As you listen to Mike’s speech consider these points:
1) “Without your active participation, Rochester Hills neighborhoods will have oil and gas horizontal drilling the likes of which you see in Texas.”
2) “The apathy that exists in Rochester Hills has resulted in deals with the oil industry to frack” Just Google “Frackng” to find out what it is.”
3) “Rochester Hills City Council bank on residents apathy to put oil drilling inside city limits.”
4) “Drilling for oil inside Rochester Hills city limits makes oil executives rich while residents placed in danger”
5) “Big Oil and Rochester Hills leadership bank on public apathy to drill for oil and gas using controversial horizontal (tracking) drilling methods”
6) “Kids put at risk as outsider, Jordan Oil, plans oil and gas drilling beside schools and residences. Long time residents voices ignored by mayor and City Council”
7) “Money matters — you can get $35 per month thanks to Rochester Hills City Council move to bring in controversial drilling methods” but your home values will go down
8) “Big oil, big trucks, big noise, Big money and Big Oil coming to Rochester Hills thanks to Mayor Barnett and City Council.”
9) “Residents’ safety and investments take a back seat to interests of big oil in Rochester Hills as Mayor signs agreement to allow gas and oil drilling.”
10) “Ill equipped and ill informed Rochester Hills Mayor and City Council lose out to big oil in tracking deal. Big losers are the residents -Big winners oil company
Awaken from Apathy – now is the time you can make in impact in your community – Start by attending the City Council meetings.
Speech delivered by Mike Powers at Rochester Hills City council Meeting 3/17/14
We are living in historic times. In America there is always constant tug of war between the power of Government and the power of the people. And the power of Government has grown significantly for decades. America is at a dangerous tipping point that seriously threatens our way of life.
The founding documents include the concept that no man has the right to control others. That every person has equal opportunity compared to every other person.
I, along with many here tonight, have not been very active politically over the years. We tend to take things (like the founding documents for this nation) for granted. So responses to most things that take place and are decided here are apathetic.
Apathy is sinister and it grows like a cancer. Apathy grows into this idea that people exist to provide elected officials with official position. But if we go back to original idea that became The United States of America…then we would all come around to what was originally intended — that an elected position exists to serve and protect the freedoms of the people who elected them. This is what the founding fathers of this country intended and documented in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Our Founding Father’s understood human nature. They observed that there is evil in the world and that evil will lead to man constantly trying to take control of others. Thus, as stated in The Declaration of Independence…..”That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” In other words, there is a need for government to manage some affairs that are beneficial to all and those affairs are best managed by an entity elected by the people that have limited control over these affairs. In America that control is limited and is granted to government by consent of the people who elect their representatives.
So in many ways I am grateful for why we are here. Because thanks to apathy, money, a lack of decision making transparency here, Jordan Oil, and this whole issue of drilling for oil and gas in high density residential areas, I sense a strong and growing determination building to support tipping the balance of power back to the people.
My hope is that tonight and every other Monday night the people will come forward to assert their voices and their rights to make sure that they tip it back. Getting Jordan Oil out of our communities, Rochester Hills and our back yards will be that first step toward shedding apathy.
EXCELLENT ! Print this speech in the Wall Street Journal.
Video tape it and upload to YOU TUBE, and then to concerned citizens without a voice in every city in every state. Change the topic to meet your current situation in your current town. Very poignant , and very powerful. Nice job!
Katie Deroche