Media Advisory
For Immediate Release:
April 5, 2021
TRAINING OF VIRGINIA LEADERS COMPLETED AS THE MOVEMENT GROWS FOR COMMUNITY RIGHTS AND RIGHTS OF NATURE OVER CORPORATE RIGHTS
Press Contact:
Heidi Berthoud: 434 979 9732
Heidi@vacommunityrights.org
Buckingham, VA. Preparing for a new phase of activism, twenty-five+ leaders from across Virginia gathered for a virtual training of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund’s (CELDF) Democracy School, sponsored by the Virginia Community Rights Network (VACRN). Representing over 10 counties across the Commonwealth, the training provided an indepth look at the state of the democratic process in the United States today and how it impacts our social, economic and natural environments.
Over the past 25 years, CELDF has provided free legal services to hundreds of local communities to advance their rights to a healthy environment. CELDF supports municipal governments to pass new laws that elevate the rights of people and the land, air and water which nourish them above corporate rights, state preemption and other barriers. With CELDF’s guidance, these impacted communities work to protect their local areas against “legalized harm” to their communities and environment.
Heidi Berthoud, President of VACRN, issued this statement: “The process of community-based solutions that challenge a system designed to exploit us is what is needed here in Virginia. This is all about our families’ and planet’s physical life and death. We are fully committed to this struggle against corporations that ignore communities’ inherent rights to self-government and the Rights of Nature which, when recognized and upheld, protect us all. Over three dozen American communities have already adopted this type of framework in their municipal codes and hundreds more have adopted a Community Bill of Rights. We want every county in Virginia to understand their right to self government and ability to protect their communities by establishing self determination.”
Ben Price, National Community Rights Organizer for CELDF and lead teacher of Democracy School, commented that “representative county and municipal officials across Virginia have been persuaded to support Dillon’s Rule and declare their constituents to be servants of the Commonwealth and not its sovereigns. Why should a nineteenth century Iowa railroad lawyer (John Forrest Dillon) get to overturn the Virginia Constitution, which states clearly, 'that all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people, that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.' ? Democracy School is about setting the record right and helping communities overcome the illegitimate limits imposed upon permissible democracy."
For more information:
https://vacommunityrights.org/
https://celdf.org/
######
|
