At the Monday, February 2 Charlottesville City Council meeting, the IMPACT “yellowshirts” were out in force in their annual attempt to shake-down local government (aka local taxpayers).
This unseemly commingling of left-wing political and religious “social justice” forces has found a built-in patsy in Mayor David Norris, who at last year’s “Charlottesville Inquisition” described the local “affordable housing” issue as a $400 million dollar problem.
Groups claiming to be “faith-based” should not look to the government as their “god” or as a resource for their good works. Rather, they should look to within their own congregations for resources and within their own hearts (and Bibles) for solutions to the “problems” they perceive.
In this instance, the “affordable housing crisis” for which IMPACT seeks government redress primarily was caused by the very same local governments now being asked to provide a “fix.”+ The “crisis” stems from reckless+ spending (in order to support social meddling), over-regulation and over-taxation by local government.
Attempting to use the confiscatory power of government to fund your pet projects is WRONG, IMPACT. Your methods are nothing short of extortion. Remember that tithing and contributions always are voluntary (unless you work for Tom Perriello), but taxation never is.
See University Baptist Church’s Senior Minister, Tom Leland, making the case for IMPACT+ at Monday’s City Council meeting.
Although it’s true that churches should be concerned with caring for the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ, I agree with Rob that the tactics Impact uses should give us all pause. I know at least one person who told me that he has reduced his weekly donations to his church because the church is heavily invested in Impact’s government “shakedown” activity. His reasoning is that the church now is demanding more of his tax dollars—he could freely give during the service or give through his tax bills but not both. We all know if government has another claim on our tax dollars it will continue to raise taxes to meet these rising revenue demands. My friend believes his tax bills will continue to go up thus cutting into his disposable income for other things such as freely determined charitable giving.
I watched this meeting live online. I tuned in during this speech. It’s clear IMPCT’s tactics are intimidation and extortion. It wasn’t enough to stand up in support, the supporters had to be in uniform, in yellow shirts. I realize government understands force only and ignores individuals, so large groups must show up to make Council nervous. But this group is not threatening government so govt will stop stealing and tearing down affordable houses, or lower taxes and regulation to make houses more affordable. IMPACT is pressuring Council to take more taxes by force, not for a public benefit or public use, but in order to transfer that money to other private individuals. These churches should lose their tax-exempt status because of their political business activity.
I proceeded to watch the entire meeting. The parking issue was interesting. Most of the discussion was about parking in the Warehouse District. This the name of a neighborhood of affordable houses seized for private uses of the South Downtown business owners who spoke at the meeting. When the mixed use, predominantly black, historic neighborhood was razed, the Council didn’t know who the future owners would be, except that they would be soemone else. Some of these business people called for a quicker redevelopment of this area. How could they speed up this process? Ackowledge the historic significance of the neighborhood. Alexander Garrett, first bursar of UVA and native of Louisa County, friend of Thomas Jefferson present at Monticello when TJ passed away, is the source of the name of this neighborhood. Instead of renaming everything and fearing developers may discover the truth through deed research and back out, ask City Council, Housing Authority and Virginia Center for Digital History at UVA to release the 6,845 documents and 1,189 photos onto the internet. Reportedly, everything has already been scanned. Possibly they’re holding the community’s history hostage because they don’t like me, I’m only one person, and I don’t have an army of yellow shirts. If you really want South Downtown to be redeveloped more quickly and grow the tax base, stop suppressing the history that adds value to property.
I believe it was in the sixties that local Catholics built “affordable” apartments near Rose Hill Drive. After about thirty years, they renovated the housing and sold the units as condos.
It seems these modern Christians would rather have the government do their good works so that they do not have to deal directly with the lepers. Last year, they were supposedly concerned about the homeless, but none of them said that they were going to take any into their own homes and let them use those empty bedrooms. The people are still homeless but these people think they have done God’s work by speaking at local government. Thank goodness only 2,000 of the total central VA Christian community engage in these revulsive acts.
The Christian community can well do without this kind of hands-off religion.
Not every organization that wears “yellow shirts” should be associated
with IMPACT. RMC Events, an events management company in the
area, also wears yellow shirts. Please don’t confuse the two or-
ganizations.
[…] their yearly “Charlottesville Inquisition,” IMPACT isolates and intimidates elected officials by marching them to a center-stage microphone […]