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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    The Adventures Of Huckleberry Gillman


    By JGillman, Section News
    Posted on Fri Jun 17, 2011 at 11:11:23 AM EST
    Tags: Traverse City, Rotary Charities, Michigan, Boardman River, Dams, Philanthropy, Planning, Rent seeking, Huckleberrys, Liberty, Charity (all tags)

    One of the payments one must make for the ability to peruse Michigan's top rated political blog is having to put up with an occasional update on my own unapologetic exploits in the hinterland.

    Today's story finds the hero (that would be me) again on the front page in opposition to the way things are.  A story that targets in some way how my misfit shenanigans are unacceptable to so many people, at the same time will help to shine light through debate and understanding of what goes on behind the scenes in government and the willing accomplices. Power, Greed, (possible) Corruption.

    "Gillman attacks charity."

    That is of course, the intended effect of the headline.  The Traverse City Record Eagle title "Commissioner to challenge Rotary" highlights my perverse attempts at wrangling away the 501(c) status Rotary Charities enjoys. "The poor, the afflicted, the disadvantaged, will be hurt by this crazed commissioner's antics!" being the unprinted subtext.

    Except Its not even clear that they serve those constituencies any more.  Something I wondered about early in my term as commissioner, and watched as a Rotary grant check for the master plan of the county was issued.  At the time it was curious to me why they might be interested in such things, but had no objection, as I had no knowledge of why they might do such a thing.

    Well, once upon a time, there was the Dam issue. (below)

    An effort that began in 2006 to get those stinky polluting hydroelectric dams out of the trout fish paths was initially promoted by Rotary funding:

        Becky Ewing, program officer for Rotary Charities of Traverse City, said, "Great things grow from small seeds" in noting an initial grant her organization provided to help launch the effort in 2006.

        "They asked for $5,000 and we gave them $10,000," noted Ewing. "We saw the incredible potential for this project...and we wanted it to succeed. Marsha Smith (Rotary Charities' executive director) and leaders of the Great Lakes Fishery Trust co-hosted a meeting in 2006 that brought a wide range of funders together and the rest is history."

    Their leveraged $10,000 grant to pull together community collaboration planted the seed for not only the $2.3 million dollars already spent by interested parties to date for the removal of our local dams, but also for hundreds of other dams in the state of Michigan that are holding back true "trout fishing potential!"  True, the Great Lakes Fishery Trust donated $1,000,000 based on this process, AND of course the additional $70,000 over the next few years given by Rotary to the county to start the implementation process for final removal.

    The end result BTW, is a continuing (and to my objection) disbursement to the IT (implementation team) for operating expenses, which are of course paid for with tax dollars.  So those dams are open and impoundments are drying.

    Of course, one could argue that the repair of such things as Dams is an expensive proposition!   This is true.  a $750,000 repair bill to carry the Dams another 30 years would indeed be a price to pay.  Especially since it is so much cheaper to apply for Rotary money, which leverages other charitable money (agenda connected) that leverages state money that leverages, BIA Money, and other federal money.

    Cheaper.

    All of that likely adding to tens of millions over time for the removal.  Adding to it, the cost on private property owners of what they thought was water front for multiple decades.  By golly, those silly property owners now have the pleasure of mud flats in their back yards.  And the kicker?  The mud that lies between them and what used to be their waterfront belongs to the county, and is publicly accessible.

    Thank you Rotary charities, for that.

    Yessiree, the ol charity business is pretty good.  But as you know, children are all healthy, everyone has a good home, families are strong, and every dog has a leash.  And while the sun is shining, the fruit is growing, and the regions indigent have been restored to full productivity, the Rotary charity has moved its primary focus to planning.

    Which is what started this last round of infamy which I seem to find myself involved in.

    Last month, a rent seeking planner looking for a job visited my local township hall with his hand out.  Now never you mind that the townships don't just give away anything all too easy in these here parts.  One has to be a creative shuck-a-muck, if you know what I mean.  This traveling salesman of the visionary type had the keys to the Rotary coffer apparently, and merely asked for permission to ask on behalf of the township for money from the Rotary.  That money would then allow the beginning of a new collaborative venture, a "Corridor Improvement Authority" (CIA) which is essentially a nifty new name for a DDA.

    He was asking to request $5,000.

    Now I understand one cannot buy a whole lot of whitewash for only $5,000, but this seed money sure grows the trees of green quick enough with the right measure in place.  Never mind the fences that exist between property owners who may not wish to participate in this man's ride down a wild river of politicking.  Certainly some folks round here just want to be left to their own devices, but sure as shootin they'll come around after having to defend themselves repeatedly against unasked-for painting.

    I gotta tell you I wasn't at all impressed with the plan. So I wrote to the Rotary Charities folks.  Its a little long for cut and paste, but  is available here.  I challenged their previous and current missions, but I ain't much for talk and all.

    Did I tell you that running me outta town is on some minds lately?

    Sure enough, it seems they weren't too happy with the manner in which my letter addressed their philanthropy of late, and pretty much disagreed.  They gave that rent seeker his pig, and decided my letter was offensive enough to put to the press. Don't get me wrong, I don't care much what a charity does with its financial paint gun, but when it has impact that begs a cost to me or others who want no part of a collaborative process, it is not strictly charity.

    In fact, the day after the Township decided to accept the grant for the CIA, the Rotary made yet another ($45,000 I reckon) to another local township for planning a highway/road  move that would make it closer to the bay.  By golly, that is how the rivers wind I suppose.  More money to leverage more, and so on.

    Some folks might think ol Gillman is up nights trying to figure out ways to mess with the powers that be in this little backwater paradise.  Not so much.  I just don't cotton too well to the (sometimes well intentioned) plans made that require me to be on my toes in perpetuity, or risk losing yet another liberty in my daily life.

    I guess I would rather be fishin up on the ol Boardman pond.

    If it was still there.

    < What if. | Why I Left The Apocalypto That Is Dearborn >


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    Adventures of Huck Gillman (none / 0) (#1)
    by kingsleyphoenix on Sat Jun 18, 2011 at 12:31:34 PM EST
       What Jason Gillman has exposed is but a sliver of Foundation Charitable transfer of wealth to fund inappropriate to downright unAmerican causes.  On a bigger scale the major Foundations of this country have a history of bank rolling subversive causes.  Witness the 1950's attempt to investigate the foundations (Ford - Carnigie - Rockefellar) for their consistant funding of socialist and communist causes.  Mind you also Foundations are not subject to pay income tax but are operated as a tax shelter for crony capitalism who have nothing but building socialism on their mind.
       Grants to Hispanic radicals during the period of 1968 to 1992 came to over $31 million. Millions more have been added since.
        From the Ford Foundation's report (Summer/Fall 1995), for instance, we see the following grants:
        * National Council of La Raza, $160,000 and $75,000.
        * Northern New Mexico Legal Services, $20,000.
        * Mexican Academy of Human Rights, $20,000.
        * Hispanic Leadership Opportunity Program, $2,325,000 (including $525,000 for MALDEF).
        * Immigrant Legal Resource Center, $145,000.
        * National Immigration Law Center, $335,000.
        * National Immigration Law Forum, $130,000.
        * Urban Institute Program for Research on Immigration Policy, $900,000.
        * Hispanics in Philanthropy, $100,000.
        These and other Hispanic activist groups receive millions of dollars more in funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Charles Stewart Mort Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Southwestern Bell Foundation, Surdna Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation, the AT&T Foundation, the GTE Foundation, the Rosenberg Foundation, the Amoco Foundation, the UPS Foundation, and other tax-exempt foundations.
        Additional grants to the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the Marxist Institute for Policy Studies, and other militant groups go into the fight to radicalize the Hispanic population, undermine immigration enforcement, and lobby for revolution. It was Ford-funded MALDEF, for instance, which initiated the Texas litigation that culminated in the Supreme Court's Plyler v. Doe decision requiring state taxpayers to provide free schooling to the children of illegal aliens. It was litigation brought by MALDEF and the ACLU which resulted in the decision by liberal-left federal judge Mariana Pfaelzer striking down California's popularly passed Proposition 187 to withhold welfare benefits from illegal aliens. Ford funding keeps battalions of radical attorneys employed suing the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol on behalf of illegal aliens and so-called "refugees" and "asylees."
      A final question I leave with you is this.
    What Michigan Governor has served on the Ford Foundation as well as on the Board of Directors of the ACLU?    Test tomorrow.
       

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