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City of Hamilton releases services plan, budget
Rachel Sauls
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Supporters of the proposed city of Hamilton are releasing a services plan and budget that give potential residents a better idea of what the city could look like should its incorporation be approved by local voters.
Both documents, which are available online at http://www.friendsofhamilton.org, detail the specific services future residents would receive from the city and how those services would be funded. After receiving a critique of the budget and making revisions, Friends of Hamilton President Chris Matthews said the group was able to lower the proposed city tax from 1.5 percent to 1.25 percent per $100 assessment of real and personal property.
“So far we’ve had positive responses to the services plan,” said Matthews. “And we tried to be realistic and conservative with the budget.”
According to a breakdown of tax rates provided by Hamilton County Trustee Bill Hullander, a tax rate of 1.25 percent per $100 assessment of real and personal property would make the proposed city of Hamilton the fifth lowest tax collector out of Hamilton County’s 11 municipalities.
But the proposed city still has a long way to go before becoming a municipality.
According to Hamilton spokesperson Brendan Jennings, supporters of the proposed city are preparing to launch a multi-faceted campaign that he hopes will encourage more registered voters in the area to sign a petition for incorporation of the city.
In order to gain a spot on the November ballot, the proposed city will need approximately 4,000 signatures by Sept. 1 to meet the 33.33 percent of affected registered voter signatures required by law. Matthews said Friends of Hamilton are working to verify the amount of signatures on the petition for incorporation.
“We’re not disclosing the number of signatures yet, but I feel like we are in a good place,” he said.
In addition to the campaign and a canvassing effort, Friends of Hamilton has also added three more petition locations to the list of places people can add their name to the official petition.
For more information, visit http://www.friendsofhamilton.org.
Agenda 21 and Urban Growth Plan: Conspiracy, Coincidence or Reality?
As we started the Friends of Hamilton (FOH) effort to incorporate the City of Hamilton for maintaining our quality of life with local planning instead of forced annexation and metro government, most of us had never heard of Agenda 21. Agenda 21 was brought to our attention by a number of local residents as a UN effort driven at the local level (that’s right the United Nation) to dissolve and control 5th Amendment private property rights granted by the US Constitution to US Citizens. Agenda 21 attempts dissolves property rights and increases government control of private property. At first glance, we didn’t give it much thought, but after further research our opinion has changed.
Please review the following information/timeline and judge for yourself.
| June 1992 | UN Adopts Agenda 21 at Rio de Janerio Event |
| http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/ | |
| Agenda 21 terms also include Sustainable Growth, Office of Sustainability, etc.
The following link is a video analysis on Agenda 21 and local communities. |
| June 1996 | Istanbul Turkey – Chattanooga Wins “Best Practices” for implementation of Habitat II and Agenda 21 Programs |
| http://www.un.org/news/Press/docs/1996/19960605.hab123.html | |
| Additional foot note from former Chattanooga Mayor Gene Roberts about Agenda 21 |
| May 1998 | State of TN Passed – Urban Growth Plan – PC 1101 |
| http://state.tn.us/sos/acts/100/pub/PUBC1101.htm | |
| Since joining the union in 1870 (128 years) property rights were in the hands of the citizens of TN until this bill was adopted. It allowed for forced annexation with little regard to property rights.
The following is the TN Attorney Generals clarification on items in PC1101 around annexation, etc. |
| July 2001 | Urban Growth Plan goes into effect in TN |
| Feb 2003 | City of Chattanooga starts forced annexation of Commercial Property in Ooltewah, TN |
| Jan 2009 | Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield starts Office of Sustainability http://www.chattanooga.gov/General_Government/62_4570.htm |
What options are available to restore rights to the citizens? The residents of TN need to lobby 90 non-metro state representatives to repeal the Urban Growth Plan and restore citizen’s rights or grossly cripple the Urban Growth Plan with amendments.
Advocates supporting the Urban Growth Plan and will fight any changes:
| Metro Government Representatives | (Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Johnson Cities (Tri-Cities) & Chattanooga) |
| MTAS (Municipal Technical Advisory Service) | http://www.mtas.tennessee.edu/public/web.nsf/Web/Home?Opendocument# |
| Tennessee Municipal League | http://www.tml1.org/ |
Supporters who could repeal or modify the urban growth plan:
| Rural Government Representatives | Approx. 90+ counties in the State of TN with rural representatives who understand constitutional rights. |
| County Technical Assistance Program | http://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/public/web/ctas.nsf/FrontPage?readform |
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