A Philosopher, an expert on mud and a lawyer walk into a committee meeting. The philosopher says government should control everything. The expert on mud says it can be done but it will be dirty. The lawyer says, no problem, let me show you the way. -- Did you think this was a joke? It’s not.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has been keeping a low profile since her statewide defeat for Attorney General, but she has been very busy. Working through her appointed representatives, Kristine Euclide, Martha Gibson and Sally Kefer, she has very cleverly twisted a county committee established to watch dog over water and sewer developments into a Central Planning Body for every aspect of Dane County development.
The Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC) is a group of 13 political appointees that has been stacked by the Falk/Cieslewicz environmentalist axis. Falk and Cieslewicz believe the primary role of government is to control the effects of human civilization on the environment. Their New Urbanism philosophy believes humans need to minimize their “footprint” on the planet. This perceived need to segregate people and nature justifies their efforts to control every aspect of society.
Because they believe the spread of humanity is bad, they understand control of infrastructure is a very powerful tool to limit growth. This is why a committee originally tasked with making sure that sewers don’t dump into lakes and streams can justify expanding their power to assert regulatory control in part but not limited to municipal boundaries, lot sizes, business models, construction design, road placement, rail initiatives and the availability of electricity.
The draft of the Dane County Land Use and Transportation Plan is released quietly from the committee and reads like a New Urbanist indoctrination manual. This is not a work outlining regulatory rules of fair play. This is a revolutionary declaration that Dane County government, under Kathleen Falk and Dave Cieslewicz, absolutely intends to impose their vision of how people need to live -- on the people. One brief example:
It is the policy of the CARPC to seek efficient use of land through higher densities of development, mixed use infill development and redevelopment within the urban cores of the region, and the use of existing vacant developable lands within urban service areas prior to expansion into new areas.
In other words, the county is going to actively work to prevent any development in any unimproved area. Remember that old term – improved – taking land that was not beneficial to human life and improving it? The lead in forcing this new socialism on the populace will most likely be Kristine Euclide, one of the 1000 Friends of crowded cities, and good buddy of the Governor. The irony here is that while Falk’s minions are fervently working to preserve what many of us love about Dane County, they are destroying the American freedom that makes living in this beautiful region worthwhile.
