Last night, we were approached by a developer and their lawyers to revise an ordinance to make their proposed development economically reasonable. They had rewritten the ordinance for us. How kind. We did not accept it. One citizen, speaking on a different issue, was alarmed. She should be.
That, my friends, was an attempt at “regulatory capture.” It was an attempt to influence our decisions and even our non-decisions about our community’s assets, the procedures and policies governing and regulating those assets, and what we prioritize. The entire presentation and rewrite by the developer was an attempt to influence the rules of the people’s government away from the public’s interest and toward private profit.
“No Mr. Fox. We won’t open the hen house.”
Peter Walks for Democracy 