CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF SEPTEMBER 27,2011
Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by DIANE LANG
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
32 in attendance
BOB introduced new attendees:
MACON and ANN GARNER from Newport. Neighbors of HOWARD GARNER on the Nine Foot Road:
DOUG HILL, who had been absent for a while due to surgery. This past spring he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, about the size of a tennis ball. After the two best surgeons in the country cut him about 8 inches on his head, and after about 8 ½ hours, they decided he would be OK and sent him home. His brain is still scrambled. He has no feeling, no emotions, short term loss of memory, and various other problems. He said the first thing to come back to a skull base tumor patient is anger and that is why he is here tonight. (Ha, ha). BOB said he hoped they got it all and he is doing well. DOUG said he is doing better that he probably deserves and they had gotten all they could get:
JOHN HOPKINS, who is on the Planning Board at Atlantic Beach, is here just to listen, not campaign.
BOB welcomed back NANCY BOCK, our Treasurer, after a few weeks off this summer.
Friendly greetings and comments greeted her from the attendees. She reported that we currently have $1,200.00 after writing the check for Carteret Literacy Council as requested from our previous meeting.
A lot of joking ensued when BOB tried to make out a name on the “sign in list” (ERNIE GUTHRIE) thinking it must be a new attendee. Someone asked ‘what did BOB expect; after all ERNIE was a former student of Carteret County Schools‘.
BOB welcomed EULA PARKIN back after being absent a couple of weeks. EULA said she had been attending church sessions. They were studying “the life of JESUS”.
BOB welcomed ERIC BROYLES back and said he hoped ERIC’s wife was doing better. ERIC said she was on the mend, but still had a ways to go.
BOB asked TOM HARMON how his wife was doing after her accident and the skin grafts. TOM said she was doing much better. Still having some pain where the grafts were but was improving.
KEN LANG reported on a discussion he had had with an aide in Senator Burr’s office. Ken had written an email to Sen. Burr about Agenda 21 and some other issues. It included the ‘Green Way up in Greensboro’ and the outer banks, and Obama signing an executive order establishing a rural council which was going to advise farmers and other land owners how they were supposed to manage their own property. Burr’s employee (a man named Eric) said the Senator did not think that was important. There were more important issues at hand, that they needed to be looking at right now. KEN asked him ’You mean to tell me you don’t think property rights are important.’ His reply was ‘There are more important issues on the table right now”. KEN asked him if he even knew what Agenda 21 was. He replied, “well, yeah, it had something to do with the UN.”
KEN said he thought that the Senator and his office were basically in the dark about what Agenda 21 is. BOB said he thought the majority of Congress were not too informed about Agenda 21 either…thought it was just something to do with Global Warming.
BOB recognized STEVEN BEST, our representative studying Agenda 21. STEVEN reported he had printed out the report (which is about 1 ½ inches thick) and the main thing he had discovered was, it was complicated and confusing. BOB said the real quick thing he had gotten out of his research on Agenda 21 was…back in 1970/73 they were going to try to rein in air pollution, water pollution, and establish better usage of the planet. Over a series of years they had developed a program and this was the 21st item on the agenda (thus the name). What they want to do is on a global scale (but to bring it down to the US) there are about 50 different wilderness areas established in the country that they feel the land usage is not satisfactory to sustain long term development of the country. With the loss of our forests and wildlife (this is a tree huggers bill), what they want is to expand on these wilderness areas and make it illegal for humans to even enter into these areas. Then around these wilderness areas, they want to create very broad, wide buffer zones, that will have limited human activity permitted. You will have to have a permit to even go into these buffer areas. It will not be for human habitation. With these expanded wilderness areas, and buffer zones, they want to interconnect all of these areas with green corridors, so that the wildlife can migrate or move from one area to another, thereby sustaining these wildlife. As this thing is implemented, there is less and less land for humans to live on. What they are pushing is called ’Stack ’em and Pack ’em’. Remember the old slum hi-rise buildings they had in the big cities? Well, these are coming back if Agenda 21 gets implemented. The whole concept of rural living we now enjoy (R zoning with ½ acre lots), they have decided is not conducive to development so they want to squeeze people into smaller and smaller areas. What land is then available to be used they want to strickly say how you can use that land. This will get into how farmers can farm or cultivate their property, how developers can develop the land, etc. It is a massive program and is something we really need to be aware of and be ahead of the game because this thing is coming down the road and is already spreading its tentacles even in NC. LOU said ‘Maybe we can slow it down when we take over next year and abolish the UN.’ BOB said ‘might help, if we assume all the legislatures are familiar with Agenda 21 or even interested in’. LOU said, ‘obviously not, since we know our senator is in the dark about it.’
HOWARD GARNER said “A while back there was an article in the newspaper about the city planner in Raleigh who was pushing this, and some people got to checking on where he (the city planner) lived and he lived out on the edge of town on a tremendous plot of land. It’s another case of ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say’.
TOM HARMON said ‘that land part, that’s like Project 60.’ He said if you Google Project 60, you will get maps that show you a huge red area that is already a controlled area, and then you will see little spots where people will be allowed to live. BOB agreed that it was all the same idea that this thing is going to have a lot of various tentacle organizations that are all working on a master plan. TOM said, ‘whatever is going on up in Raleigh and that area is all on this federation plan, and special code words are used by even the city councils. BOB said he didn’t think most city councils were even aware of what those code words mean. They are just picking up stuff people are telling them to say. KEN said the project in Greensboro, the Greenway Project, is a part of that. It establishes these greenways and they no longer condemn property, because, theoretically, then they are supposed to pay fair market value for it; so, what they do, instead of condemning property, is go in and rezone it to the point that developers can’t develop it and get the maximum profits they want to make out of it, so the value of the land falls next to nothing and then they pick it up for a pittance. Through the zoning process they basically take land away from the owners. BOB said that is how this whole thing is going to go down…a bit here, a bit there. KEN said how this relates to this area is the Scenic Byway. It was implemented without discussing with the public and the voters. While right now, it doesn’t affect a whole lot of things; fear is it will just keep growing. That is what the people, who are working on that Scenic Byway, are doing will be to limit eventual development. Barbara Garrity Blake is one of the ones working to bring this about. FRED said they have already cut the funds being raised for East Carteret High School. BOB said ‘yeah, about $17,000.00 a year, he understands. WAYNE WILLIS said ‘there are two or three things being mentioned here he wanted to elaborate on. One, they had taken down the signs facing the highway, but they still had some facing the driveway, but they are on the East Carteret campus. Another thing that came up, he watched them at the County Commissioners meeting on Channel 10, and he can’t remember the precise number but he thinks it was 110 feet from one boundary of highway 70 to the other. Does that number ring a bell to anyone else? Someone said about 200 foot wide right of way. He also said another thing some are concerned about is the closing of Cherry Point, which is being discussed quite a bit. Lockwood had Darryl Garner, Mayor of Newport, on the radio tonight and they were talking about it. It has been said before and everybody that lives here knows that every once in a while it will come up. Forty years ago, it was on everyone’s mind, but nothing came of it. The way this crowd is running things today, anything is possible.
BOB said before we go any further, he wanted to recognize PAM HANSOM, Clerk of Court of Carteret County. She was one of our recommended folks to vote for in the last election. She unseated a 20 some year incumbent in the court system. LOU said ‘and they are still crying’. BOB asked Pam if there was anything she wanted us to know about her job. PAM said the last time she was here she told us a little bit about cleaning some of the stuff out, the old records, getting everything organized in storage, etc. Hopefully some of you have seen the launch of the website. We accomplished that which was one of her major goals. Through that website, go to the County website and from there you can access just about anything you can think of. If you can think of anything that is not on there please let her know so they can fix it. ERIC asked about death records. PAM said that was the registrars’ office. PAM said it was coming up on a year anniversary, and it has been a very hectic, but very educational year for her. They have accomplished a lot. She got an invitation to speak to a ladies club and they said you will have 20 minutes. PAM said she thought, 20 minutes….what in the world will I talk about for 20 minutes? She started typing just the things they had done since she had gone into office last November and the next thing she knew, she had typed up six pages. She promised not to go 20 minutes with us tonight, but she wanted us to know they have been very busy, and she thinks since they are coming up on the one year anniversary, the next thing she really wants to do is make a report card for herself and give it to all the staff and let them grade her and tell her how the past year has been. BOB said he had a question about her staff. When she went in there they were all registered Democrats; how has she been received and what sort of relationship do they all have? Is it antagonistic or what? PAM said ‘the first several months were pretty rough because they did not know what she was going to do and she didn’t know what they were going to do and it was a true ’getting to know each other kind of phase’. There are 22 employees and let’s just put it this way, the past week she got invitations to two of their houses for personal parties. She probably won’t go because her daughter is coming this week. For her birthday they bought her a birthday present and they didn’t have to. They chipped in and bought her a gift and it really meant a lot to her. From last November to now, their relationship has come a long way. BOB said that had been his biggest concern, that she would have 22 people trying to trip her up or embarrass her or something like that so he was glad that was not an issue. PAM said they found out pretty quickly, that she (PAM) could do that all on her own. BOB asked about all the lawyers (who had endorsed her predecessor). She said all she could tell us was the feed back she was getting from that community. For example she was walking up the stairs yesterday, heading for Superior Court Room 2, and one of the attorneys was going up the stairs at the same time. They were doing the polite chit chat thing as they were going down the hall and he told her “You’re doing pretty good, PAM” and she was like “Really, thank you a lot, because, no, really, I mean it” and this was from a Democrat. All she can tell us is what they are telling her. She hasn’t had anyone in her office yelling and hollering. BOB said ’now that you have a year under your belt, and in hind sight are you glad you ran and won the position?’ PAM said ’oh yeah, and yeah….but she would not have gone for it if she hadn’t known she would love the job and that she had felt like she could make a difference. She feels like that in the past year she really has made a difference because of everything they have accomplished. And they are not going to slow down. There are other things coming down the road all the time. Today for example (it has been being done around the state but it just hit Carteret County) they decided to upgrade from a closed email system and were put on Out Look, so they can interact with everyone else wherever they are now. She is really happy about that, and we have a lot more things coming down the road that we can hopefully get into. Example: the RSVP Program….Retired Seniors Volunteer Program…If you or anyone you know of can come in and help take away some of those everyday necessary tasks, like filing, it will be appreciated. They always have buckets of files that need to be put back on the shelf or files or drawers. The girls spend a good deal of their time putting everything back where it belongs when they could be doing more productive work. If they had someone to come in and help with that a few days a week, that would free the employees up to solve other types of problems that need taken care of. So she is looking into bringing in members of the community to help. BOB asked if there was an age requirement. He was wondering about high school kids. PAM said they have actually had a high school student that she had signed off hours for today. She had given 10 hours of her busy summer and for a teen in the summer that is a lot of time loss from vacation. Actually what she is looking for is someone to come in a couple of days a week steady. WAYNE said he knew personally at least one of the employees, besides some of his relatives in that office, that retired immediately after PAM was elected. He wondered how many more like that had happened. He knew PAM knew who he was talking about. He wanted to know if PAM had replaced them with “non-Democrats”. PAM said that lady was the only one that left. WAYNE said ‘Then you still have the same crew? You did have to replace her, did you not? There were only two in that office where she worked. PAM said she was lucky enough to replace her before the hiring freeze. She was lucky enough to get her staff back up in time. ROMA WADE asked if PAM thought her customers were happy with what she was doing? PAM said she hoped so. She has talked to some people who have come in and while it is impossible to make everyone happy (since they are coming to the court house, apparently, they have a problem and are unhappy), and try as they might in some cases, (there is nothing they can do to change that situation that brought them to the court house,) she and her employees can still try to ensure that their visit is efficiently taken care of, and information is provided, as much as possible, to satisfy their needs in resolving their problem, whatever it is. She feels they have been doing a pretty good job of doing that. Once again, she hasn’t had anyone in her office saying ,so and so is not doing something, so that is all she can look out for. BOB thanked PAM for coming by and wished her continued luck in her position. She thanked us for all we had done and promised to come back to see us. Now she was going home and put on her old shorts and tee shirt and collapse.
ERIC BROYLES wanted to know if anyone remembered the S510 bill. It was the one pertaining to food. If you really think about that bill, it kinda fits in line with Agenda 21. It sets up the rules and regulations on interstate commerce for food goods crossing state lines. BOB said yeah, it certainly could fit. He also said he called Burr’s office about an immigration bill that right now is being considered in congress. Can’t remember the name of the bill. Someone asked if it was the ’Legal Worker’s Act’. ERIC said he didn’t think it was that one. It was the one recently introduced into the Senate where they are trying to get the illegal immigrants some type of amnesty in this country. His office is very clear on this, neither he nor Kay Hagan support this bill. Kay has voted against the immigration bill (Dream Act) and continues to follow that opinion. He also spoke to Burr about the Worker Program and Burr seemed a little clueless on that. He also talked to an aid by the name of Eric and he said he would research it because if this is what is going on, then it needs to be stopped. The President does not have the authority to issue executive orders put asunder laws that congress have authorized.
BOB called on EULA PARKIN and she told us that next spring will be the one hundredth anniversary of the Girl Scouts and this weekend she will receive her 50 year pin as a Girl Scout. (Congratulations Eula.)
TOM HARMON said he got an email the other day on Obama’s Job Bill and a section of this bill (section 376 – Federal and State Immunity) says “the state’s receipt for use of federal financial assistance for any program or activity of a state shall constitute a waiver of sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution.” BOB said “Are you serious?” TOM said, yep, that what it says. BOB says that sounds like it is trying to do away with state’s rights. In other words if you take money from the Federal Government, you lose your state’s rights! By the end of the year, the EPA is going to outlaw the inhalers for asthma. You will have to buy the special ones that costs between $30 and $60 bucks. Going like the florescent light bulbs, which on January 1st, you will no longer be able to buy 100 watt florescent light bulbs. STEVEN said he heard that after that date and they check your house and they find these bulbs, it will be $25.00 fine for each bulb found. BOB said he thought that was just hearsay. Comment was ‘with the way things are going now, don’t bank on it‘. ERIC said China has now stopped shipment of rare metals to us, that are used to make these new light bulbs, so that will definitely have an impact on us. He said it might be a good idea to invest in these companies because the price of these new light bulbs are going to quadruple in cost. BOB said he thought there will be a black market for incandescent light bulbs. JERE GEURIN said recently Wal Mart had a sale on incandescent bulbs for something like 11 cents apiece and he bought about 4 dozen of them. He figured at his age, they will last him the rest of his life. Some people absolutely need these incandescent bulbs….example people who live in the country and have water pumps. They use the bulbs to keep the pump house warm and stop the pump from freezing in the winter. The florescent bulbs do not put off any heat.
BOB said one of the things ERIC had brought back to his attention is October 7th, Friday of next week, is the League of Women’s Voters debate/forum at the community college in Joslyn Hall from 6 to 9. Please wear your red shirts when attending so we will look like a big red army and stand out. There is also to be another forum held at the Town Hall in Cape Carteret on October 26. KEN LANG will brief the folks with the Western TEA Party group on this event. BOB asked KEN to brief us on how the last meeting (third meeting of the group) went. They had about 18 people show up. It was a rainy night, not a good night for people to be out, so attendance was down. Richard Hunt, who is running for Town Commissioner for Cape Carteret, spoke to them. He really did not give a political talk except to mention he was running. He spoke about 30 minutes on a review of the Cape Carteret budget. It was an example of what towns, county, school boards, and everybody else does with budgets. He had some really good points, one of which was you have to look at at least the last three years of budgets to be able to compare one to the other to make any conclusions about it. There were two things he focused on during the discussion…one was the boat ramp that was approved several years ago in Cape Carteret. When it was approved it was going to pay for itself because they were going to charge usage fees. At the end of the first year the budget showed it was in the hole. The next year when the budget came out they had changed a few things around in their line items and it made it much more difficult to compare as to whether it was making or losing money. Although you could do it, you had to dig deep to figure it out. The third year, they took and combined it with another line item which made it really hard, without sitting down with somebody that really knew what the budget was, and asking a lot of questions. The point of all this is, we have been seeing that happen over this last year, and it has probably been happening in the past. Like the school budgets. It is hard to get information because they keep changing things around. The other thing was the ILA thing, which is a combination of several towns and their fire departments. In the discussion on that he discussed how the ILA was paying (it is really complicated because it is tied up in Federal regulations, state regulations). He told about how fire departments are put together, how they pay for overtime, and it turns out they were getting paid overtime on top of overtime on top of other fees that weren’t really overtime but were extra money. They came in an asked for a raise at one point and the raise was supposed to be some figure (let’s just say .2% – that was not the number but just for example) and when you dug into it, it turned out to be .4%, approximately twice what they said they were given. Without really digging into the budget you couldn’t figure that out. The taxpayers are the ones paying all this money. It is the taxpayers who are picking up the bill for all this (Mr. Hunt did not use these words, but KEN’s words) fuzzy math/accounting. We are picking up these same type of bills for the school board with the county as well. This was the gist of what Richard Hunt talked about and was well received by the TEA Party group. BOB asked if the attendees to the TEA Party meeting are all from Cape Carteret. KEN said the biggest majority are, but they did have a couple from Emerald Isle, a gentleman from Bogue, and a man from Hubert who has been associated with the Americans for Prosperity (AFP); but it has died in Onslow County. KEN said he found out why. The man said they had ended up backing some candidates and it had split the group. They were not just recommending, but actually had radio spots supporting certain candidates. It was like a political action committee. BOB asked if they were not a 5013C and if so should not have been supporting candidates. KEN said they had been on Lockwood’s show also. BOB said the AFP is a top down organization. KEN said the gentleman (Tom Scurven?) was trying to reconstitute the group and KEN recommended he try setting up a TEA Party group instead; but he was kinda focused on staying with the AFP. Discussion between BOB and KEN about that organization. BOB said their mission statement that they had on the web was anti-Muslim. This has nothing to do with the TEA Party mission which is for Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility, and Free Markets/Capitalism. He said this group has been pulled from the list of TEA Party Patriots on the web. BOB said TOM AUSTIN was currently busy finishing up the repairs on the new house he had bought, but had told BOB he was interested in getting a TEA Party group going around Jacksonville as soon as he was able. Jan Beam, mayor of Jacksonville had mentioned to BOB about wanting to get a group going also. There appears to be a group of people there interested, but it takes a leader to get it going and maintain interest. KEN reported that their group in Western Carteret would be relocating their meetings to Debbie Rucker’s restaurant (Rucker/Johns) in the near future (from October to April) at which time the tourist season starts again, so KEN will again be looking for a place to meet. Their next meeting is October 4, 2011 at 7:00 at Rucker Johns in their meeting room. If you wish to eat prior to the meeting please come early, like at 6:00pm. If you know of anyone in that part of the county who may be interested, let them know about the meetings. They have put out a few signs in various businesses in Cape Carteret and Emerald Isle. BOB asked if KEN had asked for donations from the various businesses. KEN said all the businesses he had been to were like the ones RUTH PARKER had contacted. They are strapped for cash. They like what we are doing but can’t afford to donate right now.
KEN said another thing he wanted to talk to us about was a subject we had discussed last meeting night…education and the budget. He had read the minutes and noted that BOB had said that he, (KEN), ERIC, and NANCY had been working with the Board of Education trying to get information out of them on their budget. He (KEN) has also been working with one of the County Commissioners (Robin Comer) who is interested in getting information out of the BoE too, without a whole lot of success. Over the last two and a half weeks or so, he (KEN) has sent numerous emails to the point of contact for BoE, Tabbie Nance, trying to get information on personnel The Superintendent claims to have laid off some 90 teachers under this RIF because he did not get enough money from the county and the state to fund all these teachers. However, in the summary of the BoE meetings which is put on the web site, (called the Communicator) they list all the personnel actions. They list everything from new hires, rehires, and dismissals by name. If someone is dismissed they list their name and where they worked. There is not one name listed for a single teacher or teachers’ aid being RIFed. There is one in the last four months of a teacher who was rehired. No where do they list any teacher leaving because of a RIF. So he has been trying to find out why. He emailed Tabbie and said “you have all these categories but do not show anybody being RIFed and yet you are saying you RIFed 90 people. Where are the 90 people you RIFed? He got something back from her and it was like “well, there was a motion put forth at the board meeting to give the Superintendent the authority to RIF these people and it was passed on the consent agenda”. So KEN emailed her back and asked what did that mean? Does it mean you do not have to identify the people who were laid off as a result of not having enough money? So they are just going round and round. Everytime he gets a response back he sends it to Robin Comer. Robin is about ready to pull his hair out because he can’t get any information either. CLAYTON GILLIKIN said he feels like the only way to ever get this mess with the school board straightened out is to tell them if they want any money, then they (BoE) have to submit a complete, detailed listing of what the money is to be used for and until they submit that, then no money. There will be no coding and confusing data used. It must be written so anyone can read and understand exactly what they want and need. If this requirement is not met, then “Don’t ask us for a dime, cause you are not going to get it.” BOB said the only problem there is, once they get the money, they do not have to spend it on the budgeted items. They can spend it however they want. CLAYTON said maybe so, but if they request 14 million dollars and it is presented in a clump of data, then they would not get any money. It must be listed and justified. If they continue to play Mickey Mouse then cut their money off until they straighten up. KEN said he had talked to Robin about that 5 million dollars that was unidentified right up until the last week of the fiscal year for the BoE. They still do not have it. KEN has sent several emails requesting that information and has not gotten a response back. KEN said he told Robin that the County Commissioners should not have approved the BoE’s budget until they got the information they had asked for. The problem is you have two or three commissioners who are willing to do that, with one commissioner who seems to be in bed with the BoE, and he claims to be getting information from the BoE but does not share with the rest of the County Commissioners. This same commissioner is reported to be meeting with the C4 Group and meets with them alone, not accompanied by any of the other commissioners. Maybe we need to invite this commissioner to come in and explain what he is getting from C4. It is a messy situation and should be cleared up. How do you get on the agenda before the County Commissioners? You can go in an speak but are not allowed to ask questions. There is no interaction with the County Commissioners. Discussion on who is on the Board of Education and who will possibly run against them. KEN said he sent emails to almost everyone on the Board of County Commissions on the 5 million dollars and only received answers from three. Two agreed that they had been trying to get the same information and could not get any answers either. Greg Harris emailed back a whole list of numbers and said he didn’t know why everyone was so bent out of shape. This listing should explain what he understands about it. KEN said he was sorry but he could not make heads or tails from the data Mr. Harris sent him. It didn’t even add up to 5 million dollars. He sent the data from Harris to the other commissioners and they all said that was the first time they had every seen those numbers. Harris has numbers that he got from somewhere (the BoE he would presume) and he had never given them to anyone on the Board of County Commissioners. That does not make any sense. DENNIS TOMASO said he had to pay $14.00 for his daughter to take the SAT test (because he home schools her) while those in public school (being paid for by the taxpayers) get to take it for free. He has asked the Superintendent of Schools but cannot get an answer. KEN said they discussed the school system at the Western Carteret TEA Party meeting the other night and he had mentioned that a lot of our members are retired, have no children, or their children have graduated and on their own; but everybody here still needs to care about this issue because our tax dollars are still being spent without our say so. For example an average home today in Carteret County will cost around 200 thousand and the tax on that home will run about $5,000.00 a year. The family that moves into it probably will have approximately 2 kids in school. That $5,000 they pay to the county on their home won’t even pay for one kid’s year of education. (Cost per student averages almost $9,000.00 per year). So someone else is paying for that other kid plus the difference still remaining on the first; and that someone is us. So we still have skin in the game. BOB told KEN he was doing a good job; keep at it. DENNIS TOMASO said he didn’t understand why, since we had a Republican Board of Commissioners, and a majority of Republican Board of Education (he thought), couldn’t they talk to each other and work things out. HOWARD said they come from different Republican Parties. FRED DECKER again reiterated that 3 members of the school board would not be running next time. CLAYTON said what we need to do is get the three to run again, and then pick a successor who can then run as an incumbent (like the Democrats do) and be a shoo in. HOWARD said that is something we have been trying to stop and we shouldn’t pick it back up. We need to get some good conservative candidates to run in the next election.
BOB asked if anyone remembers when Kruchef (?) pulled his shoe off and pounded the table and said ’we will bury you’. People said there was no way Communism would ever take root in the US and he told them it already had. Once you begin paying people not to work, and be in line for handouts it already has roots. BOB says he thinks our trend has been more towards Socialism rather than Communism. Capitalism is being trod upon today with more and more people with their hands out and the Government more than willing to hand it to them to keep them on the dole. He said STEVEN BEST has gotten a copy of a movie called AGENDA -Grinding America Down. It is not just another conspiracy theory. He said at Rucker John’s, where the Western TEA Party will be meeting, they have a large screen where those who would like to see this (hour and a half) movie could lean back and watch. STEVEN said it is about how Socialism got started in America, where it is now and where it is going; how the schools are involved in indoctrinating our kids; and how we can stop it. BOB asked “How do we stop it?” and STEVEN said, one thing, by bringing Christianity back and prayer. Someone said in that case we may be too late. They have almost made Christianity a bad work today. Also we can stop it at the ballot box. HOWARD said he read a letter to the editor recently about a TEA Party member attending a TEA Party meeting in Boone and over half there were college students. One of the students stood up and said most of the Professors there were Communists. The member asked why didn’t the students object. His reply was ’are you kidding? They will fail us if we do.’ Our tax money is paying those professors. KEN said that was why teachers/professors should not have tenure. STEVEN gave the movie to KEN to show at the next Western TEA Party meeting. KEN said he would like to watch it before he shows it to the group.
DAVID COX said last week at the meeting we talked about the Atlantic Beach Town Council. He said he was not at the meeting that the two ladies running for office in Atlantic Beach that spoke to us, so he was not totally sure exactly what they said. However, he understood they talked about the current board is raising taxes. There has been NO property tax increase in the last two years. He went to the Ocean 6 meeting last Wednesday night and they were talking about some of the things that they (the two ladies) are trying to do to get themselves elected. One of the things is they are trying to get people to call and ask the voters to vote for only two people. DAVID said he has seen no political signs up on Atlantic Beach for them until today when I saw one sign with one of the ladies name on it. He said all of the political signs up are for those already in office.
He went down last week and ‘early voted’ to see if they were listed on the ballot and they are. He said if they can get 200 votes, (voting just for 2 candidates) they can unseat someone already on the board. To him that seems underhanded. BOB asked what they planned to do about that. He said they were just asking everyone they see to please vote for their candidates (Ocean 6). From the response to their polls they have determined those who live on Atlantic Beach want to keep AB small (not another Myrtle Beach). It was apparent to the residents and property owners that the previous board was more interested in growing into another Myrtle Beach. The sewer system they wanted was not for the residents of Atlantic Beach but wanted it so they could build hi-rise condos. JOHN HOPKIN said “That was not totally correct; that they also wanted a sewer system for the restaurants so they did not have to stay hooked up to honey wagons. The group in there now wants to build a big fancy town hall. The one they have now works just fine. There is two sides to everything.” TOM HARMON said that is what the two ladies said when they were here that they wanted to keep that property for a future sewer site, and not be used for a town hall. PAM said a lady came to a meeting she had attended and gave a talk on the plans for the town hall and park. PAM said it was absolutely beautiful and she thought it would be great to have something so great across the street from her place of business. She saw the lady later and asked how the project was going and was told they did not receive the funding. They did not get the grant that they needed to make it happen. PAM said, so she thinks what she meant was that project is now on a back burner unless they do come up with the money. DAVID said he didn’t think the whole board was for the town hall to start with. BOB said it sounds like it is going to be an exciting election on Atlantic Beach. DAVID said he would be working the polls…and would be wearing his TEA Party shirt.
HOWARD said KEN had sent out an email from the Moore County TEA Party about billboards they are putting up on major highways. He thinks it behooves us to see if we can’t come up with some money (don’t know how much we are talking) to come up with something. BOB said he thought it would be about $600 a month. KEN said “what they are asking for is to get money from as many TEA Party groups in North Carolina as they can to go out and put up these billboards. The idea he gets right now is they will put these billboards up for a few months before the election. Maybe a period of 4 months or so. The pictures they showed on that email were put up before the 2010 election. HOWARD said he thought at least part of them were on Interstate 95. KEN said they were planning to meet and propose certain locations, preferably on frequently traveled highways like 95 and 40 and places like that. KEN had asked them for more information before we could make a decision. We need to know what will be on the billboard; would there be any mention on the billboard as to who had donated; or would it refer to a website where all those TEA Parties would be listed. He wants to know what is the message; what are they trying to put out there? The ones they showed on the email said just simple things like ’Take Back America – Vote in 2010’. The artistry was really nice. BOB said we are not talking about us renting a billboard because we do not have that kind of money. But do we want to contribute some money to the NC organization that wants to put these billboards around the state or do we want to wait, like KEN says, until we get more information. Or would that be a wise use of the small amount of funds we have? Was put on the back burner until we get more information. BOB asked KEN that if he got further information to please send it to PEGGY so she can put it in as an addendum to the minutes.
BOB said last night they had their National TEA Party web-a-nar. Last week was Constitution Week where TEA Parties were encouraged to adopt a school across the country. It was very successful. They gave out thousands of the teaching packets to the various schools and teachers. The TEA Party wants to expand the program next year. A particular success was the handing out the pocket Constitutions. Some of the organizations went into the schools and ensured each student received their own copy. A new TEA Party web site is coming out and is currently being beta tested. Should be up in a week or two – teapartypatriots.org. The continuing resolution passed the senate by a vote of 79 to 12 that will fund the government through November. Remember at the end of November the super committee is supposed to come up with budget cuts and if they do not have enough cuts, then there are some automatic cuts that will be triggered. One of the triggers is something like a 400 billion dollar cut to the Defense Department and if that takes effect it might directly affect Cherry Point. It has been BOB’s contention all along that the Democrats from the very beginning have wanted to make sure those triggers were pulled so the automatic cuts would take place (half of which would come out of the Department of Defense) gutting our military. He thinks this has been preplanned. This talk about Cherry Point closing may very well become a reality. TOM said especially since they lost those wings. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in over 800 days and the thinking is the Democrats don’t want to be on record to the voters on what they do with the money. There is a push for the TEA Party to reach out to the Frederick Douglas Conservatives (which is a black group of conservatives). Their web site is conservativemessenger.org. BOB asked if there was one of their groups around here? Willie Montague, who has spoken at some of our rallies, is back in the county and trying to organize a Black Republican Group here. He has started a church in the area, with a Christian School. BOB wants to get with Willie and see how he is doing getting organized. BOB said he has sent invitations to Willie to come out to our meetings, that we would like to see him. With just having gotten back, trying to get organized, and get his stuff going, it will probably be after Christmas.
EULA wants to know if anyone knows why the government has cut her Widow’s Fund by $35.00 a month. They said it had something to do with Bush’s taxes ending. BOB said he retirement check got cut this last time around and they said it was due to taxes. TOM said they rework the paydays near the end of the year. You will get a retirement check on the first of December and the 31st but would not get one in January. Discussion on taxes, social security, medical, etc.
BOB said the TEA Party Patriots is coming up with an Agenda 21 training package. It has been being discussed for a while now and there is no time line for it’s availability. They also discussed the Patriot Radio. They have a broadcast now. You should be able to get on it through the web site.
FRED said the Heritage Foundation has a score card on various subjects, like Obamacare. Senator Burr got a 77 rating. Kay Hagan got a 5. Jim DeMint from South Carolina got a 99. Representative Lamar Smith from Texas got something going in Congress about when the Obamacare comes before the Supreme Court, he is trying to keep Elaine Kagan from voting because when she was Solicitor General she was the one advising a way to defeat any challenges. FRED gave Rep. Smith’s phone number 202-225-4236. Call to encourage him to keep up the fight.
BOB closed the meeting at 7:40pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary