Note, too, the variation on the theme of the main mantra of Progressivism – “life is too hard, let us take care of that for you, deary” and sets up that NGO to forever take it away from those pesky officials that get elected from time to time – which means at some time, these self same official might “undo” that decision that environmentalists gave them an “attaboy’ for.
3. Forestry Society – Legislature OKs Town Contributions to Land Trusts
Clarifying a critical issue for conservation advocates, this session the state legislature passed SB 381, which explicitly authorizes towns to contribute from their conservation funds to projects sponsored by private land trusts without holding a legal interest in the property being conserved.
The bill resolves a gray area in the law that had long divided municipal attorneys and had already been the subject of several unsuccessful legislative efforts. Specifically, the bill added language to the state statute governing town conservation commissions (RSA 36-A) that authorizes them to contribute from their conservation funds to “qualified organizations” for acquisitions of property interests (fee or easement) held by those organizations, and/or expend funds for transaction costs related to these purchases.
Qualified organizations are defined through a reference to the section of the IRS code governing non-profit land conservation organizations. The bill also adds language to statute declaring town expenditures to land trusts be a public purpose because they protect the state’s natural resources. The new statutory authorization does come with strings, however. The law requires one-time Town Meeting votes to locally authorize conservation commissions to make these expenditures. It also requires a similar, but separate, Town Meeting vote to authorize the conservation commission to acquire property interests held by the town outside of municipal boundaries. Once this up-front town Meeting authorization is given, however, no further approvals by town meeting or the governing body (City Council or Board of Selectmen) are required for specific expenditures.
For a seemingly “small” bill, the successful passage of SB381 required a remarkable amount of work by many legislators, and several deserve special mention: Sen. Peter Burling (D-Cornish), Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-Exeter), Rep. Judith Spang (D-Durham)
So, here’s a process that allows the politically connected to use taxpayer monies to give to Non-Governmental Organizations for land that may not even be within the town from where the tax money is being diverted. Ya gotta love it – siphoning off taxpayer money for private interest groups for their hobby.
Bonus: one more notch for Maggie “The Red” Hassan on doing as all Democrat Socialists are wont to do – deny private property Rights exist.
