Thread: Mergers - not just for companies anymore/ agenda 21

This is bad public and private combining the tax payer gets to pay the bills, and pay the bills and pay the bills, and the private gets all the profit at our expense...this is part of agenda 21...


Mergers - not just for companies anymore

3/28/2011 11:06:32 AM by Christine Erickson
Filed under: Chris Christie, government cuts, John Kasich, municipal governments, shared services, consolidation, Louisville, mergers, Pittsburgh, Camden

What does T-Mobile have in common with the Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, fire department? They are both in the process of being acquired. Cities, towns and counties have faced major budget deficits over the course of the recession. While stimulus money and state aid have tide many of them over so far, these funding sources are drying up, leaving municipalities to deal with their financial problems on their own. In addition, continuing weakness in the housing market has kept revenue from property taxes low. One solution that is getting serious consideration in many locations is merging agencies with those in neighboring municipalities.

Looking for ways to return police to the streets, the mayor of Camden, New Jersey, proposed creating a shared police department with Camden County and other cities in the area, an idea that was immediately embraced by Gov. Chris Christie. The cities of Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg in Pennsylvania will be merging their fire departments effective April 1, and are now talking about merging their police departments. In Michigan, one of the qualifiers for cities and towns to receive state funding is service consolidation through regional cooperation. Ohio Gov. John Kasich wants to cut state aid to municipal governments in half by 2013, and is pushing local governments to consider shared service agreements in order to absorb the cuts. During a panel discussion in early March, Robert G. Flanders, the state receiver appointed to take over the finances of Central Falls, Rhode Island, said that cities across the country could cut down on expenses by considering mergers, consolidations or shared services. Flanders earlier recommended that Central Falls disband and be absorbed into neighboring Pawtucket.

The primary reason for merging, particularly in public safety, is to cut costs without having to reduce the number of police officers or firefighters protecting the citizens. For example, consider the fictional towns A and B who look to merge their police departments. town A has 60 patrol officers, while town B has 40. The ideal goal of the merger would be a combined A-B force with 100 officers. The savings come from consolidating administrative support. Instead of keeping town A’s 12 dispatch and town B’s 8, a combined dispatch center could be staffed with 15 people. Likewise, towns A and B each have similar human resources, information technology, finance and other support departments that could be essentially cut in half. Finally, towns A and B could limit the number of higher-paid officer positions, including cutting down to one chief of police.

There are some obvious concerns and complications that arise in merging services from two different taxing authorities. In the above example, if town A has a much higher crime rate than town B, taxpayers in town B could lose some of the police presence despite continuing to pay for it through taxes. This is the very real concern of citizens of some of the suburban areas surrounding Camden, which has one of the highest crime rates in the country. Another example of a complication comes from the Pittsburgh-Wilkinsburg fire department merger. Due to residence rules for Pittsburgh city employees, the Wilkinsburg firefighters that remain on after the merger would have to move within Pittsburgh city limits. However, financial pressures are increasing the need to find new solutions to running government, and mergers are a better option to cutting public safety services.

Mergers have proven successful in many cases. In 2000, voters approved a merger between the city of Louisville, Kentucky, and Jefferson County. A spokesperson for Mayor Jerry Abramson said consolidation of city and county departments reduced costs by 10% in the first 18 months after the merger became final in 2003, and by an additional 10% since then. The number of employees dropped from around 7,000 to 5,000. The first regional fire agency in Pennsylvania, the York Area United Fire and Rescue, was created in 2008 by a merger of fire services from Springettsbury and Spring Garden Townships. The merger has been so successful that York and Manchester Township are considering joining as well. So while not all mergers turn out for the best (anyone remember AOL and Time Warner?), consolidation is a private sector idea that the public sector needs to give serious consideration.



http://www.thefreeenterprisenation.org/ ... ymore.aspx


Kathyet

John Bush of Texans for Accountable Government Exposes Agenda 21 to Austin City Council
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-lTRxKu3A

They have been pushing this for a very long time cap and trade etc is just the beginning...I had brought many links over here a long time ago on all this information.

The part that got me today was, this was emailed to me by FEN Weekly this morning and it was brought out so slickly and in such a matter of fact way in my email.


Useful Idiots is right!!!!

Kathyet

Agenda 21 In One Easy Lesson



04-01-2011

Tom Deweese
More About: Government
Agenda 21 In One Easy Lesson

Agenda 21 In One Easy Lesson

By Tom DeWeese

Awareness of Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development is racing across the nation as citizens in community after community are learning what their city planners are actually up to. As awareness grows, I am receiving more and more calls for tools to help activists fight back. Many complain that elected officials just won't read detailed reports or watch long videos. "Can you give us something that is quick, and easy to read that we can hand out," I'm asked.

So here it is. A one page, quick description of Agenda 21 that fits on one page. I've also included for the back side of your hand out a list of quotes for the perpetrators of Agenda 21 that should back up my brief descriptions.

A word of caution, use this as a started kit, but do not allow it to be your only knowledge of this very complex subject. To kill it you have to know the facts. Research, know your details; discover the NGO players in your community; identify who is victimized by the policies and recruit them to your fight; and then kill Agenda 21. That's how it must be done. The information below is only your first step. Happy hunting.

What is Sustainable Development?

According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. Sustainablists insist that every societal decision be based on environmental impact, focusing on three components; global land use, global education, and global population control and reduction.

Social Equity (Social Justice)

Social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people “to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.â€