5 Policy Maker Objectives for Douglas County

1. A a targeted HUD locality should take action to decline future federal HUD subsidies.  This will set some elected officials on their heels, but the reason is that the subsidies will be used as blackmail to make us hostages for compromising our zoning laws; county and city municipalities, when HUD begins imposing their demands for low income housing.
2. A targeted locality should not participate and use the AFFH Tool intended to guide the community toward racial equality.  Participating can create a liability by self incrimination and the information provided by the locality may be used in future lawsuits.
3. Cities and towns within a targeted HUD locality need to begin setting aside a legal fund for defending ourselves against HUD in the future.  Yes, this means we’re drawing the line and clarifying that we are not HUD friendly.  This will be very troublesome for our county staff workers.
4. For this movement to work, our local politicians will need support from an informed community where the activism rate is very high, “ in a recent Rasmussen poll, 83 percent of respondents said it was not the government’s job to diversify neighborhoods by income level, while only 8 percent say that this is an appropriate task for government.
5. Promote a sense of urgency for reacting to HUD’s AFFH rule.  The controlling consideration will be politics. HUD has got to “boil the frog slowly enough to prevent him from jumping”.  We as citizens against the government need to get the information out about the subtleties of the AFFH rule.  That means looking at all the means possible, and for Douglas County email, posting in libraries, community centers, HOA’s
6. We must form a consensus among our policy makers on our understanding about AFFH.  It will not be immediate, but it should be a realistic objective when 83% are against government diversifying neighborhoods.