"That majority (of living inhabitants), then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution that they think will be the best for themselves."

--Thomas Jefferson 1816.

The Vermont Alliance for Locally Initiated Democracy

Another Way is possible
While the regulatory process channels a community’s concerns into a narrow question that can be addressed at a hearing, the underlying issue is whether citizens living under a supposed democracy should have the ability to make the decisions locally, that affect them locally.

Democracy in its truest sense can only be practiced on the local level where citizen’s voices can be heard, where decision makers are stakeholders in the community and where the influence of corporate wealth is least evident. In forming the Vermont Alliance for Locally Initiated Democracy, we hoped to inspire a new kind of organizing. We reject efforts to use the regulatory process, a system that is flawed by design. Instead, we will encourage communities to practice direct rights-based democracy. We will build upon work done in towns like Barnstead, NH and by many of the township governments in Pennsylvania who have passed ordinances prohibiting corporate ownership of farm land, corporate water withdrawal, application of sewage sludge to agricultural lands and have abolished corporate personhood.

We believe that this type of organizing will resonate very well with our fellow Vermonters. We are largely skeptical of corporate intrusion into our institutions, have a rich tradition of local decision making and are confident in our ability to govern ourselves. However, among our first challenges is to begin educating activists about rights-based organizing. This will require bringing in speakers to Vermont, including hosting one or a series of Democracy Schools in Vermont. Secondly, we will be building our alliance one person at a time, engaging average citizens, community leaders and grassroots organizers about the multitude of issues here in Vermont that could be addressed using these methods. We hope to serve as a support network, recognizing the common threads that run through what may appear disparate campaigns. Finally, we will seek out and support citizen groups willing to introduce legislation in their towns to address community concerns.

And if we’re successful…
If successful, the balance of power will shift from federal bureaucracy to local control, from the rights of property to people’s rights, from corporate power to citizen power. We believe this will require the changing of the Vermont and U.S. Constitutions. We anticipate towns creating or revising charters that give themselves greater authority to make binding law.

We believe that the rights of people to become self-governing will be challenged by the minority who currently govern the majority. These challenges are welcome as they will provide the impetus for deeper and more widespread change.

We anticipate that when given the authority to create the laws by which they will live, communities will choose not to poison their air, soil and waterways, they will choose not to sell off their groundwater, etc.