My opinion: you need to have town halls here to inform people of the pros and cons of a Charter.  Public banking, which the founders of this movement have been pushing, seems to me to be of lesser importance than other aspects of Mendocino being a Charter county.  What to me is most important about being a Charter County is the ability to have Home Rule where the county can enact ordinances that are of the same enforcement level or even take precedence to State law.  

This is so important to be able to build sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government.  Such barriers to building sustainable communities include corporate constitutional "rights" and the preemptive authority of Sate government -- both of which are used to override community decision making.

These days, no matter how hard  you try to stop projects that are harmful to the community, especially those that cause known environmental harm, our own government works with corporations to make sure such projects are permitted.  Rather than protecting people, workers, communities, and the  environment -- the focus is on endless growth, extraction, and development.  This is a structure that is inherently unsustainable, and has  in fact, made sustainability illegal.

What ever harms communities are facing -- fracking, injection wells, factory farms, pipelines, GMOs, water extraction, or a wide range of other threats -- the barriers they face to stop these projects -- and in their place establish sustainable energy, water, agriculture, and other systems -- consistently experience the same barriers.

With a Charter and Home Rule, the county can enact Community Rights laws which ban practices that violate the rights of people, communities and nature.  Without a Charter, the County has no Home Rule entitlement that allows us to have such things as a Community Bill of Rights.

Joel


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All Things Connected
Joel Chaban
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
P.O. Box 800
Gualala, CA 95445
tel: 707-884-9280
fax: 707-884-9263