Report from Sustainable Development Meeting - Feb. 19 in Pevely, MO

These are notes submitted by a concerned citizen regarding a "Regional Sustainable Communities" meeting at Pevely City Hall last week. The meeting was part of a series of meetings sponsored by the Regional Plan for Sustainable Development (RPSD) to get citizen feedback on "sustainable development" plans.

Meeting was run by members of East/West Gateway. There were around 7 of there members present. Mark Fogol (MC), Marielle Brown (Our table leader), and Kevin Triggs (note taker at our table).

There were 18 at-large attendees from Pevely, Festus, Herculaneum, and Crystal City. Also included in this number were 2 ladies (Lisa & Teresa) from St. Louis County area.

There have been 2 previous meetings on this topic at different locations and a 4^th meeting will be held in 2 weeks on Tuesday night in Madison, IL. [was rescheduled for Thur., March 7, 2013 at the Madison Fire Station at 6:30 p.m.)

The team of 7, especially Mark Fogol, has given over 30 of these types of informational meetings all across the St. Louis area in the last few months.

Some of the locations were; Wentzville and Lake St. Louis, Ferguson and evirons, and east metro area.

A data portal is being developed that will hold all information as the Sustainable Development process unfolds and it will be hosted by St. Louis University.

After the last meeting (#4) drafting of the plan will begin and laid out by June of 2013. Then there will be some Sustainable Development workshops then presented during the rest of the summer and early Fall to local city and town officials to look at and talk about.

Happy Welch was present at our table and he is the Pevely Commissioner hired.

East / West Gateway hold the purse strings of money (from HUD & EPA) that will finance this endeavor. They said that they are not pushing any agenda and the choices will be made by local authority, board of alderman, or commissioner of each of the 4 towns being targeted; Festus, Crystal City, Pevely, and Herculaneum.

I would think that during the next 3-4 months a campaign to inform these local leaders about Agenda 21 would be paramount, otherwise the local leaders will be glad to take the funds from the 2 federal agencies and sign on and what the future would hold would not be good.

At our table during the discussion period that brought up the fact that she was aware that this process is from Agenda 21, ICLEI, and the United Nations. It was denied....There was a couple at the table that got up and left after the Agenda 21 discussion. They were stopped by some team members and talked with in more of a private session at the rear of the room.

Please contact me if you want to be part of team of concerned citizens learning more about "sustainable development" (Agenda 21) plans being developed for our area.