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“One of our goals should be to make cities so much fun, and such a draw, that land outside those cities is protected for working lands, forest and farms.” (Greater Sandpoint Greenprint project, p22, Steve Lockwood, Sandpoint resident and board member of Idaho Smart Growth.) A sentiment hauntingly similar to those in the U.N. Agenda for Sustainable Growth, such as high density urban development, complete streets and sustainable cities, each of which used by Smart Growth America and Idaho Smart Growth, which has partnered with the U.N. Habitat (“Land … cannot be controlled by individuals …”) and the National Complete Streets Coalition. The proximity to the Wildlands Network, formerly the Wilderness Project, is the initiative to “drastically limit human activity … in the West … in a “large, interconnected network of protected areas.”

Reading the appendices reveals a bit of a contradiction within the study. One use of the surveys, with their built-in bias toward city dwellers (perhaps due to where the survey was taken) is the exclusion of a representative sample of people who want to live outside the city and do not own timberland or farmland. Many do not want to be herded into city confinement.

The steering committee meetings reveal an effort to coerce residents to turn enormous areas of Bonner County into unproductive, human excluded, wilderness areas. See Scenario E versus Scenario F. The attempt to use taxpayer dollars to accomplish this is an underhanded slap in the face of those taxpayers.

JEREMY CONLIN

Cocolalla