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Dec 19, 2013
On December 19, 2013, the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court found much of Act 13 unconstitutional. CELDF issued a press statement and FAQs
Read More | UncategorizedDec 19, 2013
“This ruling, while welcome, does not stop fracking of Pennsylvania’s communities, nor does it recognize the right of the people of Pennsylvania to govern their own communities without state or corporate interference.” – Thomas Linzey, Esq., Executive Director
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsDec 6, 2013
CELDF partner, Fundacion Pachamama, was shut down this week by the Ecuadorian government. Learn more on how you can help.
Read More | UncategorizedDec 5, 2013
As Mora County, NM, and Lafayette, CO, face oil and gas industry challenges to their Community Bills of Rights banning fracking, we are re-posting an article from the Center for Effective Government on CELDF’s work in providing support to communities through Community Rights.
Read More | UncategorizedDec 4, 2013
Faced with the loss of four democratic votes against oil and gas development across the Front Range this November, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association announced yesterday that it is filing lawsuits against two more Colorado communities, Lafayette and Fort Collins.
Read More | UncategorizedNov 7, 2013
On Election Day, voters in an Ohio and a Colorado community enacted Community Bills of Rights to
secure the right to local self-government and to protect the right to clean air, pure water, and the rights
of ecosystems to exist and flourish. By a margin of 70.56%, voters in Oberlin, OH, approved their
citizen-initiated ordinance. In Lafayette, CO, where citizens petitioned to amend their city home rule
charter, the winning margin was 60.16%.
Nov 6, 2013
Lafayette, CO, and Oberlin, OH, residents ban fracking as a violation of rights with strong majority wins.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsOct 30, 2013
Initiative 517 is an initiative on initiatives, designed to make it easier to qualify initiatives for the ballot. I-517 would expand the time allotted to gather signatures for initiatives, as well as increase the areas where gatherers can go. It would also make it a crime to interfere, inhibit or restrict gatherers and require a public vote on any local initiative that qualifies — even if there is a legal challenge.
Read More | UncategorizedOct 30, 2013
Sangerville, ME, resident stands behind their first-in-the-nation Community Bill of Rights infrastructure ordinance, adopted by residents in September.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 24, 2013
Steve Scher talks with both sides of the initiative in a live debate: Kai Huschke, an organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, and Representative Marko Liias from Washington’s 21st district.
Read More | UncategorizedOct 17, 2013
Updates from Oregon to Austraila in this month’s CELDF’s newsletter.
Read More | UncategorizedOct 8, 2013
Editor Simon Davis-Cohen interviews CELDF’s Pacific Northwest Community Organizer Kai Huschke about our structure of law and governance that functions to deny communities’ rights when they interfere with corporate “rights,” as seen today in both Washington State and Oregon.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsSep 25, 2013
Ohio communities ban fracking, CELDF in Australia and new Democracy schools starting up.
Read More | UncategorizedSep 18, 2013
Voters in Sangerville, ME, adopt a Community Bill of Rights ordinance to protect their municipality from a private transportation corridor.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsSep 16, 2013
On September 12th, community members from eight Oregon counties gathered in Corvallis, Oregon, to launch the Oregon Community Rights Network (ORCRN).
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsSep 12, 2013
“It’s Already Been Decided? Who Decided That?”
Read More | UncategorizedSep 2, 2013
Steve Cudlak of Grafton interview 9/2/13 on 99.7 on WNTK about RBO(Rights Based Ordinance/Wind Towers)
Read More | UncategorizedAug 30, 2013
Corporate and government interests in Spokane, WA, succeed in blocking citizens’ initiatives that would establish Community Rights.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsAug 21, 2013
Elk County Commissioners speak out against fracking injection wells.
Read More | Community WiresAug 10, 2013
The rights of municipal corporations and communities have been eroded over time to where we, municipality and community, have very little power over our own destiny through the established regulatory legal system.
Read More | UncategorizedAug 5, 2013
Community Rights and the Rights of Nature are changing our western legal paradigm, and are tools to protect Santa Barbara, CA, from fracking.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJul 8, 2013
Updates and news from CELDF communities across the country.
Read More | UncategorizedJul 3, 2013
Wayne Mellinger on Community Rights to protect Santa Barbara from fracking corporate interests.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJul 2, 2013
While on their face these issues may appear to be different – ranging from corporate agribusiness to energy extraction – the communities on the receiving end of things all have at least one thing in common: they’ve given up hope that their state or federal government will act to protect them.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJun 26, 2013
East Sangerville, ME, residents and selectmen partner with CELDF to use a Community Bill of Rights to stop a $2.1 billion limited access highway.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsJun 21, 2013
Declaring that the legitimate foundation of government is the right to local self-governance, the Pennsylvania Community Rights Network reviewed bylaws and officially launched the organization on Monday in Bowmanstown, Carbon County.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsMay 20, 2013
Residents are beginning to coalesce around the idea of pushing for a community-controlled sustainable energy planning process that includes enforcement teeth. CELDF has drafted ordinances that we might use to continue empowering our community to actively protect our own health, safety and welfare.
Read More | UncategorizedMay 19, 2013
The New Hampshire Community Rights Network signs the Barnstead Declaration, stating their intention to provide education for a statewide call for legislative and constitutional changes recognizing the right to local self-government and the Rights of Nature.
Read More | News from the GrassrootsMay 8, 2013
Trisha Mandes speaks to the deficiencies of U.S. food activism and proposes an adaptive way forward. Trisha has worked with community-based food projects in Oregon and Pennsylvania and is now pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Health Nutrition and Sustainable Development at the University of Eastern Finland.
Read More | UncategorizedMay 1, 2013
San Luis Obispo, CA, residents consider a community rights ordinance to stop fracking before it starts.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsApr 29, 2013
Mora County, NM, adopts first-in-the-nation ban on oil and gas extraction, protecting residents and local ecosystems from fracking.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsApr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013
On March 3rd at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany, Oregon, fifty farmers and food advocates from eight counties – Benton, Clackamas, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, and Yamhill – gathered to discuss the future of farming and food systems in the Willamette Valley. The summit was co-sponsored by CELDF, Benton County Community Rights Coalition, Oregon Tilth, Oregonians for Farm and Food Rights, and Rural Organizing Project.
Read More | UncategorizedMar 28, 2013
A Pennsylvania Judge Holds That Corporations Are Not “Persons” Under the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsMar 27, 2013
Clinton Lindsey is interviewed by Barbara Bernstein of KBOO Community Radio about Benton County Community Rights Coalition, formed to protect Willamette Valley from GMO seed and establish a right to a local, sustainable food system.
Read More | UncategorizedMar 27, 2013
On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Clinton Lindsay, a 5th-generation farmer and local food advocate from Corvallis, Oregon, who is working with the Benton County Community Rights Coalition to pass a voter referendum that will create a “Food Bill of Rights” in Benton County.
Read More | UncategorizedMar 14, 2013
Santa Monica City Council introduces California’s first community rights ordinance, recognizing the right to self-governance, clean air and water, sustainable food and energy systems, and the rights of nature.
Read More | UncategorizedMar 13, 2013
Highland Township, PA, Board of Supervisors vote unanimously to retain CELDF to help defend their “Community Rights Protection from Injection Wells Ordinance” against Seneca Resources.
Read More | Community WiresFeb 10, 2013
Slideshow Narrated by Thomas Linzey
Read More | UncategorizedFeb 8, 2013
For more information on this important film and additional screenings, see RootedLands.com
Read More | UncategorizedFeb 6, 2013
Sometimes, a film comes along that conveys a message we’ve been listening for, but haven’t yet heard. A message that shows us what we’ve had a sense of, but haven’t been able to explain – let alone offer a solution.
Read More | UncategorizedFeb 6, 2013
Update on pending lawsuit in Highland Township, PA, where supervisors recently passed a Community Bill of Rights to ban fracking injection wells – excerpt from The Kane Republican
Read More | Community WiresJan 21, 2013
Presentation by Dr. Stephen Cleghorn, a sociologist and an organic farmer from Jefferson County, PA, and was recorded at the Epic No Frack Event at Ithaca College.
Read More | UncategorizedJan 21, 2013
This is a really energetic presentation by Dr. Stephen Cleghorn, a sociologist and an organic farmer from Jefferson County, PA, and was recorded at the Epic No Frack Event at Ithaca College, Saturday, June 25, 2011.
Read More | UncategorizedJan 16, 2013
What do you love about the U.S. Constitution?
Read More | UncategorizedJan 14, 2013
Alexander Lotorto reviews Matt Damon’s movie Promised Land, in part praising its bringing attention to the issue of shale gas drilling and fracking, while critiquing its depiction of PA women and rural townspeople. Read more here.
Read More | UncategorizedJan 14, 2013
On January 9, 2013, in otherwise quiet Highland Township in Elk County, Pennsylvania, officials signed a community rights bill into law stopping the deposit of fracking waste within the township. Seneca Resources…had planned to inject its “production fluids” (oil and gas drilling and fracking waste) into an injection well about 2,200 feet from Crystal Springs….Injection wells have a history, both long and recent, of failing ….So, residents of Highland Township asked their municipal officials to say “No.”…Highland Township is the latest on a list of over 140 other communities that have said ‘no’ to factory farms, waste incinerators, corporate water withdrawals, and now fracking by passing rights-based ordinances….Rights-based ordinances are simple but formal, and they’ve been penned with the help of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).
Read More | Community WiresDec 24, 2012
The Barnstead, NH, story – and how other New Hampshire communities have followed the blazing trail set by these bold and steadfast residents.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsNov 15, 2012
Community Organizer, Gail Darrell, of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, gave a presentation on October 19, 2012 about what power citizens have and do not have to make regulations governing what corporations are permitted to do in their community.
Read More | UncategorizedNov 15, 2012
Community Organizer, Gail Darrell, of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, gave a presentation on October 19, 2012 about what power citizens have and do not have to make regulations governing what corporations are permitted to do in their community.
Read More | Uncategorized