Please help a family in crisis!

Sledgehammer Action Alert
From the American Policy Center

URGENT! URGENT!
Please help a family in crisis. 
Their private property is being destroyed for a bike path.  

Jennie Granato, a resident and tax-paying citizen of Montgomery County, Ohio, has found herself without a front yard and very little to show for it.

Because the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission (MVRPC), as part of a $5M bike path extension, has begun to seize up private property for their “essential” project, including almost the entirety of Miss Granato’s front lawn.

The bike path will come within seven feet of her front door!!

The bike path is being forced by the MVRPC, a non-elected regional planning commission that is driven by federal Sustainable Development grant money – with no input from local residents or property owners. The local country commissioners and the township trustees are helping to enforce this program.

Jennie and her family own a historic farm outside Dayton, Ohio. They have tried to negotiate and reason with this unelected planning commission. But the MCRPC has done nothing but ignore her pleas. And they have offered her only a pittance of compensation for this taking of her land.

The fact is that Jenny and her family still own this property – YET the township has already come in and removed trees and dug up the ground!

It’s her property!!!

Again – the bike path is going through her property only 7 feet from her front door!

The Granato’s house is a 150 year old farmhouse that a study said “lacked historic integrity”. Apparently that makes it okay to seize the privately owned property in front of it and pave over the entire front lawn.

And now a great tragedy has occurred as Jennie has tried to fight this outrage. Just days ago, as the government bulldozers arrived and started their destruction of the front yard, Jennie’s 85 year old mother became so upset over the injustice of government ramming a bike path into her front door of her private home, she suffered a heart attack and died.

Is this how our government now treats law abiding American citizens?

The MVRPC is an unelected agency. Neither Jennie nor any of her neighbors voted to institute the agency or its policies.

There was no vote for this bike path.

There was no referendum on the ballot to approve this project or the spending of the tax dollars.

Yet the MVRPC has imposed itself on privately owned property, giving the owner no say in the matter and giving her virtually nothing in exchange for the land they are taking away.

This is why regional planning is so dangerous. County planners and commissioners see nothing wrong with seizing up private property with little compensation to the owners in the name of “public good”. There is no world in which a bike path through your neighbor’s front yard is “essential”. If we allow governmental and non-governmental agencies to dictate “public good” at the expense of individuals and their property, they will trample all over our rights

The American Policy Center has issued warning after warning about the dangers of Sustainable Development and the enforcement of top down control through non-elected boards and regional government. Here it is in all of its raw outrage.

Take a good look America! Jennie’s tragedy will be that of every American property owner — unless you and I take action now!!!

This week, Jennie’s neighbors, along with property rights activists and Tea Party leaders are joining forces to support Jennie’s fight to stop this outrage. They plan to gather at the property in protest and to take the issue to the news media (which is starting to take notice of the situation.)

But you know full well that the government officials watching this protest will simply laugh, ignore it, and wait for the attention to go away.

We need to put power behind this effort! Freedom fighters need to build a huge fire of protest and make this a national property rights issue.

You and I can no longer idly stand by while corrupt government officials use taxpayers as doormats and pawns in their power plays. While we continue to do nothing to stem the rising tide of government corruption we watch our rights dwindle one by one into the distance.

Here’s what you can do to help:

As the local Dayton area residents do all they can with sign waving, demonstrations, and protests to call attention to this outrage, you and I need to cause an avalanche of phone calls and emails to the perpetrators – the non-elected scoundrels who think they can prey on any citizen without consequences.

You and I need to make them feel consequences for their actions!!

1. Below I have listed the phone numbers and emails of the three Montgomery County Commissioners who should be supporting Jennie, their constituent and her property rights – yet they do nothing.

We need to bury them in calls and emails of protest.  We must make them aware that what they are doing is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We the people have rights and we will fight for them.

AS YOU MAKE THESE CALLS – BE RESPECTFUL. There is still a hope that some will listen and take the proper action to stop this taking of Jenny’s land.

ALSO – DO NOT BRING UP AGENDA 21. STAY FOCUSED ON THIS PARTICUAL ISSUE. To argue Agenda 21 will only confuse the issue.

Montgomery County Commissioners:

Commissioner Dan Foley (Has been recognized for his efforts in promoting bike trails:
Phone: (937) 225-4912
Email: [email protected]

Commissioner Deborah Lieberman: 
Phone: (937) 225-4015
Email: [email protected]

Commissioner Judy Dodge: (and MVRPC Member)
Phone: (937) 225-6470
Email: [email protected]

I urge you to contact each of these three commissioners as early and often as possible. Let them know that they have overstepped their bounds. Destroying a family’s home and peace for something as unnecessary as a bike path is an outrage. People have a Constitutional right to be secure in their homes – and these officials declared an oath to uphold that right.  BE RESPECTFUL IN THE CALL!

2. Washington Township (Where the Grantos live, and which has been responsible for moving the trees and sending the bulldozers)

Joyce Young, Trustee President (elderly wheelchair bound)
[email protected]
937-433-0152

Scott Paulson, Trustee  (attended a LG meeting, seemed somewhat conservative)
[email protected]
937-433-0152

Dale Berry, Trustee (Realtor – let’s see him try to sell this house!)
[email protected]
937-433-0152

3. Call the real perpetrators – the unelected members of the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission. They think they are immune and protected from your protest. Well, not if they can’t use their email or phones because we have jammed them with protests MAKE THEM FEEL YOUR EMOTIIONS OVER THE INJUSTICE OF THEIR ACTIONS!! BUT BE RESPECTFUL.

Non-elected Regional government that doesn’t answer to the people is tyranny!

MVRPC Officers:
1. Michael Beamish, Chair Troy Mayor
937- 339-1221 [email protected]

2. Jan Vargo, First Vice-Chair Huber Heights Council Member
937-469-1193

3. Carol Graff, Second Vice-Chair Beavercreek Twp. Trustee
937- 429-4472 [email protected]

Executive Committee Members:

1. Janet Bly Miami Conservancy District General Manager
937-223-1278 x3220 [email protected]

2. John Agenbroad, Springboro Mayor (City of Springboro is right down the road from where Granatos live)
937-748-0842   [email protected]

REMEMBER – BE RESPECTFUL – BUT FIRM. THEY HAVE VIOLATED JENNY’S PROPERTY RIGHTS – RAMMED A BIKE PATH RIGHT TO HER FRONT DOOR!!

WOULD THESE OFFICIALS STAND FOR IT ON THEIR PROPERTY?

Thousands of us from all over the country, flooding the commissioner’s offices with phone calls and emails will let them know that we are serious, and that the activists they see are backed by the voices of a nation that is sick and tired of being treated like second class citizens, subject to the whims of government edicts.

It is imperative that we act today and clog their email servers and phone lines until they know that they have poked the bear one too many times.

And if we can win this fight for Jennie in Ohio, we will have the strength and momentum to help the next victims of government overreach elsewhere in the nation.

Please help! If we do nothing, these outrages will continue and grow worse as arrogant governments think we are powerless. Tell them it stops now!!

Send this alert to everyone you know and encourage them to make the calls and spread the word. Let’s build a powerful force of freedom fighters across the nation- a force to be reckoned with!!


Tom DeWeese

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Tom DeWeese
[email protected]

Tom DeWeese is President of the American Policy Center and National Grassroots Coordinator for CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow) working to help local activists organize into Freedom Pods (www.CFACT.org). He is also the author of three books, including Now Tell Me I Was Wrong, ERASE, and Sustainable: the WAR on Free Enterprise, Private Property, and Individuals.