JCC Will Look at All of County's Memberships, Not Just Environmental One

By Eric Pesola Saturday, July 16, 2011

The James City County Board of Supervisors agreed to evaluate the county’s membership in professional organizations at their board meeting this week.

This comes after Board of Supervisors Chairman Mary Jones’ initial suggestion that James City to longer be a part of International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, or ICLEI, at the June 14 board meeting. She again requested to end the membership to ICLEI on Tuesday.

The county pays $1,200 a year for membership to ICLEI. The primary benefit of membership is the use of ICLEI software and protocol to conduct a baseline greenhouse gas inventory. ICLEI staff also gives technical assistance.

Jones and Supervisor Bruce Goodson spoke in favor of cancelling the ICLEI membership, while Supervisors John McGlennon and James Kennedy asked to review all county affiliations before making a decision. Supervisor James Icenhour did not comment on the matter.

Six residents spoke during the public comment session Tuesday in favor of ending the county’s involvement with ICLEI. They railed against the United Nations, ICLEI and Agenda 21, which is a plan of action set forth by the U.N. to address the impact of humanity on the environment.

“This, as a young father, is terrifying to me,” said resident Keith Sadler, after reading some proposals and outlines from ICLEI. “This is nothing more than a global attempt at circumventing the rights guaranteed by our Founding Fathers.”

Jones said a few times that she had heard similar concerns from citizens, like the ones that were raised in the public comment period. She said that she had been conducting her own research on ICLEI. She quoted information from a 1997 interview with a former secretary general of ICLEI (which can be found here).

ICLEI is now a hot-button issue among Tea Party activists, as many affiliated websites have articles discussing the issue. In a later phone interview, Jones would not say if she was a member of any Tea Party organization, but did explain why the ICLEI membership issue is so important to her.

“It was brought specifically to my attention by concerned residents,” said Jones. “I certainly support the goals of the citizens who are involved with the Tea Party. I support fiscal responsibility."

McGlennon mentioned at a previous board meeting that anti-ICLEI literature was distributed at a Tea Party meeting that he attended along with Jones. McGlennon, again voiced his concern with leaving ICLEI, which he said suffers from a “misunderstanding of its role.”

“My sense is that this is an organization that is being considered differently, and that it’s not really that we are getting the benefit and knowledge, but maybe something else that’s driving this consideration,” said McGlennon.

“I think there is a lot of misinformation about ICLEI that has been distributed. We received [an email] from the national organization today that explains a little bit more about what they do. And when you sit down and read that information, ICLEI looks a lot like a number of other organizations that we’ve been involved with through the years.”

McGlennon responded to some of the concerns brought up by the residents, by pointing out that it was the board that supported the Economic Opportunity (EO) zone and got behind the comprehensive plan. The EO zone is planned to be a mixed-use development area, which will feature both housing and commercial space. The zone will allow for multi-level apartment complexes, which one resident claimed was among the goals of ICLEI. One of the main objectives of the county’s comprehensive plan is sustainability, another focus of ICLEI.

“I’m having a hard time understanding exactly what it is that people are objecting to,” said McGlennon.

Kennedy said he also felt that ICLEI was being singled out, considering that the county is affiliated with many professional organizations.

“I don’t want to single out organizations for one issue,” said Kennedy. “And that’s what concerns me. We have to look at this thing objectively, Chairman Jones. I have many concerns about this organization, but I have many concerns of many other organizations that we’re members of as well.”

Kennedy also shared that he recently spoke to Patrick Hays, who is the mayor of North Little Rock, Ark., and a member of the ICLEI board of directors. Kennedy said that he pointed many things out to Hays about ICLEI, including that that there are no present or past ICLEI board members who are Republicans.

Kennedy said he would not want to approve or cancel a membership to an organization without hearing both sides of the argument first.

“We talk about these items, then if a speech is given, then the impression is given that we’re eliminating something and we haven’t discussed it in detail,” said Kennedy. “I hate to say this, but a lot of things that you read on the Internet are not true. This is no attack on you Ms. Jones — this is just a request to get all the information in and make some decisions.”