Grand Rapids Mayor: 100% Green Energy by 2020, No Refugee Left Behind

[XLFD]

Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell recently visited Ludington as a guest speaker for A Few Friends for the Environment of the World (AFFEW), a local environmental group.  City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) Managing Editor Steve Begnoche broadcast his honor's October visit with a feature article and explained some of the mayor's views in a long-winded titled COLDNews article on October 22 titled "Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell shares how his city became a Green City and why sustainability is good for a community during AFFEW presentation". 

In a previous article in the Ludington Torch in late 2014, I detailed Heartwell's spirited campaign to derail term limits for GR officials, a grass roots effort which was successful at the ballot box, and revealed that the mayor's own feelings of indispensability were poorly placed.  Instead of leading GR as mayor for the rest of his days, he became a lame duck, with his last term ending at the end of this year, a month and a half away.  He noticeably was concerned that all that he had accomplished may be jeopardized with a change of leadership. 

At the AFFEW conference, he made some notable comments and observations:

According to Begnoche's article, Heartwell was there to explicitly talk about GR's Green City designation and initiatives.  Heartwell does deserve some credit for GR being called the most sustainable medium sized city in the nation by the Chamber of Commerce. 

He said mayors shamelessly steal ideas from other cities where good things are happening, adding good things are happening in Ludington.  “My vision was for our city to become the most sustainable city in the nation,” Heartwell said.

“Imagine a sustainable West Michigan,” Heartwell said, describing a geographic region along the lakeshore and inland to Big Rapids on south through Grand Rapids. “ I don’t imagine there is anything like that in the world. So take me up on that.”

One goal was for Grand Rapids to get 20 percent of its energy from green sources by 2007. That was accomplished in part through efforts to increase efficiency that reduced power consumption. The city also bought energy from renewable sources from Consumers Energy, which Heartwell said was easy, but more expensive than “dirty energy.”

The new goal is for Grand Rapids to get 100 percent of its energy from green sources by 2020. Heartwell said skeptics said that was crazy, but Grand Rapids, is steadily working towards that goal.  GR has reduced energy use by 12 percent, and water consumption by 25 percent. 

Now, Editor Begnoche doesn't track Heartwell's statements with anything short of idolatry, and with good reason-- his wife is the long term vice-president of AFFEW, and one could probably see AFFEW Board member (and Ludington City Councilor) Kathy Winczewski absorbing the wisdom of Mayor Heartwell with dreams of translating that into Ludington's future. 

But achieving 100% green energy by 2020 is certifiably insane, because it is impossible.  Trying to achieve that number in so short a time would be too costly for any city's budget nor would it be efficient; Heartwell to his credit acknowledges the extra expense, but he fails to see the natural limitations.  Frankly, with his incredible sustainability rhetoric, it is not surprising he won that title for Grand Rapids from the Chamber of Commerce. 

But within a month of his ambitious/crazy statements in downtown Ludington, he makes another odd declaration at a recent Grand Rapids City Commission meeting in the video below (afterwards follows a transcript):

"Susan (Heartwell) and I watched in shocked silence Friday night as the tragic events in Paris, France played out on our television screen. The unimaginable horror of those victims – one minute sitting peaceably in a café, or walking to a soccer match, or enjoying a concert – and the next hearing gunshots and bomb blasts, watching people fall around them and lie in spreading pools of blood. The inconceivable acts of desperate and demented people. The utter nakedness of evil. There simply weren't words to express the range of emotion from revulsion, to sorrow, to fear. Even today the images won't go away of people lying dead in the streets of Paris and police swarming outside the concert hall ready to rush and save those still living.

Today our hearts are heavy as we think of the taking of so many lives. Today we can only stand in silent solidarity with the people of Paris and mourn with those who lost loved ones and friends in the senseless slaughter.

The perpetrators of this atrocity hoped we would be afraid. They imagined that everywhere we go from this day on we go fearfully, convinced that if it could happen there it could happen here. They will have succeeded if we give up the freedoms and rights of democracy in return for security. We did that, too much of that, following the attack on the Twin Towers, Pentagon and fields of Pennsylvania. We must not do it again.

We are freedom-loving people and we live in a land where freedom from oppression is our norm. President Franklin Roosevelt said, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.' The context then was a global war. The context now is global terror. We must not cheaply exchange our freedoms for security, for such security will be fleeting and unsatisfying.

Neither must be turn this event into a witch-hunt that would sweep innocent people up in its nets. If we use this terror to turn xenophobic, to repel freedom-seeking people at our borders, or to look unkindly at those whose faith is other than our own, then the terrorists will have succeeded and the end of the American soul cannot be far away.

I, for one, refuse to be afraid. I refuse to hate. I refuse to respond to violence with suspicion of my neighbor. Today I call on you, the citizens of this great city, to do the same."

Mayor Heartwell's recognition of civil liberties is commendable, but his speech fails to recognize that you don't put a refugee fox into the chicken coop, even if he seems harmless enough.  It moreover reflects a denial of reality which makes one believe that the people of Grand Rapids made a proper vote to restrict this madman's terms, and that many are counting the days when his successor is seated.

[Willy]

At first I was encouraged by what he was saying and he is right about our freedoms being eroded. Then he finishes his speech with absurdity. Civilizations have crumbled because they trusted or embraced those trying to enter their territory. The whole idea of a terrorist act is to "terrorize" people. When deadly deeds such as Paris occurs we had better feel terror because that is the basic human emotion and the genetically programmed survival tool which keeps humans alert and vigilant for more potential trouble. Recognizing the origins of terrorism and acting on it is essential and failure to do so will only set the scene for repeated acts of aggression and terrorism. I feel sorry for legitimate refugees but our security comes first. The Mayor also fails to understand what Obama's regime is doing by flooding the Country with immigrants. The Mayor needs to concentrate on and put his efforts towards taking care of the citizens he represents not outsiders who consider democracy a dirty word as per their religion. 

 

[XLFD]

It was a fantastic speech until those last two paragraphs, which effectively said "OK, let's not learn anything from this and continue the status quo"-- which has been a very lax policy of immigration which threatens both our security and our freedoms.

Mayor Heartwell suffers from the shortsightedness of believing in 100% achievement of a socialistic Utopia which fails to take into account the many diversities and psychologies of real people and real life. 

His own policies, however, betray his words when he voices the words "They will have succeeded if we give up the freedoms and rights of democracy in return for security".  Underlying his sustainability rhetoric, which is evident in his speech to AFFEW and other proclamations during his terms, he is championing the rise of state power, which, of course, must restrict more civil liberties and human rights.  The mayor is probably upset primarily because he has only 43 more days in office to exploit the tragedy for his own benefit.

[XLFD]

The Daily Mail did some research on the threats from within America.  It's not xenophobia, it's common sense that we change the way things currently are.

America's 'enemies within': How nearly SEVENTY have been arrested i...

US authorities have charged at least 66 men and women with ISIS-related terror plots on American soil – including a handful of refugees, Daily Mail Online can reveal. 

The terror group has set its sights on Washington, D.C. as it vows to further infiltrate the West and ramp up its blood-soaked offensive.

Presidents Obama insists that 'slamming the door' on Syrian refugees fleeing ISIS would be a betrayal of American values.

But 34 governors are refusing to take in any more, in case jihadi fighters slip into their states and repeat the carnage of Paris.

Analysis by Daily Mail Online reveals that a handful of foiled plots have already involved immigrants accused of harboring sympathy for ISIS. 

The threat also comes from within, with American teenagers and Islamic converts among those seduced by the group’s torrent of chilling online propaganda. 

They include a U.S. Air Force veteran accused of waging war on the country he once served and a National Guard soldier who allegedly plotted to gun down his own colleagues. 

Others are seemingly ordinary American citizens, including a young nurse, a pizza parlor boss and schoolgirls tricked into becoming shrouded ISIS brides. 

Some have conspired to travel or send friends abroad to link up with fundamentalist fighters while others have planned for jihad closer to home - with Capitol Hill among the targets for a foiled bombing raid. 

[Willy]

Europe is being over run with people from the middle east. It's getting really bad but our main stream media is not reporting this story.