CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MINUTES OF
28 FEBRUARY 2012
Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:05pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by SCOTT CARPENTER
Invocation by NANCY BOCK
BOB said he had seen TIM BUCK’s letter to the editor in the paper recently about our local candidates (Randy Ramsey, etc.) and he thought it was a pretty good letter. Several letters by our TEA Party members, HARRY THOMPSON; JERE GEURIN (on defense of marriage act); and ROMA WADE (EULA PARKIN said he deserved a metal for the letter he wrote about the undocumented people who come here to our country infected with so many diseases that we had thought were no longer in existence) have recently made the paper and nice comments were made on each. KEN LANG said he had talked to several people who were active in consulting with politicians, and they said the one thing you can do that really does make a difference is writing letters to the editor. So continue writing letter folks. We have a friendly newspaper here. JERE said we have three friendly newspapers in this area; so, send your letters to all three…. Jacksonville, New Bern, and Carteret County.
BOB said he had a letter from ERIC BROYLES that says, Glenda Self (?) who is a board member of the Cape Lookout Marine Science School Board has asked to speak at our March 6 meeting. He told ERIC that he might want to change that to the next Tuesday. He said that at that time she will present the facts as to what is occurring at Cape Lookout School and why their charter school license was initially renewed in December and then revoked a month later. He wanted to know if the members are interested in listening to her. Consensus was yes. BOB told ERIC to set it up.
BOB said in our prayers we should include those poor kids and families in Ohio involved in another school shooting. He said he had finally come to the opinion that these young folks just don’t have any coping skills anymore. They have been told that everybody is a winner and nobody is a loser…he doesn’t know if they can deal with any adverse things that come into their lives. He said he understood a third high school student died today from his wounds. That is three out of the five that were shot. Discussion on where and how the gun was gotten. HOWARD said he heard today that the shooter’s father was going to be charged. If that is correct, then apparently it was his father’s gun.
NANCY BOCK wanted to know if anyone was keeping up with the Anti-Sheria conference in Tennessee…how the Muslims are infiltrating our education system. Wanted to know if anyone had watched that video. She said she could not get into that website that KEN LANG had put out. KEN said he would go back and check it out since several said they could not get in also.
BOB said he guess we had all heard about this Iranian Christian who would not renounce his Christian Faith and has been condemned to death. Any time there is any type of anti-Muslim thing Muslims go into a freaking uproar, but anytime there is an anti-Christian thing, where are all the Christians in this country. Why aren’t the churches organizing and having marches down the dang street. The Christian church in this country either doesn’t give a d–m or something. They are not organized and he doesn’t hear them protesting. BELVA MANNING said and that is one of the reasons for the problems we are having today. BOB feels that the minute they mentioned about hanging that priest, the first thing he thought about was all the churches in Carteret County should get together and set a certain Sunday and all the churche members meet down there at the Port and march all the way through town. And let that catch on all over the whole country. The Christians need to stand up for what they believe in. But you don’t hear a dang peep out of nobody. Franklin Graham is on a couple of shows talking about it, and all the schools that they have rebuilt in various places around the world, but if the Christian Churches do not stand up and provide some kind of venue for their members, to come forward and express themselves under the umbrella of the church ain’t nothing going to change for the good. It is just going to get worse. If the churches were organized, there is no way in h–l, that Obama and the Democrats and/or liberals, whoever they are, could get away with binging on the church like they are. There should be such a political uproar with demonstrations going on in opposition to the way our government officials are trying to run down Christianity, at the same time they seem to be promoting or at least turning a blind eye to what the Muslims are doing with the Sheria law, honor killings, the murdering of Christians over in the Arab Spring. Something has to change. You members who know your pastors, your church members, somebody has to grab the bull by the horns and start organizing.
He called on JERE GEURIN. JERE said year before last when the Manhatten Declaration was published (they held a seminar here in Morehead City which he attended, so he asked the pastor in the Presbyterian Church to come over to his church and talk to the men’s group about this declaration and his pastor forbid it and would not allow it. That is reason number 2 of why he left that church. The pastor said it was ecumenical and he was against all the churches getting together. Frankly he thought he was off base.
BOB introduced Ken Jones, Mayor of Pine Knoll Shores (who had just arrived to the meeting). He informed the attendees that Jones was running for the Senate seat being vacated by Jean Preston when she retires. Asked Ken to tell us all about himself.
Mr. Jones thanked us for giving him the opportunity to speak. He said he was a second term mayor of Pine Knoll Shores and he is running for the Second District Senate seat. There are several reasons he is running, many of those affect each and every person in this room as well as this district. He is sick and tired, as he is sure you all are, of the tax, and tax, and more tax system that we seem to have here in NC. This is not a business friendly state. Talk about 80% of your jobs being in small business, yet it is not a friendly state to start a business in. He was telling a group this morning that he met with out at the port, that he had a corporation in Georgia and it cost $50.00 every year to register there and it costs $250.00 every year in the state of NC. Why is that? Government is too big. It is too impersonal and it has become too far from the people. We need to streamline things, we need to do things smarter, no doubt about it. Ask anybody that works with anybody or any organization with the state and it seems it takes forever to get anything through and we have to wait until somebody comes back after they have been away for a week or whatever. It has just gone on long enough. How can you be in a state where your schools are number 48 out of 50 and think that just throwing money at it is going to fix it. It is broken..it needs to be fixed. Just throwing money at it is not going to do the trick. He was asked by the precinct chair over in Havelock where he stood on ID when you go to vote. He said he showed his ID when he went to vote whether he had to or not because he thinks that is the right thing to do. The system we have breeds corruption and there is corruption, no question about it, so we need to get rid of that stuff. We need to get things straightened out and we need to become more business friendly. As mayor of Pine Knoll Shores, we have a really great team over there, and we work well together. We do a lot for the town. He is always of the opinion that the best government is the government that is closest to the people. That makes sense doesn’t it, because you can reach out and touch somebody, push a button. He is currently the senate appointee to the Eastern Region Economic Development Commission, so he has a good grasp of what goes on here. Within that region there are 13 counties including Carteret, Craven and Pamlico. We bring jobs to the area. I can’t tell you how many jobs we have brought but it includes the 350 jobs we brought to Kinston a couple of months ago. So that is what it is all about is doing those things that make business more capable and able to do things here. People should be able to work for their money and be able to keep more of it. He is a small business owner. He has to meet a payroll. He has to sign for budgets in a town. He is the military candidate for this office. He had a career in the US Air Force, 12 years. It is tough to find Air Force guys in this area and he really has to watch his back in Havelock. (Laughter) None of the other candidates have military experience. There are 3 things he brings to the table, he is conservative, a leader, educated (has a masters degree) and is experienced That is the big thing, he is experienced, more experienced than the other two candidates. He is also on the governors Land Compatibility Task Force. That sounds strange, doesn’t it? That is a group of 11, that are working to keep the air space and the encroachment affecting the military bases of the state of NC, so he is working on all 4 bases. He is going to have to spend all day tomorrow in Raleigh and you know that is not fun. So anyway, he is experienced in all those things with the bases, with the region, with the district, and with the towns and the people here, so he feels he brings a lot to the table. He also tends to think that Carteret County is a little more difficult than the other two in understanding the problems here because we have beach re-nourishment here….we have a port here, we have a lot of things that go on here that don’t go on in the other two counties. Now mind you they have situations as well, and he understands those and he spends time over there, but he also thinks it is important that we try to keep this seat in this county and keeping the seat in the Republican party is a major thing as well. And so far, no Democrats have registered or filed. He said he would answer any questions anyone had. FRED said you know that voter ID bill was passed, vetoed and overridden when a judge said it was unconstitutional. Jones said then how come it is legal in other states and not legal here. Maybe we need to change judges. Discussion on who the judge was. Hudson or Stevens? DIANE LANG said when they announce on TV that seniors can no longer afford to retire in NC; how do you feel about that? Jones said not only seniors can’t afford to retire in NC but nobody can afford to live here, period, because of the tax situation. Look at the gas tax, one of the highest in the country. This is a small point, but why is a lottery now costing twice as much? That money was supposed to go to the schools. Is it? Remember they were going to cut down on the taxes so that…no that hasn’t happened either. Every time you turn around there is another tax. They are adding to the cost of people that take the ferries around here as well. Mis-management. Anybody know her? She is currently in Raleigh. So, anyway there are a lot of things we need to do to make it more livable. So people can come here and work and come here and live and our children can get educated properly. We can do a better job, I am sure. He is of the opinion this needs to be run more like a business and be accountable for it. He heard today how many people in the state of NC get a $400,000.00 a year pay check. They work for the state. Those people can afford to retire here, right? HOWARD said the reason our gas tax is so high and our roads are so poor, is because there is no management in DOT. Jones said if he was looking for an argument, he was not going to get one from him. He is from a town that was supposed to get a bridge that was supposed to start in January that is now starting March 7 because of DOT dragging it on…and sidewalk projects… KEN said and now they are going to put a median strip down Highway 70. ERIC asked Jones his thoughts on the median. Jones said they have done that in Havelock. It is interesting…let me get this straight….you don’t have them in because it is safer not to…then you put them in because it is safer to have them…then you take them out because it is safer to not have them….now we are putting them back because it is safer. The story here is the state government has so much money that we can afford to pour concrete down the middle of the road. He thinks it is a mistake and it is ruining businesses for sure. He thinks it is interesting that to go to the gas station he has to drive farther and turn around to get back to the gas station so that they can get more gas tax to pour more concrete. ERIC wanted to know what Jones’ position was on illegal immigration in this state because there are 400 to 600 thousand illegal immigrants (it is estimated that 2/3 of them work, which means those are jobs that have been taken away from US citizens residing in NC. Everybody avoids the issue because they are afraid of losing the Mexican vote. Jones said here was a thought for you, Obama’s people have set up offices in New Bern and they are out getting people to register to vote NOW as we speak. There are a few things I expect from the federal government. I expect them to have a good military, (peace through strength), have a currency and keep the border secure, because that is part of having a good military is security. The federal government needs to grow a back bone and do that. ERIC said can you within the first couple of days in office submit a bill that lays a $10,000.00 fine (per incident) on hiring illegal immigrants. Jones said he would like to see that, because we are talking about the future of our country -all together. Open borders does not cut it. People being here illegally does not cut it. We need to fix it. He likes the laws in places like Arizona. ERIC said right now we are spending $2 billion dollars on the illegal immigrant issue. Jones said he wanted to take one step forward and something else out of your wallet is having to put everything in bilingual. Why don’t we declare a national language and get this over with, right? A gentleman in the audience (didn’t catch his voice but think it was WYATT RIKE IV) said the education system was faltering a little lately, what did he think about a voucher system. Jones said he thinks that all that has to be looked at and be integrated in the system, because there are positives and negatives to anything like that…but we have to get the best bang for our buck…that is the bottom line. If our schools are so bad that people want to put them somewhere else again maybe we need to look at the bottom line and come up with something smarter and better, because , maybe people won’t want to go to the voucher system if we do that. But we do need to make our schools better across the board and hold people accountable for that as well. HOWARD said someone told him that the state constitution says our ballots will only be printed in English; so he got a copy of our state constitution and read it. The state of NC, by printing ballots in other than English, is violating the state constitution. Jones said it doesn’t surprise him. Not to mention that we are having to pay to have it printed in two languages and also paying an interpreter out there to help somebody read it. Again, Federal government, declare a national language and move on. FRED DECKER said the state of Tennessee was facing the same problem by laying off all these teachers so the governor opened up, took the cap off charter schools, and made them unlimited. Nobody got laid off, and the education system improved. Jones said there are a lot of smart things we can do, there is no question about it. HARRY THOMPSON asked Jones what business was he in. He said he was a financial planner. He has an office in Havelock and visits an office in Jacksonville. He has been doing it for 15 years, prior to that he was in the Air Force. ERIC said Jones said he was part of the Eastern Regional Economical Development Commission. Did you know anything about this port situation with Potash and when did you know. Jones said that was not run through the EREDC. He said they had talked about that this morning. He does know how it all came out. There again, back to what he said, the best government is the one that is closest to the people. The board of commissioners that he is on, passed a resolution against that thing almost as fast as it came out. Imagine what that would have done to the Morehead City waterfront. And some of the things that happened, well all of them, need to be watched more closely. The other thing about that port is they did business there for years and didn’t charge for the time that was used on certain ships, and that needs to be run more like a business as well. Just because it’s a state port, it doesn’t matter, it still needs to be run properly. ERIC asked how he felt about container shipping coming into this port. There is a lot of talk about that becoming a big economic boost to our community. Jones said of the two seaports in the state, Wilmington and Morehead City, he always asks ’which of the two seaports are deeper?’ Do you know which is deeper? Answer, yes, Morehead City, by a long shot. Wilmington can not get any deeper, because it is rock. BOB said 6 hours from the ocean also. Jones said yes, and this is a great place to bring ships into port. The problem he sees with the potential cargo that could come in and out of that port is a lot of it is dangerous. You look at that bridge going between Morehead and Beaufort, any of those islands, it is only two lane. Is that a problem? There shouldn’t be a lot of things coming in there that could be dangerous, because of the location; and the fact that the highway system is not developed around there to properly handle it. It is possible sometime in the future another road could come on board and go out to 101, Havelock bypass, something like that, but coming through Morehead City with some dangerous cargo is probably a mistake. SCOTT CARPENTER asked what kind of cargo would he suggest. Jones said a lot of agriculture products can go through this port. Right now, there is a lot of questions about the wood pellets that go through there. The wind and water situation, but really we could move a lot of agriculture products out of there. One of the advantages is that it is not very far away from Jones County, Lenoir County, etc. That has a lot of potential to it, but it doesn’t happen. SCOTT asked what about the economical impact possibly off our coast – do you encourage anything off our coast? Jones asked, ‘are you referring to wind energy, fishing, oil drilling, or what?’ One of the reasons gas and oil prices are so high, and one is not correlating with the other right now for some reason, but we do need to do more drilling, the pipeline and all that stuff we have heard about on the news The guy who says he is worried about gas prices is the same guy who stopped all that stuff. Isn’t that interesting? And he is running for re-election too, you may have heard. So he (Jones) is in favor of doing some off shore research and seeing about oil, whether it is available or not. Fishing, we have done a turnaround and done some wrong things there. Wind energy definitely needs some more study. That is one of the areas that he is working on right now when it comes to air space for the military bases here. Primarily, if the military can’t train here, they are not going to stay here. We had a discussion with them about windmills, whether they are in the water or on land, and the question was are they going to be a problem for the aircraft and they said yes. Someone said well they have those in other countries, aren’t they a problem there? And they said no, we blow them up when we are passing through. He thinks we need to do a study and then move on. We really need to do something but we need to take care of our environment at the same time. So we need to do it properly. This yes and no, and picking and choosing, again, is mis-management, he thinks. BOB said he had talked about marine fisheries. Are US coastal waters and fish populations under the umbrella of the United Nations for species management. Jones said he was not sure of that. BOB said one of the things that we are kind of concerned about in the TEA Party is UN Agenda 21, which is just now starting to hit the airways of public consciousness but is still not widely known. He saw this whole move by NC with the 100 year sea level rise thing as part of that. That the whole plan is to take real estate out of future production and reserve it for environmentalists for initiatives. Jones said that whole sea level thing has mostly been shelved. BOB said they are still pushing it. It is not dead. Jones agreed. He said the people that are fishing are regulated by the people where they get their fishing license. KEN LANG said he just wanted to clarify that on the sea level rise, the governor’s panel on sea level rise report was shelved. However, the DENAR is still using sea level rise in their planning at this particular moment, so it has kind of been shoved under the table, but is still an issue. They had some people on Lockwood’s show last week that were talking about that. Jones said he was of the opinion that the future is going to be tough. The next 2 to 4 years are going to be very tough. People are going to have to make some tough decisions and if they do not have a back bone we are going to be in even bigger trouble. He is sure he is the guy to make the decisions and represent the people of this district. He thinks we need someone in office that has the ability and the personality to put their fists down and say no or even put their fists down and say yes. He wants to make sure that happens to represent our people fairly. And that is one of the primary reasons he is running. ERIC asked if we could go back and touch on this world situation again. NC, from what he has heard, has some major oil deposits in the ground. He feels it is time that we started getting a check back from the state like they do in Alaska, instead of taxing us to death. Jones said he did not want them to give back, he just wants them to go away. We need to be more efficient, manage properly, but we don’t need a huge bureaucracy to manage all this stuff either. ERIC said he was not asking for a check , but by drilling and providing oil, we could at least get rid of the gas tax. HOWARD said, you spoke of agriculture products exported through the port; years ago they had a grain buying station at the port and actually had state inspectors. Why it went away, he has no idea. Jones said he had heard a couple of things during the discussion this morning. They have not been good neighbors. He does not know why. He does not know who is at fault here. It does not matter, but let’s fix it. Let’s all get together and talk and get it straightened out. HOWARD asked who is they, the port? Jones said yes the port, the state port people especially. Jones said one other thing he wanted to talk about…did everyone know about the aircraft fuselages that go through this port. HOWARD said yes, from GTP coming this way. Jones said, ‘right, from Spirit Aviation‘. They are being built in Kinston and go to France where they are included on an air bus there. They also build the wings, but they go out through Wilmington. The question is why? That is being looked at. Those fuselage parts come down here to the port and go out and that has just started in the last few months. They also have the capability to fly them out of the Trans Park if they need them fast. It is a pretty good operation and is supposed to expand. That is more a regional thing and not just right here in Carteret County, but it is still important that we have that going through the port here. HARRY THOMPSON asked how he felt about Congressmen, after only serving one term, can receive full retirement benefits. Jones said he felt they should be in the same circumstances as you and I are in. He hates the idea that he is working 360 days a year so they can work 5 or 6 months a year. HARRY said he was upset that they were able to serve only one term and get life time benefits. Jones said yes that is ridiculous. They should be on the same social security program that we are on, which needs to be fixed too. He said earlier that the best government is the government that is closest to the people. When he first got elected mayor, one of his neighbors stopped him and said ’Ken, now that you are the mayor, what do we call you’? He told her that now that he worked for her, he guessed she could call him anything she wants to. That is his true perspective. That is the way it should be. They should represent people and meet with people in order to represent people. He is not doing this job for the pay. Linda LaGoy asked Jones ’you are part of the Economic Development Commission for the Eastern Region, so during that Potash debacle, in the paper it said for the federal grant there was a clause in there that said people were not allowed to know that the contract was signed until after it was signed. Jones said he had not heard that. That did not come through the EREDC. She said she felt that he would see a lot of those contracts. He said he did, but had never seen anything that said that. Speaking from the commission he is on, the things that are confidential, even if they make a decision in closed session, which is probably where this was made, the voting has to be made in open session. That is state law. So the voting has to be made publicly. He is sure that is the same law they are under. They may have done that. They may have had a closed session, made the decision, voted to come out of closed session, go into open session, did the voting and it was all open to the public. But you know what, no body showed up. No public was there to hear. That is possible. He is not saying it actually happened that way. ERIC asked if Jones was elected, there were two things he was curious about (1) the veto power of the governor (ERIC does not feel our governor should have veto power, that once the bodies make the decision they are speaking the will of the people) and (2) Term limits. Jones said he did not like the idea of a career politician because you lose sight of reality. The people in Washington, do you think they know what reality is? They do not have a clue. As to the veto power of the governor, you are talking about a constitutional amendment and it would take a lot to change that. Keep this in mind. You may like that veto power at times and not like it at others. You have to look at both sides. You can’t pick and choose. The neat thing is the Legislature can override the veto and that has happened a lot this past year. KEN said you either have the checks and balances of a veto power versus the Legislature or you don’t. Jones said he thought ERIC wanted this governor to not have veto power. He hopes everyone will be out on May 8th to vote in the primary. JERE GEURIN asked what his thoughts were on the Marriage Protection Amendment. Jones said ’Marriage is one man and one woman’…end of story. He does not like the government involved in his religion. The one man/one woman is the way it is done and that is the way we need to keep it. Jones thanked us for our time and he appreciated us for getting involved because that is what it really is all about…the people in the grass roots being out there standing up for their rights; because that is what keeps your rights. So thank you very much for you time, I appreciate it. (Applause)
BOB then called on Kirby Smith, who is running for District Court Judge. There are 6 seats up for re-election, but only two are being contested. (Jerry Waddell, who retired and there are 3 people including Smith who are running for that seat and Sherrill Spencer also has competition running against her).
Smith told us he was from New Bern; his mother’s family has been in New Bern for generations. His father’s family split. His grandfather was from a little town called Aden, and his grandmother was a Baldree, and her family is from here in Morehead. She was born on Arendell Street, so he claims ties here. He grew up here, but like most kids, all he wanted to do was leave, and he did. He went off to college. His plan was to go to Wall Street and make a fortune. He made it to Richmond, Virginia in time to watch the market crash in October of ’87. Remember those days, the market was pushing 3,000. He was there when the market dropped 562 points in a single day. Lost 1/6 of its value. The phones in the office were silent that day. He was not a stock broker although he did earn his series 7 license. He was in operations, the guy that when you bought stock, he took your money and put the stock you bought into your account. After October 29, 1987, he decided it was time for a radical life change. He said his dad had always said to put yourself into the position where you can work for yourself, so he went to law school and thoroughly upset his dad. He went to Wake Forest and his plan was really to go back into business. He really did like business…he had a business degree from the University of NC at Chapel Hill. But he fell into the trial practice and he absolutely loved it. He took trial practice, pre-trial practice and ended up going to NC Supreme Court working there for a summer and loved that. Worked on death penalty cases. Anyone interested in how that works, see him after the meeting. While he was at the Supreme Court, he got to know the heads of the Administrative Office, and a friend of his asked if he had ever considered becoming a prosecutor. Truth was he had not. He told him he should and asked him to stay in touch with him. Kirby asked him why was that? He said he dealt with payroll and he could tell him where the vacancies are. Kirby said he would definitely keep his numbers. During his third year of law school, he would call him up and he would say ‘here is where the vacancies are’. And he was lucky enough to get a job as a prosecutor in Rocky Mount, NC. He was there for three years and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was quite an experience. He tried everything…from second degree trespassing up to capital murder. He was not the lead prosecutor in the capital murder case, don’t get him wrong, but he was involved and he did prosecute murder cases. He was there three years and would probably be there today, but his mom called and asked him could he raise a family on what he was making as a prosecutor and he said ‘no maam, I can’t’. She told him he needed to think about what he was doing. She was right. He was approaching 30 years old. His grandmother, who is now 90 years old, was in her 80’s then, and his mom, was a single woman on her own….he wanted to get back home and be with his family. He moved back to New Bern and has been here ever since. Since then he has defended criminal cases and has defended everything from trespassing on up to murder…never a capital murder case though. He has been in juvenal court, domestic court, what they call 4D or child support court. He has done virtually everything you could image in the court system. He has been to the NC Supreme Court four times…3 and 1. He lost his last case there just last year. He has been to the NC Court of Appeals numerous times and he thinks he has 20 years of experience and the best resume for your next District Court Judge. Why is that important? In district court, unlike any other court, there is no jury. You go there and there is a judge. The judge sits as judge and jury. And so, it is really important that your judge knows what he is doing. Think about what kind of cases district court hears. They hear juvenal cases, (if you are under the age of 16 and charged with a felony, you don’t get a jury trial. You have to go in front of a juvenal court judge and you can go to prison – we call it a youth development center – but you can go to prison until you are 21 without having a jury hear your case.) Domestic cases are heard in district court. Anybody who gets divorced in this state or any grandparents who want to try and get visitation rights with their grandchildren must go to domestic court and that case will be heard by a judge…no jury. If you are being evicted from your apartment or if you are a landlord trying to evict a tenant from your apartment, your case will be heard in small claims court, no jury. But if your tenant or landlord appeals, it is going to district court. There are juries in some cases in district court where they hear tort claims. He has never heard exactly what tort claims are, he thinks it has something to do with personal injury, within or less than $10,000.00. Isn’t that something where we define minor claims as less than $10,000.00? Small claims is $5,000.00 but if it is appealed from small claims it goes to district court and you can have a jury trial there. Jury trials in district court are very, very rare. BOB said he understood that you could request a jury trial and Smith said he was exactly right. If you are charged with a crime, the Constitution guarantees you the right to a jury trial . The way the NC Constitution worked to get around that was to say OK you go to district court you can have your trial in front of a district court judge and if you get convicted then you can appeal it to superior court and have a jury trial up there. There are very few superior court judges who are happy having to try a speeding ticket case, especially in front of a jury. In 20 years, he thinks he has seen that two times. You’re the TEA Party, why do you folks care about everything I am saying or not. Let’s talk about the effects the court system has on our taxes. I may be wrong about this, but I think the NC courts may turn a profit and may actually generate revenue for the state. They have raised the court costs now. When he started it was, he wanted to say $85.00 just to pay off a speeding ticket. It is now $263.00. That is within 17 years. If the system is paying for itself should we really complain. Within what we call the 3B Judicial District, which is Carteret, Craven and Pamlico Counties, (this is a loose figure and I don’t want you to hold me to it, but ball park) he thinks last year they spent a million dollars on court appointed attorneys for people charged with crimes. The US supreme court has said you can not put anybody in jail unless they have an attorney. They can represent themselves, but they have to have that right; so the judge sits there and says I want to put you in jail….and you say, I want an attorney…the judge has to give you one or give you an opportunity to hire one if you can afford your own. That is where the costs come in in the court system. A lot of the costs in the court system are fixed. If you look at the court system they have some really old stuff. They have terminals, instead of PC’s still. The state tries various things to try to bring those costs down. Here in Carteret County you have public defenders instead of court appointed attorneys. In Craven and Pamlico Counties they have court appointed attorneys…attorneys who are just assigned to hear cases. But a district court judge, that is the one who first appoints an attorney. And the judges have complete discretion. Some give court appointed attorneys generously, others very strickly. He will not tell us one way is right and one way is wrong. What he will tell us is you need a judge who knows when you need to appoint an attorney because you don’t want to put that person in jail vs. a judge who is going to give a court appointed attorney to someone who is not going to jail. Does that make any sense? He takes court appointed cases and he can tell you it makes him mad when he sees someone appoint an attorney for someone he knows is not going to jail. It should make him glad, because he is going to make a little bit of money off that case. Those are his tax dollars, not just yours paying those fees, but his too, you know we have people who are not going to jail and they are getting court appointed attorneys. We need judges who are going to really scrutinize the charge and criminal record before they decide yes and appoint an attorney. And then, and I need to be careful how I state this, your judges are going to scrutinize the bills. He saw an attorney yesterday who did a beautiful job. You know how much time she asked for that case? One hour. When asked how much time she had in the case, she said one hour. That is extremely low. Another attorney can come in there and the judge ask how much time you got in a case and he may say he has 10 hours. Actually he has seen as much as 20 or 30 hours on misdemeanor cases. We need a judge who is going to stand up and when that attorney says one hour, the judge says thank you, thank you very much and when the attorney stands up and says he has 10 hours, the judge will tell him come on up here we need to talk. He doesn’t believe in chastising someone in public but you do need to look at someone and say this is too much, you need to lower your bill. He was a chairman of RCS in New Bern for a couple of years (RCS is Religious Community Services). They run the homeless shelter and the soup kitchen. It is supported by the local churches. He won’t say they don’t get a penny of federal money…. they may have gotten some grants, but he doesn’t know when and they didn’t get a lot. At the same time he was on the DSS board. He was at a DSS meeting and the director said that we were going to give away the quarterly food distribution. That is where they give away all the government’s surplus food. Craven County was renting the Jaycee Fairgrounds and giving out food to anybody who received food stamps. He said that does not make a lot of sense because the fairgrounds are out on highway 70, a good couple of miles outside of town. How are the people going to get there to get the food? Answer was, well, we don’t get a lot of people and a lot of the people who do come take cabs. He said ‘they take cabs?’ ‘How much does that cost? He was told they were limited to $20.00 worth of food and the cab ride was close to $20.00. Therefore, they weren’t giving all the food away, so you know what they did with the food? This is your government in action. They called the food bank in Greenville, and told them to come get the extra food. The food bank sent a truck down to the fairgrounds and picked up the food and took it back to Greenville. The food bank sells the food (18 cents a pound) but they cannot sell government surplus food (government says you can get it for free but you can’t sell it)…so the food bank did not want to deal with that so they called RCS and told them to come get the food. So RCS had to send a truck from New Bern to Greenville and bring it back. He said this does not make any sense. The reason he is telling us this story is he wants us to know something about him personally, what you hopefully can expect from him. He was able to negotiate (took the lead role in negotiations) an agreement between RCS and DSS, so RCS now does the quarterly food distribution. All the government surplus food is given to RCS every quarter and the plan was they would give out the food and whatever food was not given away they would just put into their pantries and soup kitchen. RCS is in a very poor downtrodden part of town. When they give the food out, people line up a couple of hours before hand. We have to call the police out now to basically keep people from being in the street. The food is all given away within an hour. Whether or not you think it is right for the government to be giving away surplus food, he is not prepared to debate that, but he will tell us this…they gave the food out more efficiently, quicker and we did it for free. The citizens of Craven County are no longer renting the fairgrounds. No one is driving the trucks back and forth between Greenville and New Bern and it is all being done for free. So where it used to cost the tax payers (he was not sure of the amount) it is now costing the tax payers absolutely nothing… and he does take pride in that. That is one thing he is most proud of. He told us this so we could see what he stands for…the way he thinks and the way he does things. He then asked for questions. BOB said ‘you will be hearing drunk driving cases and he knows that cases are individual, but could he give him an overview on his policy regarding first offense drunk drivers…second and third offenses. Smith said he could not say what he would do with a given set of circumstances because that would be considered pre-judging and then he wouldn’t be able to hear any drunk driving cases. What you are asking is pretty much laid out by the letter of the law. He attended a seminar on driving while impaired courses and really the Legislature has taken with the law again this year. Let me just give you this scenario, take two men, both 58 years old. One has just served 7 years in prison for armed robbery. He gets out, goes to a bar, gets drunk, borrows a car, starts speeding down the road, goes through a work zone driving erratically, crashes, and the police get to the scene. He is belligerent, refused to answer questions. He doesn’t fight with the police but will not answer their questions, will not give them a breath test, will not give a blood test. They have to forcibly take blood from him. He registers a .24 and they look at his record and he has been in prison for the last 7 years but before that he had 3 DWI’s in the past 10 to 12 years. Compare that to the second 58 year old man, who has never had a traffic ticket in his life. He is a pillar in his community, deacon in the church, works on various boards and is an all around great guy. Never been in trouble with the law in his life. He decides he wants to take his 17 year old son to a baseball game. While there he gets two big glasses of beer and drinks them. Games over, he takes his 17 year old son, that he took to the game, they go get in the car and he puts the key in ignition..starts up the ignition and before he can do anything, someone backs into him. Being the good guy he is, he picks up the phone, calls the police, tells them he has been in an accident. The police get out there and they ask if he has been drinking. He says yes, answers all their questions, does everything they ask and blows a .08. One of these two men must go to jail. Would you care to guess which one? No, violator number one does not have to go to jail, but the second man must go to jail for at least 30 days…because he had a person under the age of 18 in his car. The judge has absolutely no discretion. That does not mean that number one can not go to jail, but number 2 must go for 30 days. That is the way the statute is written. You talk about 1st, 2nd, and 3rd offenders, the law is very structured in what you must do. If it is your first DWI, you don’t have a high blow; you are cooperative with the police; you come in and plead guilty; you get your DWI assessment; plea to treatment; bring your money to court; and you get a little fine, 24 hours in jail and 24 community service. It is just that simple. BOB said what he was opposed to was a young man gets a DWI and his lawyer keeps putting it off until he can finally get it set up with a certain judge. That’s what he hears, they are waiting for Judge So and So. It just seems there is a racket going on where the lawyers know which judges will let them off and which ones won’t. Discussion followed. ERIC said he felt that after a 3rd offense they should never be allowed to drive again. Smith said the 4th offense is a felony. He is telling us what the law is not that he agrees with it. ERIC said but do you not as a judge have discretion to order someone’s license being taken away for life. Smith – No. He does not think so, he will have to double check that. Generally judges do not have to worry about taking licenses away because DMV does that automatically. In general what our judges say is you are not to drive again until you are allowed to do so. ERIC said two friends of his , one had 4 and one had 6 DWI’s. Smith said he had hit the nail on the head with repeat offenders, and how to get them off the road. It is a problem and he understands that. Their hands are tied significantly by the current laws. But he will say this, anybody charged with driving while impaired, a judge can send anybody to jail for up to 2 years on his first offense. It is very, very rare and he is not saying it doesn’t happen but it is rare. ERIC wanted to know if you could put them on an ankle bracelet. He doesn’t want to put them in prison, that costs the tax payers $35,000 a year…an ankle bracelet that would allow them to go to work but otherwise pretty much stay at home. Smith said he did not want to speak for the district attorneys but they do not like to put those charged with DWI on ankle bracelets. He likes that idea. The real job for a district court judge in that type of situation is to try and distinguish between the person who made an accidental mistake…I had one beer too many… vs. the person that flouts their nose at the law. ROMA asked if judges ever got the urge to strangle a person. Smith said 10% of the people created 90% of the problems. You see the same folks there time and time again and you are absolutely right. Most of the attorneys go to juvenile court, and this sounds awful, but you can look at the kids there and you can generally (not always) tell which kids are going to come back. It is sad. It is not always the kids fault. Sometimes you can look at the home life and say these kids are just not going to have a chance. The same is true in district court. The most a judge can give you is 180 days in jail. That is it. Maybe he can run two sentences back to back (180 and 180) but certainly no more. So a year in jail, that’s it. When you have someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over again and shows no inclination to change his ways then he would say it was time to take him out. He can give the people of Carteret County 6 months of freedom from this fellow. He will just leave it at that. SCOTT wanted to know what the qualifications are for running for district judge and number 2, he had told us about his winning and losses in the supreme court, how about when he was prosecutor. He does not remember what his win loss record was as prosecutor, but he will tell us this much, he did win a lot more than he lost. When you are a prosecutor it is much easier to win. He thought he was the best trial lawyer in the world and then he went to the defense side, and most of the motions he had been winning, he started losing. He is still proud of his record. He does not keep an account because his record does not matter, at least to him because it is only as good as his next case. The best indicator of future performance is past performance. He will work hard on anybody’s case. SCOTT wanted to know what qualifications are require to run for district judge. Do you need a law degree, private practice, or what?….Smith said you need a law license and a pulse. The first time he ever voted was in 1984 and Ronald Reagan was on the ballot for his second term. The constitutional amendment was also on the ballot to allow only attorneys to be judges. Actually he voted against that. But it passed, so you have to be a lawyer to be a judge. Believe it or not we have had some non lawyers as judges and they were pretty good judges. KEN asked where he stood on legislating from the bench vs. the constitution. He has a website that he thinks basically answers that question. He encourages folks that haven’t been to his website, (electkirbysmith.com) to do so. His full biography is there and his resume…he has tried to be as open and direct in everything. He does not want anyone to have questions. The job of the Legislature is to pass laws. The laws the Legislature passes are supposed to apply in general to all the people. It is the job of the executive branch to prosecute those laws against the individual and the job of the courts to apply those laws to the individuals. If the laws are going to be changed, it needs to be done by the legislature ..pure and simple. He was at a meeting a week or so ago and they were talking about the tolls that were going to be put on the ferries. People in Pamlico County are really upset over those tolls. This one guy stood up and said he had a solution….he quoted some statute that he (Smith) had never heard of….no toll can be imposed unless it is approved by a turnpike authority or an RPO. He said that toll was never approved by an RPO according to that statute. He would argue that Hwy 306 that runs from Aurora down to hwy 101 is a highway and goes across the Neuse River. That is a highway. They are talking about hiring a lawyer to get an injunction to stop the toll. He said he was sitting there in the audience going “please don’t ask me about that, please don’t ask me”. There are things it is ok to do, but he kind of thinks that goes to the meat of what you asked. He will not say what his position would be on that, but he thinks water is water and roads are roads. If the legislation wants to say no tolls on ferries without being approved by the RPO, that is the Legislature’s job. He does not think it necessarily needs to be the job of a judge to sit there and say ’I know it says highway but I can expand that and say the Neuse River, there is no highway on it. He does not like tolls, but judges are paid to apply the laws. WYATT RIKE IV asked about intent and what it means. Smith said he did not want to get too law school but intent means your actions. Let’s talk about that…you are in a car, driving down the road, and driving by here you see the TEA Party meeting and you don’t like the TEA Party. You pull out a gun and shoot in the room. You hit him and he falls down dead. You get arrested and taken down town. They say you killed Kirby Smith. You say, didn’t intend to, didn’t even know he was in there. Did you intend to kill him? No he didn’t even know Smith, never intended to know him, didn’t even know he was here. It was an accident that I killed Smith. I just meant to shoot up the place. But you shot knowing there were people in there and you knew there was the likelihood there was someone that would be dead. You still intended the consequences of your actions. Now that is legal. That is not his personal opinion, that is just legal. We do have accidents, but he thinks that we are all adults and he believes responsible adults should stand up and accept responsibility for their actions. BOB asked who his competitors were running against him. Smith said they are all from Craven County…David McFadyen III and Bernard Bush, the DSS attorney. BOB asked wasn’t McFadyen a former prosecutor…and was told he was the son of the former prosecutor. ERIC asked on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most liberal you can be and 1 being the most conservative, where do you see you fit in that scale personally. Smith said he would say probably 2 or 3. Smith said it appeared that BOB was trying to shut the meeting down, but if anyone had any more questions, he would be glad to hang around and answer them. He thanked us for inviting him to come down tonight and meet with us and he really appreciated it. (Applause)
Meeting adjourned.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.
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