Back in May 2012, I addressed the New Rochelle City Council regarding the false and misleading claims by New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson regarding the connection between New Rochelle and the United Nations.
The Mayor has not only denied the connection but sought to paint anyone who contradicts him as a deranged conspiracy theorist, beyond the pale or simply not worthy of a response. He has repeatedly made false and misleading statements regarding ICLEI and gone out of his way to insult anyone who opposes him.
The issue is not whether there is a connection between New Rochelle and the United Nations — there is. New Rochelle is a member if ICLEI and ICLEI is a UN system organization.
The issue is whether the residents of New Rochelle understand that and just what membership in ICLEI means with regards to implementing the UN’s global initiative known as Agenda 21.
If residents are familiar with Agenda 21, share its goals and want to see a local version of Agenda 21 implemented in New Rochelle then fine. That is democracy. When the leading proponent of ICLEI and Agenda 21 in New Rochelle, Noam Bramson, repeatedly obfuscates the connection between GreeNR and Agenda 21, the residents are not making an informed choice to support the Mayor’s embrace of ICLEI.
It is an unalterable fact that GreeNR is the Mayor’s local version of the United Nation’s Agenda 21 program created under the auspices of ICLEI. ICLEI is part of the UN network of organizations to advance Agenda 21. On its web site, ICLEI describes itself as a “Local Authorities Major Group Organizing Partner” of the United Nations Commission on Sustainability. ICLEI was created at the UN in 1990 and wrote Ch. 28 of the the UN Agenda 21.
Anyone can read about Agenda 21 on the UN web site; anyone can read about the local version of Agenda 21 created by ICLEI in 1992 in Chapter 28.
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/
Mayor Bramson has repeatedly asserted that there is no connection between New Rochelle and the United Nations. This is absolutely false. There is most definitely a connection. The connection is New Rochelle’s membership in ICLEI, a topic I addressed to the City Council in May 2012 (see video above).
In my address to City Council, by citing ICLEI and United Nations web sites, I layout for the Council the plain fact that ICLEI, Agenda 21 and the United Nations Commission on Sustainability are all part of an interconnected whole. This is neither good nor bad just a fact.
Again, if residents wants Agenda 21, I accept that. What I will not accept is the Mayor’s repeated attempts to muddy the waters and engage in ad hominem attacks against anyone who would point out the rather obvious fact that there is no daylight between GreeNR, ICLEI, Agenda 21, the United Nations. They are all just a different face on the same set of ideas.
I would hope we can get beyond the Mayor’s demagoguing of the issue and address the central question — do New Rochelle residents understand the agenda behind Agenda 21 and do they support it.
NOTE: I am laughing at the beginning of the video because the Assistant Clerk forgot to start the 3 minute countdown clock, in effect giving me extra time something I know the Mayor does not want me to have.