Peter Walks for Democracy

Citizens from across Centre County are very concerned about the proposed Nestle plant for Spring, Walker, or Benner Township. In case you don’t know, the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County (CBICC), has championed Nestle’s coming here. This announcement, combined with previous issues with CBICC prompted some of us to act. Last week, the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors that I chair*, had a discussion about economic development, our relationship with CBICC, and their courting of Nestle to build a bottling plant in the region. Suffice to say that I’m really concerned.

I’ve been writing here for the last few years about the “hydra of development.”

The hungry hydra of “development” just chews and chews and chews.  As Wendell Berry has written, what took decades to grow will disappear with the quick action of a few bulldozers. Even at this small scale, one can see the dangers of an ever-growing economy, no matter how well managed. Management doesn’t work when we say “yes” to too much. Eventually, it eats up what supports us. Our peace of mind. Beauty. Health.

The system is rigged in the favor of massive money interests and their yes men. What we need are some tough-minded and skeptical men and women who love this place more than anything to ask hard questions about economic development. Our citizens want and need good livelihoods. But is that what we would be getting?

After a few years of annoyance with CBICC, the Ferguson Township board decided not to provide a municipal contribution through our regular budget. Previously, we had given $25,000. The 2018 budget, with a 5-0 bipartisan vote, we put that money into a $35,000 economic development fund. We explicitly did not put it toward CBICC because we had made two requests of them. We requested a seat on their board that they turned down. So we asked for two reports each year on their activities with Ferguson-specific information. We got one report that I found less than illuminating. How were we to assess their performance?

We are left with the evidence of their self-reported activities. They hold networking events, some member educational programming events, awards, signature events, and ad campaigns. There is definitely value to these activities. The business community needs strong ties, share good practices, recognize excellence, and draw attention to itself. But in my opinion the CBICC is getting too much public funding to do private work.

I have spotted at least three problems that I have conveyed in person to the CBICC’s leadership. First, we have no say in what they do despite our membership. Second, the Centre County Economic Development Program (CCEDP) that the local municipalities signed onto is just CBICC in another name. Go ahead and search that on the web and you won’t find a concerted effort. It looks–and looks can be deceiving–to be a fiat to get local municipalities to make CBICC the point for economic development and an attempt at forming an economic development monopoly. Third, when it comes to the Nestle deal, I can say that our manager sits on two CBICC committees and had no knowledge about the Nestle actions. Our municipality has a Home Rule Charter that includes a Community and Environmental Bill of Rights and a Strategic Plan with specific environmental stewardship and regional cooperation goals in it. Ferguson Township could have weighed in on the Nestle deal.

In my opinion, CBICC has aligned itself with one of the most malignant food and water companies in the world. They have a history of ignoring the rights children and workers in Colombia, Thailand, and the Ivory Coast. Their CEO has wrongly denied that there’s a human right to water. In 2010, the “United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights. [Resolution 64/292] calls upon States and international organisations to provide financial resources, help capacity-building and technology transfer to help countries, in particular developing countries, to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all.” Additionally, Clean Water and Sanitation for all is the first of the environmentally-related Sustainable Development Goals on Agenda 2030, seventeen goals agreed to by 192 nations in 2015 including the United States. Nestle has some slick websites and smooth talkers to say they’re really better than this, but their record speaks for itself.

Nestle are also known abusers of water withdrawal. In California they’ve been taking water in the midst of a drought, Michigan where people want them to go away. In Canada the Council of Canadiens report that Nestle stole 1 billion liters of water. They’ve already created quite the stir in Allentown where they’ve been at work to steal the public good for years. It goes on and on. Just use Google.

For whose advantage? Shareholders. As the Nestle Op-Ed in the CDT the other day indicates, they have plenty of knowledge, but it’s knowledge geared toward their the greed and profits of a few who are openly hostile to communities and public water. They are a multinational with an explicit interest in privatizing water. Come hell or high water…or low water under increasing climate change-induced drought conditions…they will do whatever they can to take public water and make it a commodity.

Their record shows they will almost certainly ignore the spirit of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Article 1, Section 27 states, “Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.” Why should the local trustees of these resources give up that responsibility and hand it over to one of the world’s largest corporate parasites? Nestle has too much power already. We shouldn’t give them more.

As one of my board mates said, we need businesses that help us solve problems. We don’t need businesses that make more problems. Saying no to Nestle is a start. The hard work comes after.

* While I chair the Ferguson Board of Supervisors, this piece doesn’t reflect the will of the board. If you’d like to see the Board’s thinking as a body, watch our meeting last week on C-NET. No one should think that I’m standing here stamping my feet or yelling anything at the authorities or boards of Spring or Benner Townships where the decisions will be made. They make their decisions. But what information and values are guiding them? I make no assumptions.