Crystal Coast Tea Party

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
Meeting of
31 January 2012

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:08pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by DIANE LANG
Invocation by HARRY THOMPSON

BOB introduced the new faces….BARBARA RAWLS (who had attended a meetings in the past.  She said there hadn’t been very many people at the meeting that night.)
He then introduced DON HOLLISTER.  He said he and Don go all the way back to the very beginnings of his career in the Marine Corps.  Neither was 21 yet when they met.  They spent a good part of their time trying to find ways to skate out of work.  He welcomed both and said he hoped to see both of them on a regular basis.

He welcomed WAYNE WILLIS back (from exile or wherever he had been)  /WAYNE said he had had to hire a body guard, and Santa Claus (CLAYTON GILLIKIN) qualified.  He said he was glad to be there tonight though.

BOB said there was a little news on the local coordinator’s internet call last night.  Tea Party Patriots is organizing a DC rally on March 24th.  It will be on the East Lawn of the Capitol Building, directly across the street from the Supreme Court.  They are still lining up speakers.  He wanted to know if we wanted to participate in this, if so then we need to organize a bus to take folks up there.  More that half those in attendance raised their hands as interested in going.  Question was raised if we knew anything for sure yet.  BOB said it was still all in the planning stage, but he would let us know more as it became available and they started publishing the speakers.  LOU KUKULINSI wanted to know if we were to take the tar and pitchforks.  BOB said if you like, but you can’t take them over to the Supreme Court, though.  If you want to go and stand in front of the Supreme Court you can not have any yelling or shouting, no cheers; you can have some signs and that is it.  KEN wanted to know if we could bring our tents, like the OWS crew did.  They were more welcome than we have been.  ERIC said that’s good “TEA PARTY OCCUPIES”. Good slogan.  KEN said the Occupy group in DC was ordered out a couple of days ago, but are still there.  The Park Service said they were going to take a measured approach.  Which means they are not going to do anything.  LOU said ‘Speaking about tar and feathers, did you all see what Allen West said about Pelosi and Harry?’  He thought he would send West a couple of hundred bucks just for kicks.  KEN said ‘it really ticked Bob Beckle off.’  BOB said if we are going to DC, then he thinks the smallest bus we can get is 45 seats.  He will talk to the gal we normally deal with try to get that locked in…get us a price.  Need to maybe check with Americans for Prosperity to see if they are providing buses for $25.00 a seat again, which would be great.  WAYNE wanted to know if it would be over night.  BOB said the rally starts at noon and normally lasts until 2 or 3.  WAYNE wanted to know if it would be on a Saturday and BOB said yes.  BOB said there will be events all week up to Saturday, so if anyone wants to go up there and spend a week and take in all the events.  They are going to have different training seminars and training sessions, and they are going to block off a set of rooms and the Hyatt Regency right there in down town DC.  WAYNE asked if that would be within walking distance of where we want to be.  BOB said it was a little more expensive and then they hoped to get something out around Arlington a little cheaper for folks who can not afford down town DC hotels.  WAYNE asked if the bus would put us out right where the rally was and BOB said yes and pick us up right where he put us off.  BOB said ‘if you haven’t been on one of our bus trips before, he thinks they are a lot of fun.’  A lot of discussion followed.
BOB advised that you not take the seat next to the restroom as he had had to do last time. They cut the air conditioner off, because the driven was cold, and his seat was right over the heater and engine. He said it was miserable. Someone said we might bring a sweater for the bus driver.

BOB said, as you all know several county commissioners are not going to run for re-election.  He said he had entertained the idea of his running for Holt Faircloth’s seat, so he had called him today and Holt told him that Terry Frank (of Frank’s Doors in Newport) is planning to run and Holt gave him a solid endorsement; so BOB said there was no since in the two of them burning up money against each other.  If Frank is a good man in Holt’s opinion, it was good enough for him.  BOB went over and introduced himself to Frank in his office and told him about us (the TEA Party) and invited him to come down some Tuesday and introduce himself and let us throw some questions at him.  He said tonight is out, he had business things to take care of, but he wrote the time and dates of our meetings.  BOB said on the way to our meeting tonight Pam Hansom called him and started lobbying him about Terry Franks.  He told her not to worry, he had already talked to him and Holt.  Anyway, she said he was a very early supporter of hers and she thought he was a real stand up guy and very conservative.  BOB said he had seen him at some the Republican men’s club meeting occasionally.  HOWARD GARNER said there was another potential candidate that he had heard of.  BOB asked if he was talking about Larry Land?  HOWARD said yes.  BOB then recognized KEN LANG, since he had a whole list of possible candidates that he has been networking and trying to get information out of people.
KEN said some of these people, the names are kind of being thrown out, so he was not even sure if they were really interested, and some he didn’t even know who they are, nor whose seat they would be running for.  BOB said if anyone knows any of the people he mentions, please speak up.  He said Larry Land and Terry Frank were on his list for Holt’s seat.  BOB said Pam told him that Larry Land was a Republican of convenience.  KEN said that was kind of what he heard also.  However, we still may want to vet him.  Doug Harris’ seat, the name Jimmy Farrington’s name was thrown out.   Jimmy lives on Emerald Isle.  He runs Yard Works.  KEN said he knew him and he was a hard worker.  His mother is Beth Stone.  Both she and her husband are very active in the Republican party and they have been to some TEA party meetings.  In fact they were here this winter (early) at one of our meetings here.  She has not been as active lately because she had some heart surgery, but he thinks she is coming back.  BOB said he had known Jimmy about 20 years and he is a hard worker.  He does not know what his politics are.  KEN said he is a young man, conservative, can vouch that he is a hard worker.  He has built a company that has been around now for roughly 15 years or so (BOB said he thought more than 20 years because he and Brian Watson, who started Carolina Gardens, and they split up.  BOB said he knew because they had asked him to take care of the Surf Shop and he had encouraged them to start their own business and they did.)  Several people spoke up as knowing Jimmy and all spoke favorable.  KEN said he would work with Jimmy and try to get him to come in and talk with us also.  KEN said another name that he doesn’t know is Randy Ramsey.  ROMA WADE said he was the owner of Jarrett Bay Boat Works.  WAYNE said, Actually his daddy is.  His daddy is where the money comes from.  Roma said, It doesn’t make any difference, the Ramsey family is where the money comes from.  KEN wanted to know who’s seat would he run for.  Would that be Pat’s seat?  HOWARD said he thought it would be Doug Harris’ seat the way he understood that district went, but then again maybe it would be Pat’s seat.  Discussion on areas of Districts.  KEN said he didn’t what those districts looked like.   BOB said he did and gave the boundaries as he understood them.  HOWARD wanted to know if anyone knew where Randy Ramsey lived. HOWARD said when the Ramsey family first came here they lived on Harkers Island.  WAYNE said his daddy still lives on Harkers Island. He continued with a short history of the Ramsey family since they came to this area.  HOWARD asked where the money came from for the business since he had known Cab (Randy’s daddy) since the 60’s and he had gone bankrupt prior to coming to Carteret County.  KEN said the question he would have is what their politics are.  He also brought up that we have three Board of Education members up for re-election.  He did not have any name for those other than we have talked about previously.  He was kind of hoping that Scott Carpenter would be here tonight so we could continue to encourage him to run for one of those.  We do need to talk to him some more about running.  FRED DECKER said he was trying to get Bob Harden to run.  He is an investment banker for Merrill Lynch.  His office is in the Bank of America.  KEN said FRED had told us that last time, so has he (Fred) made any progress yet?  FRED said he would do it tomorrow.  KEN said ‘don’t let it slip too long because he has to file and his filing date is the 13th.  Not quite  two weeks.  LOU said he knew someone who was running for Pat Joyce’s seat …Randy Feagle. HOWARD said he works for the school system.  LOU said yeah, he’s a teacher out there at East Carteret High School.  KEN asked, Can’t he run for County Commissioner if he is a teacher?  HOWARD said he was just scared of him because he was connected too close to the Board of Education.  KEN said just because he works there doesn’t mean he isn’t a conservative.  LOU said all the principles around there hate him, so he must be a good guy.  PEGGY said she lived almost next door to and  went to school with his mother and she hopes he has changed since he was a kid.  LOU said he had retired as a Lt Col in the National Guard.  HOWARD said his mother and step-father used to run Walston’s Hardware in Cape Carteret.  CLAYTON asked how old is this lad.  LOU said he thought about 52 or 53, somewhere around that.  KEN said 20 years in the military will change you a little bit.  KEN said he would recommend anyone here that knows potential candidates to go talk to them and if they express and interest then we can broaden that out and talk a little bit more and see if there is someone we can recommend.  BOB said if we found anyone interested to invite them to come out and talk to us.  KEN said we need to replace the three people who are up for re-election on the BOE.  FRED said he had talked to Judy Wilgus about Scott being precinct chairman of Wildwood.  Since then he has asked him to run for School Board.  He is President of the Home Owners Assoc.  and a few other things over there in Brandywine.  Judy had called Scott back about being Precinct Chairman so he was going to take that.  FRED asked Judy what was more important Precinct Chairman or School Board.  She said School Board.  KEN said he agreed and was hoping Scott would be here tonight so we could talk to him about running.  There was some discussion on Linwood who lives on Hwy 101 running first for Pat Joyce’s seat and then for BOE.

BOB said he guessed we had all seen in the newspaper where the School Board is asking for more money…4.5 million dollars for construction/maintenance.  KEN said every week they have a little article where they are asking for money for something else.  They needed more money for bus drivers about 2 weeks ago.  They blamed the County Commissioners for that.  They said the County Commissioners didn’t give them enough money and they had to lay off all these teachers aids.  BOB said he had put in a call to Dave M (?) Finance Budget guy for the school system and as of yet he has not returned his call.  HOWARD told BOB if he would back up a few years the schools got into real bad shape because they spent the maintenance money for something other than maintenance.  This is a theory of his, it is kind of hard to turn down money for new roofs and windows, etc; but he has a feeling that they think the Commissioners won’t turn them down for maintenance, and once they get their hands on it they will spend it like they please.  BOB said he had seen that the school board can submit a budget and the county, state and feds all send them money, and once they get it they can move those piles of money all around the dang place and then yell well we need money for this and money for that.  HOWARD said he feels that is what is going to happen to this maintenance money if they get it.  BOB said they play games with the school budget and anybody we vet for county commissioner we really need to hone in on the education department in the county and how the money is being spent.  We need somebody who knows something about budgets.  That is why this Terry Frank may be good because he runs a pretty good size organization, so he should know money and budgets.  KEN said he thought we need in the Board of Commissioners to do that, but we need people on the Board of Education who are willing to do that; at least to be able to look into the budget and understand where the money is being spent and whether or not it is being spent wisely; because right now we have a rubber stamp in the Board of Education.  The County Commissioners is actually doing the job that the BOE should be doing.  He knows the commissioners that he has talked to would love to have a BOE assume that responsibility and do their job.  They are not.  They are playing politics and just asking for more money.  Part of the conversations that he had on the County Commissioners also overlapped into the school board and he has been working a little bit with someone else to help him try to understand what is going on in the budget and it was suggested that he ask the school board for the last 3 years of their end of year reports.  So he did.  This dates back over a month or two now.  He got an email back that said that their end of year reports were on the web site.  So KEN went on the web site and found them and they are the comprehensive annual financial report.  That is the report that is put together by the independent auditors and they only have two years on there 2008/2009 and 2009/2010.  They do not have 2010/2011 on there yet.  They do not approve that audit report until February 7th. That is when they have a BOE meeting and have an extended public comment session during the BOE meeting, usually it is like 30 minutes.  He thinks they have either an hour or maybe an hour and a half allocated for public comments at this meeting.  Of course it is going to be swamped with C4 people,  BOB asked what would the public comment session be about if the budget is already over and done with.  KEN said they are planning the new budget.  After the meeting on the 7th, they should have the 2010/2011 budget ready to be posted on the web site.  Anyway, he down loaded the first two reports and sent them to someone to look at and he said that was not exactly what we need.  We need the school system end of year report, not the auditors.  That is where you are going to find the information you need.  So, KEN went back to the school board official he had spoken to before and said ‘don’t you have an internal end of year report that you guys prepare and that the auditors use.  They said yes we do but that is an internal document.  KEN asked why he could not get a copy, hasn’t the BOE approved that document.  They said ’Oh, no, we just send that internal document to the auditors and that is what they prepare their report from’.  KEN said ’you mean that you send a fiscal report of what you have done the last year and the BOE hadn’t even looked at it!’  He said ’yeah’ that is what we do.  KEN told him he couldn’t even imagine that.  So right now it appears our only option is to wait until this other auditor report comes out and see if we can analyze it.  The auditors report is very complicated.  It may not contain all the numbers that would have been on the internal report.  Anyway, Commissioner Comer is going to be meeting with the school board in about a week and they are going to discuss this issue of the budget and he told KEN to send him whatever information that he had and the conversations that he had had with the school board, which he has already done.  He is going to ask those questions at that meeting.  Also at that meeting they are going to propose to have an open meeting that will be attended by school board and commissioners and he asked KEN to ask TEA Party members, who were interested in the budget, to come to that meeting.  No date or time has been set yet.  His rationale was that from his experience we (the TEA Party) are more likely to ask questions that may not be asked by other people.  He wants to have some input from the TEA Party as well.  KEN told him there was no doubt in his mind there definitely would be some people from the TEA Party there.  He will let us know when the meeting is set up.  Hopefully, he will have some additional information from Commissioner Comer that he will be able to disseminate before the meeting.  This will be a separate meeting from the previously mentioned Feb 7th meeting.  As you know when you go to one of those meetings they are very tightly controlled.  You get up and say your piece and they really don’t address what you have to say.  Then they conduct their own meeting and you are not allowed to speak.  Commissioner Comer’s meeting is during the week sometime off anybody’s agenda.  He is not sure how they will announce this meeting but KEN knows he plans to have other people there. PAT NALITZ asked if the budget figures was available.  KEN said yes, you could get it off the web site.  Go to the BOE web site menu and on the side, go to finance, it will bring up a screen and the very last item on the bottom right are the two comprehensive end of year audit reports.  Does it show the line items.  KEN said yes, but it is an extremely hard report to work with and to print it out is several inches thick.  That is why we want the internal documents it should be a lot smaller and a lot easier to understand.  He is going to try to keep working on getting the internal report.  He asked Commissioner Comer to see if he could get it for us.  He does not see why we can not have that document.  BOB said at one of the last Commissioners meeting Commission Harris did a power point presentation about how the schools were getting more money each year than they claimed they were getting (utilizing the BOE’s own figures).  There were some ugly things said in the newspaper anonymously condemning Commissioner Harris.  To BOB it was one of the most transparent, where you could see where the problems are, and the things the commissioners have to deal with.  Wish we had more government like that where you can see what is really going on behind the scene and how they play games with the numbers.  PAT asked has it gotten this way because over the years they have not had anyone overlooking and demanding these budgets; so they have just gotten to the point that they say no one is asking or interested so why bother.  HOWARD said as far back as he can remember, and he has been here all his life, the board of education has been a rubber stamp to the Superintendent.  They did not make decisions, just said yes sir.  He also wanted to point out on that power point presentation by Commissioner Harris, the school superintendent stated to Comm. Harris that those figures he had used were all wrong.  So Comm. Harris says ‘you show us where we are wrong and we will correct them.’ Two months later, they had never carried the commissioners any new figures.  They publicly stated they were wrong and that they would provide the correct figures but they didn’t.  KEN said today Commissioner Comer told him they still haven’t received any corrected figures.  HOWARD said then it’s been about three months now, right.  KEN said yes.  His guess is and Comm. Comer agrees with him, that they have no intention of ever giving him any explanation on last year’s budget.  They are already moving on toward their ‘smoke and mirrors’ next year’s budget.  HOWARD said they think it is all forgotten.  KEN said yes, so they just ignored that and are moving on.  DENNIS said he hated to beat a dead horse, but who is in charge.  Doesn’t someone have the authority to make decisions and follow through.  KEN said it is convoluted, really.  He doesn’t know why it was set up this way, but as he understands it, it is the same in every county.  The state board of education and the local board are somewhat independent of the county; however, they receive money from the federal government, the state government and the local government, so basically what the county government did last year and maybe they have done it on occasion in previous years but last year they said ‘before they approved our local tax payer dollars for education, we want to see the federal dollars, the state dollars, and what you intend to spend our money on.  They tried to get to the bottom of how all that money was being spent.  Well the BOE kept changing the numbers.  They gave them at least four sets of budget numbers.  Partially they claimed because, well, they didn’t have as much information as needed from the state and so with Gov. Perdue threatening…you know they put blame all over the place.  Each set of numbers went up every time—by about 3 million dollars each time.  So from beginning to end they had an increase of about 12 million dollars.  At the beginning they asked for 3 million more than what they had put in their first budget.  At the end they were still asking for 3 million more even though they had gotten increases all along, but they never explained what that 3 million was going to be used for.  BOB said ‘save teachers jobs’.  KEN said that was one of the explanations.  Several comments about no one ever really got fired that they had heard about.  If they had they had gotten hired back.  Someone said we seem to be dancing around the same pole trying to get answers and we will continue to dance around
the same pole.  We control the county government, we control the state government don’t we.  Why can’t we seem to get anything done.  KEN said the only thing he could see to fix this for Carteret County is to elect some school board members who will work in concert with what the county commissioners want.  Right now they are stonewalled.  That is why it is so important to find people right now who will replace the three that are up for re-election.  Someone asked who approves the budget?  KEN said both the BOE and County Commissioners approve the budget, however, the real kicker behind this is the county commissioners can approve the budget and the day afterwards the BOE can change where that money is going to be spent.  But that isn’t the real problem.  The real problem is trying to understand what the budget being submitted to the county is in the first place.  The county was very adamant this last time that they had to be given certain information in order to understand the budget and it ended with the presentation that Commissioner Harris did where he showed a chart and said all your numbers do not add up.  Chairman of the BOE, Al Hill, said yes it does, you don’t have the right numbers and Harris said give me the right numbers and we will work together to figure it out and the BOE three months later has never given any numbers.  They basically ignored them.  CLAYTON GILLIKIN said there is only one way for the County Commissioners to get the numbers they need, and that is when the time comes to give them the money, they not give them one red cent.  Then they will have to come up with what the Commissioners need.  BOB said you remember they withheld $500,000.00 pending the school board providing some sort of quarterly statement and the quarter wasn’t even over yet and the County Commissioners released the funds.  BOB said he told Terry Frank that one of our objectives is get rid of  the current Superintendent of Schools and put a new one in there.  This guy is interested in nothing but building an empire.  ERIC said, unfortunately his contract has just been renewed.  HOWARD said we got a copy of a report put out by Civitas.  They got their figures from the State Department.  Perdue claims we have lost teachers.  North Carolina has more teachers on the payroll than they had last year, so Bev lied too.

BOB said talking about the school stuff, ERIC has been doing a little research on a slightly different angle.  ERIC said this coming year we are going to be up for another battle for our funds.  Last year they advised the county during one of these meetings with the county that there was going to be some major shortfalls in the following year.  He thinks a lot of it was capital expenditures.  We just all saw the article in the newspaper announcing that they were asked for 4.5 million.  Someone told him that our county ranked number 12 in support of our school system (how much money we the taxpayer give to the county per pupil).  Number 12 in the state.  Out of 115 school districts, one being the best, 115 being the worst, we ranked number 12 in the financial support we give per student in the state of NC.  He decided to do a little fact finding in all this and he found a wonderful website that is put out by the school government.  It is called schools.nc.gov.  Boy is there a ton of statistical information there.  It was a hay day.  Right now in the state Carteret County ranks 96 in the amount of funds we get per pupil from the state.  Remember 1 is good, 115 is bad.  So that means there is 95 counties that get more money than we do per student.  Currently our students get $4,992.00 per student from the state.  We all pay taxes and we would expect all of our children get an equal education, right?  In order to get an equal education you would have to spend equally on each child.  Right?  No?  Should but we don’t.  Logically you should OK?  Hyde County gets $13,000.00 per student.  $8,000.00 more than our students get.  Terrell County gets $11,108.00 per student.  Now to add insult to injury the same scenario exists with federal funds, which he believes is probably controlled by the state and how they distribute it.  Again Carteret County is 89 in ranking on that (funds from the federal government).  Hyde County is number 1 and Terrell County is number 2 in funds received from both the state and federal governments.  What also makes it painful for us is per capital income in this county we are number 12.  Per capital income is $37,000.00.  So we are paying more taxes but we are getting less of it back.  Our kids are being slighted by the state in the quality of education that they get.  Just think about this, if the state just increased our amount by $500.00, making it $5500.00 per student, we might move up to about middle way in the scale there.  That $500.00 equates to 4 million dollars because we have 8500 students.  On the federal funds, the same way, even if they just increased it by 2 or 3 hundred, then we would have another 3 million so the issue that the school board has is not with the county, it is with the state and federal governments and how those funds are distributed.  BOB said you said Hyde County got the most money for their schools per student.  What was their per capita rank?  ERIC said $28,251.00.  BOB asked which is where on the scale?  ERIC said 72.  ERIC said he tried to see if there was a correlation between per capita income and the amount each county got per student.  There isn’t.  There are some counties that have high per capita income and they get more than we do.  They are getting 6/7 thousand dollars per student.  He is now beginning to think it is more a political thing than based on capita income.  CLAYTON wanted to know if he could check to see if it was a Republican county or Democrat.  ERIC said he didn’t know that.  HOWARD said Hyde County was represented by Mark Basnight, he was pretty sure.  HOWARD said he was the head man in the Senate and probably the most powerful man in the state, running the show like he wanted it.  ERIC said well, that would explain why they are getting the money.  In the old days, the way teachers got appointed, so if you had a Democratic government in the county most of the teachers were going to be Democrats.  BARBARA RAWLS said students should be getting additional money for attending schools in those areas with military.   ERIC said OK, let’s check Craven County.  They get less than us.  They are ranked 101.  On the federal level they do rank 37.  Now you would think the Gov would take care of her own back yard.  VERNE THOMPSON said the only reason why it would be different from one county to another in educating the number of students, so there is not reason to expect that the amount per pupil should be the same in two different counties.  ERIC said he had thought that through himself and then he went and looked at Wake County.  They are 113.  Now you would think Wake County, one of the highest cost to live in, would be getting 8 or 9 thousand dollars per student.  No! They get $2,700.00 per student.  VERNE said that was sort of the point the was getting at.  A lot of factors go into the amount of what is to be spent to educate a given student.  For example: Using Hyde County.  Hyde County gets a lot because Hyde County area wise is very, very large, so on average the students are sparsely dispersed.  Which means they have higher per student busing costs, and fewer schools because they have less density.  On the other hand Wake or Mecklinburg County have dense population so they are able to have bigger schools.  They are able to have a lot more students in each of those schools and the transportation costs are also a lot less.  He is not saying that there is no element of politics involved, what he is saying is that there is a host of legitimate reasons why there will be quite a bit of difference in the educational costs from county to county and the per student cost.  ERIC said our county runs what 60/75 miles from one end to the other and how far does Hyde County run?  VERNE said he had no idea.  BOB asked if he had ever driven up to Manteo.  It is a long lonesome drive.  ERIC said the point that he was trying to make – VERNE said he suspected by what you had seen in Hyde County, you will also see in Perquimmons County and Pasquetank County because they are large areas and sparsely populated.  BOB said before you check them out and go any further, the money from the schools comes from the ad valorium tax  base.  The more prosperous and the more intensely built the county is the higher the revenue is going into the county so you will have x number of dollars available for the school system and will be based on how—-ERIC said he understood that—-BOB said Hyde County is probably 90% swamp and wilderness and very rural and there is no major towns up there.  They just don’t have the ad val tax base where the county can step up to the plate and contribute any significant amount to the schools so the state tries to level the playing field so that all the schools are the same… in other words the Chemistry Class that is taught in Hyde County is the same type of Chemistry Class taught in Carteret County with all the same equipment, microscopes, etc.  Items that Hyde County would not be able to afford on its own.  So the state steps up and tries to level the playing field.
Discussion among the members (all talking at once).   KEN said he still thinks you need to know how the formula works in distributing the funds.  HARRY THOMPSON’s wife wanted to know if free meals were considered.  If you get free meals, you get free dental care.  That sounds crazy, but it is the truth.  If your kids are going on a field trip and you are going to let them buy their lunch somewhere else they still want those free lunches so they can get the money for the lunches they don’t get.  It is ridiculous.  ERIC said the point he was trying to make here we are looking a maybe a 7 million dollar request by a school board this year and we want to harness as much of the money as we can get from the state, because the reality is we are going to need it.  Otherwise, everybody’s taxes are going to go sky high.  BOB said that is what our state legislatures are for.  ERIC said he had emailed Pat McElraft and Jean Preston on this issue, because he wanted and explanation as to why we are 96.  The other concern he has is we have about 1100 students that they classify impaired, blindness, deafness, mental, physical and all that.  You probably have a low teacher ratio in order to train these kids.  Probably 100 or more teachers are devoted to these kids.  LOU said what does it matter how much money we get as long as the school board has not accountability and we have no idea where the money is going.  WAYNE said in ERIC’s quest to find sanity in these figures remember this, one person’s name that has already been called, Mark Basnight.  He has been until very recently the most powerful man in NC and he still has a whole lot more influence than he has any business having.  That is why the money and it is not just for education.  They have been trying to do something that can’t be done with Oregon Inlet for 50 years.  You can not get there from here.  Hwy 64 was paved from Oklahoma or somewhere across NC so they could get there to Basnight’s hotels.  ERIC said he still thinks we need to look into this data he was presenting tonight.  It is worth pursuing.  We know our school board is going to be asking for a lot of money this year.  HOWARD asked to explain something on these special needs kids.  He doesn’t know how much it is now, but if they can get a kid on Ridlelan or some mind altering drug, the state gets extra money.  Several years ago it was $1,700.00 per student classed as special needs.  Catie’s mother is a Nurse Practitioner.  She worked for a Pediatric and Adolescent Practice.  Teachers will pressure parents to put kids on these mind altering drugs for the money (and make their job easier).  An example was this mother came in to Dawn just about begging to get her kid on this drug.  So Dawn put the kid on a small dosage and just a few days later the mother came back in saying the teacher had said another kid had acted just like hers and that kid was on twice the dosage her kid was and wanted her to get the doctor to increase it.  Dawn told the lady she did not practice cookie cutter medicine.  That is what is going on.  It is a financial advantage.  They won’t admit it.  He had a school teacher asking for donations and he questioned her.  She said she didn’t know they got extra money.  This has been 7 or 8 years ago and he dug into it and at that time they were getting $1,700.00 extra for every kid they could get on these drugs.  ERIC said he didn’t know about that, but if it were the case, he thought we would get more than $900.00 per student, because we’ve got 12% of our kids that are impaired in some fashion.  HOWARD said the County Commissioners do not find out about this extra money.  The BOE does not tell them about this.  ERIC said he was waiting for some answers from our representatives to see if they can tell us how they are calculating the distribution of our funds.  He thinks every one of our children are entitled to an equal opportunity in an education.  If that is not happening, then we need to stand up.  LOU said we still need to start with our School Board.  No matter how much we get from the government unless we get the school board squared away it is all for nothing.  BOB asked HOWARD didn’t he say the charter schools only spend something like $4,000 per student?  HOWARD said at Gramercy (a Christian School) it is a little over $3,000.00 per student per year, whereas Carteret County is right at $9,000.00.  Gramercy’s test scores exceed those of any public school in the county.  BOB wanted to know if Gramercy received state funds.  HOWARD said no.  ERIC said he could pull up charter schools and see how they are being treated.  We only have two in the county.  He is hoping we can get some of the attention of C4 and the school board because our argument is going to be if the state and federal distribution is not fair then why are you all beating up on our County Commissioners and county citizens when they have already paid the taxes.  It strengthens our position to say no, as a county, we are not going to give you any more money.  You have to go to the state and beat them up or take them to court or whatever you have to do to get your money.  BOB said let’s get our numbers so we can have the facts when we talk to them.  Someone in the meeting said until we get a good accountability of where the money is going we are spinning our wheels.  BOB said the problem is you don’t know how they misspent the money until the end of the year when you get the auditors report and then it is too late, and by then they are asking money for the new school year.  CLAYTON said the BOE was wanting to get away from the county setting the tax rate and let the schools set the tax rates as they see fit.  Some places have done that…..and they are in worse shape now than they were.

Meeting adjourned at 7:20pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
Minutes of
23 January 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by
Invocation by JERE GEURIN

BOB reminded us that tonight’s meeting would be a short one.  We will adjourn  not later that 6:40pm in order to get to the Train Depot before 7:00pm for the Meet and Greet with Frank Palombo (hosted by Captain Steve Miller).  We would like for as many, as can, to go (hopefully in your red shirts) to show our support for Palombo, who is running against Walter B. Jones for the Republican Congressional seat for the 3rd District which has grown by 5 counties, basically because the center part of the state’s population has grown so much.  BOB said he understood Frank was doing pretty well in raising money, however, he can always use more.  BOB said he had invited some of his friends who had deep pockets to attend and he hopes they will turn their pockets inside out.

BOB introduced Catherine (Catie) McCabe, who is with and will speak to us tonight on “Eagles Wings Ministries”:
Catie said she had passed around a brief overview of what Eagles Wings Ministries does.  She runs one of their programs which is called ‘Youth for Abolition’, but they have several different things going on.  She said she usually did a power point presentation, but was just going to give a brief overview of what her project was.  What they usually do is ‘combating human trafficking in North Carolina‘.  Usually when you hear of slavery, you think that was abolished back during the Civil War when in fact today there are more slaves in our world than there ever was during the TransAtlantic Slave Trade.  Human trafficking is modern day slavery.  In the United States the average age in forced prostitution is 13 years old.  It is estimated by the Youth Department of Justice that a minimum of 100 thousand United States children are being trafficked and exploited in the US each year.  Some estimate those averages to be more around 300 thousand.  The modern day slave auction is electronic whereas local (?) can examine and purchase via email. Women and girls from wholesalers in other countries where retail customers can order up the prostitute of their choice via email.  Whereas before it was kind of a long process, now it is very easy, almost immediate, and is constantly going on.  It is estimated that at least 27 million people are currently enslaved around the world according to the US Department of State.  The trafficking of humans is the second most lucrative crime in the world.  Approximately 80% of the people trafficked are female and of those ½ are minors.  So 40% of the people being trafficked are little girls.  There is a big market for trafficking of children.  At any given time 50 thousand predators are prowling for the children on the internet in the US.  One point two million children are estimated to be trafficked around the world each year.  That is two children every minute.  During the first three hours of being on the street one in three kids will be forced into trafficking.  When we run into a foreign victim of sex trafficking we instantaneously sympathize with her course into sex trafficking.  But when we encounter an American girl on the street, we think why did she make this choice.  Surely she can walk away anytime she wants.  One survivor says ‘I was 14 years old when I was forced into prostitution.  Like many teens at that age, finding my identity, and defying my parents were on the top of my list.  Consequently when a man came into my life and showered me with attention and listened to me when I complained about my parents, I did not think twice about the fact that he was 10 years my senior.’  That is what is going on.  Unfortunately I know several girls that will talk to anyone on Face Book and there are other guys, girls and other teens other than the ones I know, and that is how the predators are getting in touch with these kids.  They are talking to them on Face Book, they are talking to them through social media.  They are being their friend, they are listening to them when their parents and other adults are not.  They are showering them with the love they are hoping for and then sex happens.   Yes a lot of kids are directly kidnapped but a majority are being more coerced into sex trafficking.  The reality of the ’pimp’ game.  Pimps have a great marketing tool, the media.  You can turn on TV now and see pimps glamorized on TV shows, music and movies.  Now the term pimp is so commercialized where Americans do nothing.  It has become incorporated into our vocabulary.  Teens use the terminology every day with statements like being pimped out, or your clothes are pimping.  We do not understand the reality behind this term.  Pimps prey on women and children by finding out their weaknesses and attacking them. It is easier to manipulate children because by the time they become adults they are dependent on their pimp.  After the pimp gets into your mind it is easy for him to maintain control.  From that point you have to call him Daddy and he will punish you if he feels you have stepped out of line.  You are required to bring home between $500 and $2,000 every night.  If you do not want to follow the rules he may sell you at any time to another pimp or he may just kill you.  The pimp game is not anything like the drug game because it is not territorial.  With drugs you buy and sell it once, but with people you can buy and sell them over and over again.  This is why they move you around from city to city and state to state so you can have no one to run to.  That way they can keep making money off of you.  So, local slavery is happening in our own back yard.  This past year North Carolina was ranked number 6 in the nation for human trafficking.  That’s right out of 50 we ranked number 6.  It is not just in the large cities like Charlotte.   Less than 2 years ago there was a little boy, 5 years old, in New Bern, and his adopted father was selling him over the internet.  Men were flying into the New Bern airport; having sex with this little boy; and then flying out.  It is happening here in Carteret County.  She has talked with a lady that about 20 years ago was being sold right here in Carteret County for about 15 years.  It is happening here.  What Youth for Abolition does is we educate middle school, high school and college age students about what is going on because they are the ones being targeted.  We raise awareness among them so that it is like a peer to peer type of thing of ‘let’s stop this because this is why it is happening – people do not know.’  People are not educated.  She did not know until about a year ago.  She was like ‘human trafficking is something that happens in Tai Land?  And Europe, (?)… it doesn’t happen in America.  We also raise funds to support Eagles Wings Ministries.  There are less than 100 beds in the entire US for victims of sex trafficking once they have been rescued.  When we have over 100,000 kids being trafficked and there is less than 100 beds for them when they have gotten away from their pimps.  So often in the event they are rescued they go right back because that is all they know and there is nothing out there to help them.  We say, ‘you’re free!’.  ‘Now go support yourself’.  Since the only way they know how is what they have just been rescued from, they go right back to that life because that is all they know.  Also, in teaching teenagers that the messages that the media sends all the time is not right.  It is not a good thing.  Being a prostitute is not a good thing.  She has talked to a whole bunch of teenagers and they are like ’oh yeah you can just be a prostitute to make money and do whatever and it doesn’t matter.  That is what the teen culture says now.  That is not a good thing.  It is not OK.  And then they talk to people in your generation (adults) because you all are the ones raising us.  You are the ones taking care of my generation right now.  So, if you all don’t know, how can you protect her generation?  And that is why we come and talk to groups like you.  That is pretty much where they are at right now.  What she does with Youth four Abolition is she runs their state wide program.  They have groups all over the state.  They meet once a month or so and they are getting educated and educating their peers.  They are raising funds to go into other places.  They are working with other organizations to develop programs to take into schools.
ERIC BROYLES wanted to know what the local churches are doing and are they involved.  CATIE said yes, many churches help with the funding, since Y4A does not take any federal funding.  That is the biggest principle that this organization was founded upon.  So everything they do is through donations from individuals, churches, and organizations.  It is a lot of money to have home school and psychological care in taking care of these girls. For 4 girls it is about $100 thousand dollars a year.  By the time you have the facility, help and special needs they have it can become very costly.  ERIC wanted to know if they tried to recoup some of the costs from the kids parents.  Many of the parents are poor, or the kids come from broken homes, and the parents would not be able to afford to help. The kids would just be on their own, if the services were not available.  BOB asked if this was a North Carolina based organization.  CATIE said it was.  HOWARD asked if all the help was volunteers.  CATIE said no, they have one paid employee per home because by law they have to.  BOB wanted to know where the homes are located right now.  CATIE said right now there are two, one in Asheville, and one in Boone.  The long term goal is to have one here in eastern NC.  BOB wanted to know what the current plan was.  CATIE said they were looking at Greenville.  BOB asked what was the current bed situation between Asheville and Boone.  CATIE said 8. BOB asked if they were all filled right now.  CATIE said ‘as of last week all but one bed, because one girl just finished the program two weeks ago.  Last week they got a call from the FBI office in Charlotte and they have 3 girls that they need beds for.  So as of now they are filled to total capacity.  BOB said CATIE had mentioned one girl had completed the program…how long is the program.  CATIE said ‘about a year and then they continue to help these girls afterward but some do go home or to a relative that will take them in and in some cases they will go into the foster care system.  They have a lot of connections with Social Services in the areas so they try to keep the girls near by and are very careful with them.  HOWARD asked ’was not Glad Tiding Church here involved.’  CATIE said yes sir.  KEN asked how CATIE tried to get the word out.  She said ’multiple ways, either churches a lot of times will pass the word or individuals will contact them because there are not that many organizations doing what they are doing right now especially in NC.  They just reach out to the churches for like ’hey, here’s what is going on.  Can we come speak to your youth groups or speak to your congregation.  KEN wanted to know if they call like the minister or send them literature or what?  He knows that she has been on the radio talking about this project.  CATIE said ’in the beginning of December she was up in Charlotte speaking with elevation church.  KEN asked how many folks, besides herself, did they have talking to churches and such.  CATIE said there was her, Emily, and Kim.  There are three of them for the most part heading up the various parts of the organization.  KEN wanted to know if this was all teens, young adults.  CATIE said she was the only teenager right now; the other two are adults.  Emily has been doing this for about 20 years, working with survivors, working with getting girls off the street.  They have the prevention part, the rescue where they actually go out on the street and talk with girls.  They also basically look up the ad and call.  In the past year they have called almost 3000 times and have rescued 8 girls.  But that is 8 girls that are off the street.  BOB said what do they tell the other 2998 girls.  CATIE said you cannot rescue someone who does not want to be rescued.  BOB said ’you said they called’.  We call them.  LOU wanted to know why they could not rescue someone just because they didn’t want to be rescued.  CATIE said ’ if they are minors, that is one thing, but often they will not tell you that they are minors because they have been trained to not say anything unless a customer is specifically asking for say a girl that is 12 years old with blond hair.  Then it is ‘oh well, we just happen to have what you want.  Even if she looks like she is 9 she says she is 18.  She was talking to a lady in Charlotte about the detention center there.  They know there is a lot of girls in there that are in for prostituting and they know a lot of them are there because they are being trafficked.  But proving it, getting to trial, or getting the girls to trust anybody and get them to talk is a very long process.  Until 2000 in the US the fine for trafficking was $50.00 and 6 months in jail.  She thinks it is now something like $50,000 and 10 years in federal prison.  They just renewed that law last year.  BOB said he thought that came out of the illegal immigration and border control – with truck loads of dead Mexicans in the desert.  CATIE said in other countries one of the prime markets for people trafficking others is Americans.  Over 90% of people who buy in other countries have already bought in their own.  PEGGY asked CATIE if she wanted to tell them about the dinner they had planned; that is if she had any tickets left. She said that they are having a fund raising banquet not this weekend but next weekend, February 4th,  at the Glad Tidings Church.  She has about 8 tickets left.  They cost $10.00 and that includes a four course meal.  She is going to be speaking and the founder and president of this organization will also speak; as well as a survivor sharing her story.  Representative Pat McElraft will be there also.  BOB said if she had any tickets left to bring them next Tuesday, that he would like to have one but did not have his checkbook with him tonight.  PEGGY said if anyone would like to get a ticket next Tuesday, she will get that many tickets to bring next Tuesday.  BOB said put him down for one ticket – anyone else? KEN said he would have to check his calendar, but he thought he and DIANE would probably like to go.  He would call PEGGY or CATIE and let them know.  BOB wanted to know if this banquet was to raise funds to help build a house in this area.  CATIE said this would probably be going for education right now and have programs to implement.   KEN said it costs to provide councilors and other needed providers.  CATIE said most of the personal support received was donated but there was still a lot of costs involved.  BOB said a lot of sex slavery takes place in Asia.  Families sell their daughters mainly because they don’t want daughters.  HOWARD said one thing he found interesting was there are a whole lot of operations, but everyone is small, normally only no more that two working girls and they ARE in Carteret County.  Anywhere there is a military base and/or beach.  CATIE  said ’tourist areas’.  She said at the bottom of the sheet she had passed out were some Hope House statistics:  ie 1005 of Hope House residents have had PTSD; 20% have had personality disorder; 100% have been victims of childhood abuse; 40% have been involved in gang activity; 100% have struggled with substance abuse; 100% have been chronic runaways; 100% have been involved in the legal system; 80% have been referred by law enforcement; 20% have been trafficked by their own parent; and 80% have had at least one abortion.   One of these girls will be speaking at this banquet (many will be there) but they have worked with this girl to help guide and give her the strength to tell her story.  CATIE said the lady has been working with this young lady, encouraging her to tell what has happened to her because she is going to have to testify and if she can share her story with people outside of Hope House then hopefully she will be able to testify.  But we have to be careful – there can be no recordings or pictures while she speaks.  They have had to really work with her because you can not use the ’f’ word and many others not suitable for public use, and this is a big part of her vocabulary.    CATIE said thank you for your time and interest.

BOB then called on KEN to tell us about NC20.  NC20 is an organization that is composed of the 20 eastern counties on the coast.  They have been doing some pretty decent work.  They’ve most recently over the last year, year and a half, there was an effort by the Governor and her ’quote’ science panel to establish some criteria on sea level rising that would have really devastated eastern NC from the standpoint of resale of property, being able to ensure property, etc.  NC20 was successful in having that panel basically disbanded and their report blocked because it was not scientific.  They were going in and talking about how global warming was going to cause flooding of the coast up to 3 foot level which would have devastated this area, but they had no scientific evidence.  Since they were successful on that, they decided another issue that is extremely important and hard to deal with right now on the coast is wind insurance.  Some of us went to a meeting with the Insurance Commissioner and 10 or 12 legislatures.  NC 20 gave a presentation and they had asked that citizens turn out to support them while at the meeting to let the legislatures know that we are interested in this down here on the coast.  He, Diane, Gus and Judy Wilgus, and Shirley went to the meeting and NC20 gave a really good presentation.  Pat McElraft and Norm Sanderson were there from our area but there were 10 or so other legislatures there besides.  Just to give you an example of the difference in rates it costs somebody who lives in Charlotte (Mecklinburg County) about $360.00 (+ or -) a year for their wind insurance.  People down here are paying anywhere from $1,700/$1.800 to $3,000.00 depending on the value of their home.  So we are paying 3 or 4 times more than what other parts of the state are paying.  But yet, the amount of money spent on repairing homes in the state is higher in the western and middle part of the state.  Wind damage includes tornadoes and thunder storms as well as hurricanes.  As you know we also have inland hurricanes that do a lot of damage inland.  Another statistic that was interesting was that the $300 and some dollars that they are paying in Mecklinburg County now is less than they paid in 1995.  Our rates have continued to go up while theirs have gone down.  There was a lot of discussion about the beach plan.  If you don’t know what the beach plan is; it is a plan that was created by the legislature that was supposed to actually supplement the insurance companies in case of a catastrophic hurricane like Katrina or something like that.  Anyone know how many category 5 hurricanes we have had on the coast of NC?  NONE!!  Zero.  Hazel was a 4.  We have never had a category 5 hurricane since records have been being kept and named.  We have only had 3 category 4’s and Hazel was the worst.  Most of the insurance companies will come along and tell you “well, one of the reasons why we are doing this is because we have to protect ourselves from a Katrina event when we have never had one in eastern NC.  The other thing he asked NC20 afterwards is ’wait a minute, Katrina was a bad hurricane but the insurance companies were down there telling people they could not cover them because they were only covered for flood insurance and not wind insurance or vice versa.  They were scooting away in trying to figure out a way in not paying anything.  The US tax payer paid most of the cost down there.  It wasn’t the insurance companies.  What is happening with the beach plan right now is all big insurance companies are dumping people into the beach plan and what is happening when you go to renew your insurance…a friend of his was with Nationwide at the time and they told him that they were not going to write him any wind insurance, he would have to go to the beach plan.  His insurance State Farm did the same thing to him last year.  What happens when they dump us in there (in that category) that means they are not responsible for paying insurance claims due to wind damage any more.  That means they get zero risk against wind damage claims; however they make 15% of all the premiums paid into the beach plan.  The idea behind it was the insurance companies were going to have to service those claims.  It is not the insurance agents, your local neighbors who are selling insurance and writing policies that are getting that 15%.  It is going to the big guys in the insurance companies.  Another statistic.  The insurance industry in the US has cash reserves, investments, and things like that …5 trillion dollars.  You have all these real rich companies now.  The other thing they do with the beach plan is it is common with insurance companies that when they insure a high risk type of event they do what is called ‘re-insurance’.  That means they’ll go to some company like Lloyds of London, (all are overseas), or some place like that and they will buy the insurance policy so that if they have a devastating event that causes so much damage that they get reimbursed out of this re-insurance plan.  That is our money paying for that re-insurance out of the beach plan.  They do no buy that insurance themselves they use our money to buy insurance to cover their loss in the case of some catastrophic event.  If you think that is bad .. They are investing in re-insurance companies, so they are buying insurance from companies that they have investments in using our money to make more money.  It is pretty sad.  In 1944 Congress passed a law in the US that absolves insurance companies from anti-trust suits.  They are the only company in the US that is not prohibited from anti-trust and that means that the Presidents from State Farm, Nationwide, etc can get in a room together and set prices for insurance.  It is a terrible story and very complicated.  There is a board (can’t remember the name) an insurance board in the state of NC.  The way it works (he should have brought the piece of paper where he had written all of it down)…you have insurance companies that sit together and decide what the risks are, what the rates are going to be based supposedly on risks.  Those risk assessments are determined by computer models.  Guess who writes the computer models?  The insurance companies write them.  Then they make a recommendation to a board, and NC is like one of three states that has one of these boards.  The board reviews what the insurance companies have proposed as a rate increase.  Guess who composes the board under NC law?  Over half of it is made up of insurance executives and then some other part of it is also made up of other people tied into the insurance industry one way or the other and then you may have a few normal, regular citizens.  They are appointed by the Governor.  They make a recommendation on the proposed rate increase to the Insurance Commissioner who is an elected official and right now he is a Democrat.  There is no prohibition in the state of NC that this guy can’t himself be a former executive.  However, this one is not.  He is a lawyer.  He could be a retired insurance executive and most of his friends and contacts are within this group.  Someone sent him a real nasty email, because he is posting some of this information on our web site.  You can read it on the web site.  Basically they said that our current insurance commissioner is a really nice guy and what Ken had said in his article he felt was an attack on him, which it wasn’t.  All he did was express the facts as they were presented at this meeting.  They basically said there is a statute that requires a public hearing for a rate increase.   Well, the current insurance commissioner has had one public hearing for a rate increase on insurance.  And he did disapprove the rate increase, so he gives him credit for that.  All previous insurance commissioners have never had a public hearing.  They ignored the statute.  He did not hear anyone at the NC20 hearing state that there was a statute but he is trying to find out whether on not he had heard right.  It is irrelevant since they never had one until the current commissioner.  So the public had no input in these rate increases.  What NC20 is doing is they are trying to convince the legislature that we need to fix the beach plan.  And we need to do a scientific analyses of how insurance companies are setting rates in the state and why the rates are different on the coast.  Write your representative a letter, or if you have some friends in Pamlico, or Craven or Onslow Counties, get them to write letters to their representatives also.  Harry Brown had a representative there too.  That is what they need.  They need support from the people down here on the coast because we are outmanned.  The 20 counties down here are outmanned by 80 counties on the other side of I95.  It is going to be an uphill battle but he will give the legislature credit they are looking into this and hopefully, if we keep a Republican Legislature, maybe they will do something about it.

A member (Verne Thompson) I think, said they have a house in Pitt County.  His insurance there is 3 or 4 hundred dollars.  We have a smaller house down on the coast and the insurance there is 14 hundred dollars.  KEN said what the insurance companies are doing are beginning to move inland.  It is projected that more and more counties will be dumped into the beach plan because there is nothing prohibiting them from right now dumping other policy holders into the beach plan.  If it is east of I95 it is considered coastal.  Just because you have it now it doesn’t mean you are going to keep it unless something is done.

EULA PARKIN said she had some good news and some good news.  The good news is, remember when she first came here to the first meeting and told us ‘wow, between January and February $35.00 had disappeared out of her survivors benefits plan.  Well, she got a pay raise this month, and much more than the $35.00; plus if you look at your Social Security, she got a pay raise in that also.  Combined together was almost $100.00 a month.  As for insurance she doesn’t know how many of you are military but she has been with USAA for 57 years and they cover you everywhere, (Europe, Asia) everywhere but New Jersey.  They couldn’t get insurance there.

JERE GEURIN asked to speak a few minutes before we adjourn.  He said he had passed out information about the Marriage Protection Amendment which will be on the ballot in May Primary.  Of all times, they put it on the Primary ballot.  He doesn’t expect anyone to memorize the data he had handed out, and we did not have time to read it, but please read it in your own time and pick out the main points so you can be ready to tell others about what is in this handout.  He has some other information (4 other handouts) but will not be bringing them all at once because there is just too much to swallow all at one time.  HOWARD told JERE that he had been approached by a Community Baptist Church in Newport that is having an outside speaker come in to speak on this defense of marriage act.  He does not know the date yet.  It will be on why churches need to get involved in politics in this day and time.  The guy that told me about this meeting is going to tell me the day and time because he is planning to go to listen to him.  JERE asked if it was the Community Baptist Church up on 70?  HOWARD said yes it was across from the Oceanside Auto Sales.  JERE said he had been to their worship.  He asked HOWARD to let us all know as soon as he finds anything out.

BOB called on ERIC BROYLES.  He said he did not know if we had heard about it Iowa did vote for the ‘right to work’ state.  Much applause.

KEN said he had a lot more information to share because most people were not aware how much their insurance was going up.  Most are not aware of the increase, because they pay it in their escrow and only know the escrow went up.  People who are renting are also paying because the landlord is just passing it on to you.

BOB adjourned the meeting so all could get to the Train Depot down town to meet with Frank Palombo.  Capt. Steve Miller has rented the building to enable those who are interested in finding out where Palombo stands can have an opportunity to meet and talk with him tonight.  He had requested the TEA Party group to please attend and wear their red shirts, to make Palombo feel among friends.

Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriots.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF
17 JANUARY 2012

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order 6:00 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by BOB CAVANAUGH
Invocation by NANCY BOCK

BOB announced that Catie McCabe, who was supposed to meet with us tonight, was unable to attend.  She caught some bug while in Atlanta and couldn’t make it tonight.

BOB introduced a new face in the crowd, CRAIG ELLYSON.  Craig said he had not been to one of our meetings before, but had attended a rally at the Newport Flea Mall a couple of years ago.  He is a life long Republican and the aims of the TEA Party certainly coincide with his and his wife’s.  He belongs to the Lion’s Club and having seen us meeting here when they had their meetings, decided to come out and see what we had going on prior to the Lion’s Club Meeting being called to order.  He is originally from Wisconsin and currently remains a resident of Wisconsin.  Scott Walker is his governor.  He has done what he said he would do, and the unions are trying to hop all over him.  He prays that God will protect Scott Walker.  A lot of Amens from the group.

BOB wanted to know if we all caught the debate last night.  Most said they caught part or most of it.  BOB said he thought Newt knocked it out of the ball park.  He hopes this does him well in the primary down there.

BOB announced that we have an unfortunate problem that we need to nip in the bud before it gets any worse.  It has been brought to management’s attention that some of the folks that come to the TEA Party meetings are helping themselves to the food bar and not paying for it.  The manager said that if we don’t stop this we will not be able to use the facilities any more.  He said HOWARD had taken the phone call and wanted to know if he wanted to add any more to that.  HOWARD said that was about it without going into the details.  BOB said no need to call names out or point fingers, you all know who you are, I know who you are and management knows who you are.  So, if you are going to the food bar, pay for it.  Luke said if you can not afford the chow, he would buy your supper.  BOB said, yeah, if you are hungry with no funds, we will chip in and buy you something to eat.

There is not enough people here tonight to have a 50-50 raffle.  We talked about it last week about having a raffle or a donation jar set up.  Since there is such a few (maybe 14 or 15), there is no sense in having a raffle.  NANCY brought us a donation bucket so we can use it tonight for donations in lieu of a raffle.

BOB said STEVE BEST has started a new production company.  As a start to the new entrepreneurship, if you have kids you want to throw a Christian oriented birthday party, give STEVE a call.  He asked STEVE what else he did – he didn’t do weddings, did he?  STEVE said no and BOB said ‘he’ll work his way up to that.”  BOB said we have two movies that STEVE has procured.  (He bought one and the other was free.)  One is the “Iranium” which is about an hour long.  STEVE reviewed it last night.  BOB said STEVE thought it was the best thing since ‘Gone with the Wind’ and STEVE said ‘better’.  BOB read the back of the cover ‘As long as the revolution of 1979 the Iranian regime has been following the principles installed by Itolla Komini, and Iran citizens of the west have been held hostage of the Iranian leadership who have spread the revolution beyond Iran’s borders.  Now the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism and brutal human rights stands on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weaponry.  Utilizing rare footage, archive news reports and interviews of leading experts, “Iranium” exposes actions and  intentions of Iran and Iran’s leaders, and America’s response over 31 years.  The film presents the dangers Iran now poses to America, the middle east and the rest of the free world, and the options currently being considered to combat those threats.  The other movie “The Agenda” (which STEVE had purchased for $18.00).  ‘Grinding America Down’.  BOB said we need to sometime decide when we are going to take a look at these movies, if we want to look at them at all.  Maybe watch them at STEVE’s theater ‘The Cave” (his garage that he has converted into a 45 seat movie theater.  It can be expanded, if need be.)  He has a popcorn machine, and a hotdog machine also.  BOB wanted to know what kind of hotdogs and STEVE informed him ’all beef’.  Discussion on various types of hotdogs.  LOU KUKULINSKI said, best kind, ’they’re free’!! and then went on to discuss the best hotdogs he had ever eaten.  BOB wanted to know if there was any interest in getting together and watching these films or would we prefer to check them out from STEVE to watch at home, assuming STEVE would allow us to do that.  Question was raised what night could we have the showing.  STEVE said any night we wanted.  BOB said he thought most folks had things to do on weekends; that maybe we might want to hold one of our Tuesday night meetings at STEVE’s to also watch the movie.  Can’t do it next week, because that’s the night we go to the Train Depot here in Morehead for the meeting with Frank Palombo who is running against Walter Jones in the Republican primary.  He will be speaking there and Steve Miller, the boat captain that comes to our meetings, rented the place and he asked us to show up in our red shirts, if possible.   HOWARD wanted to know if we were going to meet here first.  BOB said the event over there was from 7 to 9.  He wanted to do whatever was more convenient to the folks here.  If you prefer to come here and eat prior (since there would only be minor snacks, not heavy hors ’d oeuvres, just chips, pretzels, and such).  He had no problem coming here and holding a short meeting and then everybody leaving here and going over there.  SCOTT wanted to know if we could put a sign up in case some did not get the message….something like ‘TEA Party people are meeting at the Train Depot, Morehead City, at 7:00pm‘.   BOB said he planned to come here next week to eat prior to going to the Depot, so he would be here to inform anyone not knowing about the meeting at the Depot.  Several said they planned to come to the Golden Corral for supper anyway.  If you prefer to skip meeting here, then just show up at the Depot about 7:00.  Discussion on where the Depot is located – Morehead not Beaufort – downtown with a small park next to it.  It will be inside.  STEVE said there were not many seats in there.

BOB said he would like to make a decision on when we planned to watch the movies at STEVE’s.  He would like to talk to KEN LANG about when he could get his group together to attend also.  He planned to leave our meeting tonight and go to Emerald Isle and talk to them tonight about when we could all get together as a TEA Party thing and try to maximize attendance.  KEN normally has about 17 to 25 folks show up down there.  They just started up and the word is slowly filtering out.  It is kind of like us.  We see a new face or two every week.

The web-a-nar call for TEA Party committee coordinators was last night.  Topic of conversation was this 1.2 trillion increase in the spending authorization that Obama wants Congress to approve and the majority of the coordinators who were in on the call (he does not have any idea how many attend these conference calls, but there are 3500 TEA Party Patriot groups around the country so it is probably several hundred.  Any way, over 90% of the coordinators want Congress to hold the line with no increase on the national debt limit.  It sounds good, but he just doesn’t think that is workable.  They can’t cut enough spending in time to effect the obligations between now and the next time they pass a budget which, by the way, he thinks Thursday is 1000 days since the Senate has passed a budget.  They asked us to bombard our Senators with emails and phone calls; basically shame on you for not passing a budget in 1000 days, which he doesn’t think will have any effect, since Reid doesn’t care not one iota.  LOU asked if that was in addition to the Impeach Obama emails.  BOB said that was a subject of conversation last night, but he couldn’t remember the name of the fellow that was there, but he was emphasizing that the appointments just made while Congress was not in recess was totally, absolutely unconstitutional.  The Senate needs to stand up and do something about this, otherwise it really opens the door where Obama can appoint Supreme Court Justices on a weekend.  LOU said ’nationalizing the car companies was unconstitutional also…everything Obama did was unconstitutional.  BOB said it is specifically written in the Constitution about the appointments.  The President can make appointments when Congress is in recess but Congress determines when they are in recess.  They were not in recess…matter of fact the Democrats used this effectively against George Bush for his last two years once the Democrats took over Congress they kept the Senate in permanent session so Bush couldn’t make any recess appointments.  And Bush honored the rule of Congress and the Constitution and did not make any recess appointments.  And Obama has chosen to ignore that and the Republicans are trying to do the same thing to block Obama appointments during recess.  They don’t want to load up the court with a bunch of liberal judges and stuff, the smaller appellant courts that is.  RUTH PARKER said he still appointed someone the Congress had already voted against and turned him down.  BOB said the President still has the prerogative to name him again.  He can submit the same person over and over again.  LOU said he still didn’t think it was legal for the government to take over a private enterprise and give all the money to the unions.  BOB said the TEA Party had made a big issue of that but none of the politicians would grab that banner and run with it other than Michelle Bachman.  HOWARD said as long as Reid heads up the Senate they are not going to challenge him.  BOB said he agreed, but unfortunately we can not do a whole lot (us, our TEA Party) this coming election, because neither of our Senators are up for re-election.  Kay Hagan is not due until 2014 and then Burr is 2016.  So we are kind of out of the senatorial race.  All we can  look at is the President and Congress this coming up election, plus all the state slots.  LOU asked, what did we need, (five ?) to take over the Senate.  BOB said yes, we get five and they lose five.  LOU said 23 Democrats up for reelection.  We should be able to do that.  But if the presidency can’t turn the base out, and Romney is unable to motivate, then the voters are just not going to show.  LOU said, ‘contrary to belief, regardless who is nominated, we are going to win by a landslide.  People are disgusted with Obama.  BOB said he hoped he was right, that he would vote for Howdy Doody, if he was the only one on the ballot against Obama.

SCOTT CARPENTER wanted to know if they discussed the debate in Myrtle Beach last night.  BOB said, no, believe it or not, the TEA Party Patriots National coordinators do not take political sides and they encourage us not to also.  They leave it strickly up to the local TEA Parties as to how involved they want to get in the elections and if they want to throw their support behind candidates.  We are not organized as a non-profit; however if we get into advocating the people vote for a particular candidate then we fall under the campaign finance laws and we have to report all our income and all that stuff and we have to make quarterly state reports.  The way we get around that is we use the law.  The law says that you are supporting a candidate then you use words like vote for, or support, or endorse.  LOU asked then how could Valerie Jarrett get up in the pulpit in Atlanta and blame the Republicans; that that is why Obama can’t get anything done.   BOB said Atlanta is so thoroughly Democrat that you say anything.  FRED DECKER said we can say we recommend.  BOB said that is what we did in the last election in 2010, we had a voter recommendation list stating we recommend these certain people.  He thinks an even better way of wording it this time is ‘the following candidates support the TEA Party’s principles’.  That way they are supporting us, we are not supporting them type of deal.  That is a way to get around the campaign finance laws.  You have to be really careful what we write in any of our advertising and stuff like that.  He is sure Ken Humphries is aware of campaign finance laws and if he sees an opening he will dime us out just to cause hate and discontent.

DAVID R. BEARD and his son (a student at Croatan) arrived late.  BOB welcomed them to the meeting.

HOWARD said that we got something interesting today off the internet about Judge Newby, Supreme Court Justice.  It was covering basically a talk he made to a civic club in Raleigh.  He said it was hard to be a farmer and a gentleman.  Seems that he bought a farm near the Wake County line, and moved out there and raised animals, a big garden, and raised his kids to teach them what work is.  Of course now, as they have gotten a little older and gotten involved in so many things, they were running back and forth so they have left the farm and moved to town now.  He is a judge that we like.  BOB said he believed he is the only member of the supreme court that is up for election this time.  We certainly want to keep Judge Newby on the court.  What do we have…a 4 to 3 majority right now.  FRED said he did not think anyone had come out against him yet.  BOB said the judge election was in the primary he thought…not in November by in May.  HOWARD asked if anyone knew anything about this Kirby Smith, whose signs have just started popping up in our county.  Does anyone know what judge seat he is running for?  He had seen the signs over in Craven County a couple of weeks ago, and last week end there is some now up between Havelock and Newport.  FRED asked if he is the one that came to the reverse raffle?  No one was sure who he is.  FRED said he thinks he is a lawyer from Havelock.  BOB said PEGGY is in charge of remembering and wanted to know if she knew anything about him.   PEGGY said his name did not ring a bell as someone who had spoken at any of our meetings.  HOWARD said the other night on the way to New Bern, he had tried to get PEGGY to get out the car, after he had pulled over near one of the signs, and jump the ditch and read what was on the sign, but she had refused.  PEGGY said you all may think that is a joke, but he really did.  HOWARD said we need to find out more about him.  BOB said, ‘let’s track him down.  Is the office he is running for just in Craven County or what?’  Someone said they thought it was Carteret, Craven and Pamlico District Court Judge.  BOB said let’s get him down here and listen to what he has to say.  He asked FRED if he could track him down, tell him we meet on Tuesdays, (1st and 3rd Tuesdays is when the Emerald Isle group meets) and we would like to have him come and speak to us.  HOWARD said there was one of those fish doctors over at Pivers Island named Kirby Smith, but he did not think it was him.  The group told BOB we need a ‘meet and greet’ with Kirby Smith.  FRED said he would see what he could do.

HOWARD reminded the group that four of us have pre-registered for the Civitas Workshop to be held in Raleigh this weekend (Saturday).  Weather permitting.  They have had so many to register, they have had to change the place of the meeting from their headquarters to a hotel a couple of blocks away.

BOB wanted to know if anyone planned to go to Raleigh tomorrow for the coastal insurance session.  He planned on going to it.  It is going to be at the legislative building.  It starts at 1:00.  They are going to hold hearings on C20 (the twenty coastal counties).  They are trying to get Raleigh to ease up on the insurance rates that they are sticking the coast with.  We are paying like five times the amount of wind and hail insurance that those in Raleigh and Charlotte, Hickory; all the places that got slammed with Hugo and some of the other storms and we have never had a Class 5 here and we have only had one Class 4 in all the history of hurricane information keeping.

FRED said there are five or six people running for insurance commissioner.  One is from eastern North Carolina.  (can’t remember his name).  BOB said it would be nice if we had someone from the coast.  We are having people not from this area making decisions on what we pay for insurance.  BOB said same thing on the fishing industry.  Not the same people but the same area making the decisions.  FRED said we do not have the population, and BOB said that is why the third district has grown landwise because (he didn’t know whether we have lost people but the population has grown so much more on the interior counties and we have had to add three or four more counties – went from 17 counties in the third district to 22 counties.)  We run all the way from Virginia down to Wilmington and inland as far as Goldsboro.  We certainly do not have to votes to protect ourselves.

LOU announced that tomorrow Sam Sanford will he packaging boxes over behind the plaza to send over seas.  Starts at 9:00, guys will get there at 8:30 to set it up.  Come on down and help.

BOB asked HOWARD to tell us something about the Civitas seminar coming up this Saturday.  HOWARD said it was supposedly on training how to run a campaign, organizing, financing, etc.  It covers about 4 or 5 subjects.  Starts at 9:30 (he thinks) and runs until 4:00.  BOB wanted to know if he planned on running for something.  HOWARD said nope, we want to get educated to help some others that we like where they stand.  His running days are over, due to age and physical condition, but hopefully we can help someone else.  HOWARD said he could never win any election, he is too outspoken and he says what he thinks.  That does not help you get elected.

BOB announced that SCOTT CARPENTER is now precinct chairman for the Wildwood precinct.  Wanted to know if he has decided to run for school board (was actually thinking of county commissioner).  He said still in discussion.

BOB then called on DAVID BEARD who arrived late with his son.  Wanted to know if he had gone on the last bus trip with them to Washington.  He said no, where BOB remembers him from is a year or so ago he came to talk to us about REID coming to talk over at the community center.   He was the president of the foundation of economic education which is a free market group and so he had come there to speak.  DAVID gave a brief introduction of he and his family.  They have been living here about five years.  They are from Hertford County.  (Murfreesboro)  He had just been retiring up there after about 25 years as judge and 2 to 2 ½  years after that.  Then they moved down here to and home schooled his son for a couple of years.  He was in a Christian School for the other years and came down here and started in public school.  He has been to so many things that you all may be familiar with like Young Americas Foundation, (the group that brought out Ronald Reagan’s ranch).  He has been to seminar camps at different places (Hillsdale – he went to a science camp there recently that you hear about on Rush a lot) – Foundation for Economic Education which is a really good group – he has been to one of their events this past summer).  He wanted to bring his son here, especially tonight.  They both watched the debate last night.  In fact he watched it twice to be sure he had it exactly right.  They wanted to come by here and say hello.  They want to go to the Depot next week to hear Frank Palombo.  BOB asked where they live now.  DAVID said they live in Pine Knoll Shores.  They bought a place over in Beacon’s Reach.  They were coming down here once in a while and DAVID Jr. got interested in basketball and stuff like that, and got to know some of the local boys, so they decided to move here.  He plays on the Croatan basketball team.  HOWARD wanted to know if DAVID Jr. would tell us a little bit about Hillsdale College.  He reads Impris, a magazine published by them, and is interested.  He said he understood from DAVID Sr, that Jr. had attended a session there.  Sr. said he had heard a lot about it from the Rush Limbaugh show and you may not know but it is not federally funded.  They will not accept any federal funds for student loans or anything.  HOWARD said he thought Sean Hannity might be on the board.  HOWARD said he would be interested in Jr. telling us about the session he attended there.  DAVID Jr. said it was not a political session, it was more of a math seminar…ran about a week.  Got the opportunity to go around the campus, meet some new people, get in touch with the teachers, and kind of get a feel for the area there.  After that week he learned a lot, not only about math, but also about the politics.  It is really a conservative school.  And like was said, they do not accept federal money, and really you don’t see that today obviously in most places.  They put on seminars all around the country.   HOWARD said that Impris Newsletter has some very good articles in it.  SCOTT wanted to know where the location of this institution is.  Jr. said it was about two hours north of Detroit.  Someone said they thought it was south/southwest.  Jr. said he was picked up at the airport and was not sure in which direction they went.  PEGGY asked Jr. how old he was.  He said he was 17 but would be 18 in time to vote.  She said she had a great granddaughter who was about the same age and she was supposed to be here tonight to speak to the group, but she had been in Atlanta over the weekend and came back with an Atlanta Crud, throwing up so decided she didn’t need to be around this older group and pass it on to us.

BOB said if he, Sr,  knew anything about the law, while we are up here talking about legislative stuff, then jump right in.  He said the only thing he knew was criminal law.  Anything else, no.  SCOTT wanted to know if the Beard’s had any feel about the debate last night.  BOB said we will get to that in a second.  One other thing he wanted to remind everybody about HARRY THOMPSON briefing us last week on the John Locke presentation.  It is set for the 17th of March at the community college and it is going to be on a Saturday, four or five hour session on the Federalist Papers and the original intent.  He is not sure of the time.  We’ll have to find out later from HARRY.  STEVE BEST wanted to know if there was a fee for that.  BOB said not exactly a fee, but they would appreciate if everyone attending would donate $5.00.  It will be in the same place as the first session on the Constitution that this group put on for us and also same place as the Windmill lecture held recently put on by the Civitas.

BOB asked SCOTT if he wanted to talk about the debate last night and SCOTT said he was hoping the young man would give us his views.   DAVID Jr. said he thought Gingrich did a fabulous job.  He outdid everyone last night.  He thought when Juan Williams asked him the question about the work ethic of poor minorities, he thought Newt gave a great answer.  That was the hightlight of the whole debate the thought.  He also thought too much time was spent on the super pacs.  He was not very interested in the ads, he was more interested in the issue side.  He thought the foreign policy was interesting but he didn’t think Ron Paul did a very good job last night.  Unfortunately.  Overall he thought Gingrich did best.  SCOTT said, so if you were of the voting age who would you be inclined to vote for.  Jr. said he thought he would pay the highest admission to see Gingrich and Obama debate.  SCOTT and several others agreed on that.  HOWARD said if Gingrich could have an equal performance against Obama like he had last night he could bury him.

BOB said Rick Santorum said he is the real conservative.  Anybody buying that?  A lot of religious leaders in Texas apparently thought so.  LOU said Santorum did vote to allow convicted felons vote.  PEGGY said coming down tonight she was listening to the radio and she was surprised to hear ads from Michelle Bachman appearing to endorse Gingrich.  She had some really good ads talking about what a great person she thought he was.  That sounded good to PEGGY, because there are a lot of people who like Michelle Bachman.  BOB said he was waiting to see who Sarah Palin was going to throw her support behind.  HOWARD said Todd, her husband, had already announced that he is for Gingrich.  BOB said he doesn’t carry quite the clout that she does.  PEGGY said the only problem is Sarah can hurt or help, depending on who is listening.  HOWARD said he did not think he would come out in opposition of her.  BOB said he didn’t know, husbands and wives don’t always see eye to eye.  PEGGY was shocked and exclaimed “They don’t!!!”  HOWARD said really we fight it out, make a decision, prior to voting.  We are not going to cancel each others vote.  We decided at a young age that it was foolish for one to vote one way and the other another and kill one another’s vote.  BOB said he was tired of after every election his daughter telling him she had cancelled his vote out.  He sent her to UNC as a Reagan Republican and she came out a screaming liberal.  They have her convinced that Castro is the best thing that ever happened to Cuba.  GRACE and LOU both said he needed to send her down there to live for a while.  PEGGY wanted to know if she still wrote home for money and BOB said no, she got married and he cut her off.  If she needed gas money, see her husband.  HOWARD said we have a grandson that went to the University of South Carolina that they did the same thing to.  He thinks there is nothing like Obama now.

BOB asked DAVID Jr. how old he was and was told he was 17 but would be 18 in time to vote this year.  BOB wanted to know if he was naturally interested in politics and he replied, yes sir.  BOB said ’you are not just doing this to make the old man happy?’ He said he did try to make his dad happy, but in this case he had always been interested in politics.  BOB said he noticed in his comments earlier that he seemed to throw a couple of coins towards Ron Paul.  Are you a Libertarian, more than Republican.  What do you like about Ron Paul?  He loves his free market policies.  He really thinks that Ron Paul over all the other candidates could do the most in cutting government spending and getting rid of the debt.  He does not believe the other candidates, although they say they would, would effectively cut off the spending.  LOU asked him what he thought of Ron Paul’s foreign policy.  Jr. said he had some problems with that; however, Paul did say that military spending is not the same as defense spending.  We should cut out our military spending but keep our defense spending.  He thinks the question they asked him was since so many people there were military from South Carolina how would Ron Paul keep their job if they cut out the spending, so he said there was a difference.  BOB said he thought Ron Paul had a good response to all that.  HOWARD said Paul wants to get rid of all military bases throughout the world.  Jr. said Paul doesn’t believe in supplying the world with troops when they are in trouble.  HOWARD said we can no longer afford it.  BOB said he hadn’t really articulated/sold his foreign policies on international affairs views very effectively.  He comes off sounding like a crackpot.  Not sure if he has enough of the command of the English language to use the words that he intends.  Jr. said he hopes he (Paul) gets his fair share on the news channels, but he encourages anyone that wants to hear Paul talk to go on his web site or UTube.  BOB said they have videos going back decades.  BOB thinks Paul’s son is going to pick up his mantle and eventually run for president himself.  HOWARD said, previously the Fox reporters, most of them favored Romney, but today it appears that some of them are switching over and supporting Newt.  BOB said he thought Rush Limbaugh has always been a Newt supporter.  They haven’t come right out and said it but just the way the conversation runs about the candidates and their views, it seem like that’s who they are rooting for.  HOWARD said ’actions speak louder than words’.  Someone said they had gotten an email that said Obama’s people (Axlerod for one) are hoping to have Romney as the Republican candidate because they already have stuff lined up to make him out to be another Gordon Geikko and he will have to defend all that stuff from now to kingdom come.  They can then make the whole election about Romney.  They are telling everyone they don’t want Romney, because they are worried about him.  When they start that, you can be sure that is the one they really want.  BOB said they do want to have the whole election about Romney’s wall street doings.  With the media behind them, they can just keep that thing on the front burner and keep Romney defending his record instead of pushing his positions.  They were talking about the two companies and not having enough money for both of them so they merged, so the unions could come over here and work with this company.  He should have just finished it  with sometimes you have to go out of business or close down and consolidate to stay in business if you can.  That happens in real life.  He needed to say that and not apologize.
The other candidates were pushing against Romney the same way Obama will do.  Sometimes you have to lose some companies to make others bigger.  You don’t wait until you use all your money before you close them down.  Sometimes you have to cut your loses early.  BOB said he is glad that the other candidates are coming at Romney from the left because it gives him a chance to really fine tune his responses because the Democrats are not going to come at him from the right.  He needs this type of exposure if he winds up with the nomination.  But he is so praying for Newt Gingrich but then you get into the whole electability thing – well Romney’s more electable than Gingrich.  It is unfortunate that we live in a very conservative cocoon here in eastern NC.  He has no idea what the rest of middle America feels like out there.  HOWARD said speaking of Axlerod, he is the one that hatched up that deal to drive Cain out.  He has used the sexual harassment deal before for Obama in a Democrat primary and in a general election charging the opponent with sexual harassment (even where there is not one, but forces the candidate to defend his reputation rather than concentrate on the campaign issues.  He is an expert on doing such underhanded shenanigans.  PEGGY said South Carolina had a steel mill in Georgetown that Romney’s group put out of business, so a lot of South Carolinians were laid off and are still unhappy about his intrusion.  BOB thought Romney handled that well, because although they were trying to rescue that company, China was dumping steel on the market and taking an unfair advantage which Romney went on to say he wanted to correct the imbalance.  Six steel mills went under because China was dumping.  He went to buy bearings for his commercial lawn mower.  They were like 40 something dollars a piece.  He told the guy, my gosh these were like $18.00 the last time I bought them.  Kind of ripping us off.  The guy said blame it on the Chinese and BOB asked what the Chinese had to do with it.  The guy said the Chinese have been dumping steel on the market, our steel plants have been closing and they are buying the plants, dismantling them and shipping them back to China and they are trying to corner the steel market.  He feels Romney handled the steel mill thing effectively.  DAVID said he thought he should have highlighted the union and that the company’s problems were also caused by union demands.  BOB said that was a paper company he was talking about there.  FRED said Hostess Cupcakes have filed for bankruptcy again and it is because of the union and their excess demands.  LOU said, Lord knows, if you can’t sell a Twinkie we are in real trouble.   GRACE wanted to know if anyone paid any attention when they asked Romney about turning in his income tax papers like everybody else?  BOB said he said he was going to file them in April.  Discussion on Romney’s income and amount of taxes he supposedly paid followed.  And the fact he is no longer a part of Bain Capital and hasn‘t been for probably 20 years.  He is getting residuals but no hands on the company anymore.   HOWARD said Georgetown Steel has not been closed 20 years, so that doesn’t jibe.  We used to go to Charleston several times a year and you go right by Georgetown Steel on Hwy 17.  RUTH wanted to know why it is thought Romney is so much more electable.  Several said they didn’t think he was.  PEGGY said the establishment thinks he is, not necessarily the man on the street.  BOB said Karl Rove decided he was the next in line.  HOWARD said Romney is being pushed by Karl Rove and Rove is probably one of the sharpest political operators in the country and has plenty of money to back up his ideas.  BOB said this is the same crowd that gave us McCain.  ERNIE GUTHRIE McCain was a week candidate anyway and that is why Obama won.  He thinks the average Republican was so demoralized by McCain, many did not even turn out to vote.  That is partly why Obama won, he thinks.  FRED said one of the problems is Newt, Perry and Santorum are all vying for the same people and keep splitting the vote.  RUTH said she thought Perry would be out after Saturday.  BOB said he thought it would depend on how much money he has left.  When these campaign donors give you a wad of money they expect you to spend it.  HOWARD said he lost one of his big supporters over some remark he made (about  vultures in capitalism).  BOB thinks he has enough money to at least go into Florida.  He did do well in the debate last night though.
BOB said this thing about cutting tuition for illegal immigrants that hurt him.  And then he couldn’t even remember his own program to cut.  And he had been emphasizing Energy the whole time and couldn’t remember the Department of Energy.

BOB wanted to know what everybody thought about Obama’s idea to consolidate the Department of Commerce and elevate the Better Business Bureau to a cabinet level.  Anybody been following that at all?  RUTH said she thought there was something crooked about it.  HOWARD said he didn’t trust anything Obama tries.  Someone is going to benefit from it you can bet.  ERNIE said nothing happens in government without someone benefiting from it now.

BOB asked what did we think about Obama cutting a trillion dollars from the defense spending over the next ten years.  DAVID said he didn’t think anything Obama did can be trusted.  RUTH asked DAVID Jr, what did the people he went to school think about Obama.  There are some who agree and others who do not.  RUTH wanted to know if they realize that all this debt which is going to fall on you and your children.  DAVID said he really thinks that is why Ron Paul is kind of looked up to right now.  RUTH said her daughter is 28 and she realizes that this debt is hers, her nephews and his children.  BOB said he hoped they were all saving up their money so they can pay off this debt.  Discussion on the debt and the problems it is causing….. And all the taxes that are being placed on us.  Do away with the income tax and just pay sales tax.  Only pay income tax during war time.   ERNIE said that is why Paul is doing as well as he is because he wants to do away with taxes and go to a flat rate tax.  HOWARD said Connie Mack had a good plan also called the Penny tax.  He really didn’t know enough about it to explain it, but it sounded logical.   Also discussed things currently involving ethanol and the gas tax.

Meeting adjourned at 7:10.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF
JANUARY 10, 2012

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:00pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by HARRY THOMPSON
Invocation by HARRY THOMPSON

Chairman BOB started with a “Happy New Year” to all.  He is looking forward to some political changes in the local landscape this year.  ’I presume you all have seen the local paper where we have three county commissioners who are not going to run for reelection, so Fred is going to keep us up to speed on  what is what and who is who’.  He then asked for a report from FRED DECKER.  FRED said he thinks the biggest problem is Gregg Lewis.  He has been hearing that Mr. Lewis is going to back Renee Coles for County Commissioner.  If he does, then we are going to run Scott Carpenter against her.  He has already agreed to it.  FRED said Pat Joyce had told him about a year ago that being commissioner was interfering with his business and he was going to have to give it up (commissioner).  He guesses Holt Faircloth and Doug Harris just got tired.  Did anyone ever hear of a Larry Land (?) that ran for school board last time?  He ran against David Carr.  FRED is going to try to get hold of him (he lives in Beaufort) and see if he might be interested in running for commissioner.  As far as the school board goes, he is trying to talk ERIC BROYLES in running for the Morehead position.  He has been talking to a guy in Newport, Bob Harden (?).  He doesn’t know if anyone here has heard of him or not.  He is an investment banker for Merrill Lynch, office in Bank of America.  Everybody in Newport knows him and he is trying to get him to run.  As for County Commissioner, David Horton would be the same area as Scott would be.  KEN LANG asked FRED about the seat he was proposing for Scott; that would be which commissioner’s seat he would be running for?  FRED said the same one Rene Coles would be.  KEN said he thought we should encourage SCOTT to run for that seat regardless of who else would be running.  KEN said as far as he had been able to determine that other than the potential of Rene running, he had not heard of anyone else mentioned.  He said some of the commissioners had told him they did not think she was going to run.  He did not know if that was true or not, but only what he had been told.  Regardless of whether or not she does, he feels we should keep talking to SCOTT and encouraging him to run.  We definitely need someone, of the TEA Party persuasion, in that seat (either Pat Joyce’s or Doug Harris‘s).  FRED said he was not that familiar with people in Beaufort for who to encourage to run for Holt’s seat.  HOWARD GARNER said he had heard that Doug Harris might be encouraged to re-file, but he believes in term limits.  KEN said he believes we can probably encourage him to stay on  using the argument that to turn three commissioners over at one time, without some assurance we are going to have people running that will maintain that conservative voting block that we have.   This would be a bad time for him to leave.  BOB said we will not know for sure until the end of February (end of the filing period) who is definitely running.  BOB asked SCOTT what was his opinion on all this.  SCOTT said the bottom line is he is here for the younger generation.  That was why he got out of the Army and came back to Carteret County with his family.  After serving 26 years in the Army in combat, he saw where his life was at and he is here now to try to help out his community.  He has already served as President of the Home Owners Association where he lives in Brandywine.  He just put his name in today about serving on the big board there in Brandywine.  Bottom line is he is here to serve.  He has had three commands and gone the extra mile and he is here now to go that extra mile for his family (number one) and his community (number 2).  BOB asked SCOTT’s wife how she felt about this.  She said she supported him in any way he needed and with anything he wanted to do.  She knew he was capable of doing whatever was necessary.  BOB said to SCOTT that he had said he was here for the younger generation, but to us, he was the younger generation.  HOWARD said being here for the younger generation was fine but not to forget us old folks.  We have fought a lot of losing battles along the way.   FRED said he had one more thing.  We had talked about not backing Walter Jones, but unless we can find out his voting record for the last three or four years, we have no talking points.  We can’t just call someone and ask them to vote for someone else and not be able to explain why.  We need something he has done or voted on that will convince voters to vote our way.  The main thing he (FRED) had gotten upset with Jones on was he had voted with Charlie Rangle so many times.  He was the only Republican that campaigned for Rangle.  BOB said Lisa Marley (?) recently had written a good article on her blog, announcing her support for Frank Palombo and had a whole list of bills that Jones had voted for.  FRED said that is what he needs.  If we are going to make phone calls, he needs that type of information to pass out to our callers.  HOWARD wanted to know who Lisa was.  BOB said her blog was “Truth or Dare” and she was from Dare County.  She is also precinct chairman in one of the districts up there for the Republican Party.  She is also Frank Palombo’s Treasurer.  BOB had introduced them down in Wilmington at the Republican convention.  She has a lot of pull up there in Dare County.  FRED said if he could get a line on that type of information he could do a write up to pass out to our callers, so we will all be on the same wave length.
BOB said while we are talking about Frank, he wanted to know if we all remembered Captain Steve Miller who has attended several of our meetings and writes letters to the editor.  He is doing an in kind type of contribution and has rented the Train Depot here in downtown Morehead on the 24th of this month, which is on a Tuesday, two weeks from tonight,  and is going to have a rally there for Frank Palombo.  Frank’s campaign chairman called BOB today and wanted to know if we could get organized and get some TEA Party members down there.  BOB said he would be willing to convene our meeting there that night.  Because of all we need to cover, he is not going to be able to attend the Republican meeting tonight and asked FRED to pass on to them about Frank being down at the Train Depot on the 24th, from 7 to 9, and Lockwood is going to advertise it on his radio program.  Frank has a new press secretary, Ingrid Johannson, and she will be networking with her press cohorts to get  publicity also.  FRED said another thing he needed to mention…the Republican Party is having a Reagan Day Dinner down at the Senior Center he thinks on a Saturday evening (somewhere around the 20th of February).  The speaker is going to be a former Marine from Wilmington who ran against Mack McIntire.  KEN said it was on a Saturday  because precinct meetings are on Saturdays.  FRED said it might be on the 13th.  ( Secretary’s note: Saturdays in February fall on the 11th and 18th, not 13 and 20).  HOWARD said he thought the speakers name was Pantero.  KEN and FRED said yes that was the man’s name.  Belva wanted to know where the event was going to be held and was told at the Len Mann’s Center (Senior Center).  FRED said if anyone needed a ticket to please see him, he would have the tickets with him at our next meeting.  STEVE BEST asked how much the tickets were and FRED said $20.00 each.  While some may think this is high, we need to know this is the only fund raiser the party has.  Also, if he could get someone to take over the party leadership, he would like to do that and get rid of Gregg Lewis, but he hasn’t found anybody to take that on.  KEN asked when Gregg’s term was up that it seemed to him he was elected not that long ago.  CLAYTON GILLIKIN said ’not long enough as far as he was concerned’.  KEN said he had been told they thought he had until 2014, but he wasn’t sure.  FRED said he wasn’t talking about county commissioner but Republican Party Chairman.  KEN said he thought we needed to find out what that time was, before we start looking for a replacement.   FRED told about a gentleman from Harkers Island that asked who did you have to talk to around here to volunteer.  FRED told him he’d better shut up before someone heard him. (Created several chuckles.)
BOB reported on the death of Walt Shaw who came to our TEA Party rallies, and was a real strong conservative.  BOB said it seemed to him that more people than usual died around the holidays.  HOWARD said he had always heard ‘a warm Christmas, a fat grave yard’.
HOWARD reported that on the 28th of January, the Civatas  is conducting a campaign training seminar/workshop in Raleigh.  The fee is $25 per person and lasts from 9 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon.  Four of us, (Ken, Diane, Peggy and Howard) have already pre-registered.  KEN said he thought it was the 21st.   NANCY BOCK checked and said it was the 21st.  Howard had written it down on the wrong day in his calendar.  BOB said we need to come up with another voter recommendation list like we had last time.  We had such great success with that.  Maybe we can learn more ways of making a difference at this workshop.
BOB asked HARRY if he had gotten any more information on the John Locke thing.  It is supposed to be part two of the workshop we held last year.  Workshop #2 is ’What would the Federalists and Anti-federalists say about the current political and economic crises?’  They have several ways to deliver their workshops and would like to discuss the option that will work the best for us.  (1) A four or five hour workshop that takes place on a Saturday; (2) Two separate evening sessions of about 2 hours each and (3) an individualized schedule that works best for our organization.  Harry said he thought what we had last year worked good for us in the auditorium.  Everything they needed to make the presentation was available.
Plenty of room and comfortable seating.  Consensus was: option (1).   HOWARD told HARRY that he had done a good job organizing the workshop last time, he felt he should handle this one also.  HARRY said that Michael Sanera (the one he is corresponding with to set up the workshop here) told him they would provide the workshops free of charge to the hosting organizations, but donations to assist this effort would be gratefully appreciated.  Our organization will be responsible for any costs associated with the meeting room.  It is their experience that participants are more than willing to pay a reasonable amount for these expenses.  The John Locke Foundation has a secure online registration system for this purpose.  They also ask the local contact persons to work with like-minded groups in their area to ensure a regional outreach and an audience of at least 50 people for the workshop.  BOB said we had about 80 last year.  HARRY said yes we did; but we had a long time to work on that one.  This time we will not have as much time.  BOB asked how we publicized it last year…letters to the editor, radio interviews, (John Locke had some of their people available for the interviews on Lockwood’s show)…we had it pretty well covered.  He was going to try to set up the same thing this year.  Michael had told HARRY that dates in January will not provide enough time to organize and publicize a workshop.  They had the following dates available…February 11 or 25 or March 17.  BOB said he felt the further we could push it out the better attendance we will have.  HARRY said he would check to see if the 17th of March is still available.  PEGGY GARNER said the email he had sent to the officers stated that they had reserved February 25 for us.  HARRY said at the time he sorta  was looking at a tentative thing  and hopefully Michael hasn’t already made hard plans on that yet.  HARRY said he would get hold of him tonight and see if we can get it changed to March 17.  BOB said the 25th was his birthday.  HOWARD asked how much the room costs.  HARRY said he was not real sure.  He thought it was less than $100 last year.  He has a call in to the office over there and they were supposed to call him back, but haven’t yet.  BOB posed the question ‘As the TEA Party, do we want to go ahead and sponsor the event?   Reserve the hall and everything?’   HARRY said yes, that was what he had in mind.  BOB wanted to know from NANCY BOCK if we had the money in the bank.  HARRY said he couldn’t tell us what it was going to cost; that he had hoped to have all that information for the meeting tonight.  KEN said he thought we needed to find out what we spent last year and come back and say ‘this is what we estimate the cost will be’.  NANCY said right now we have $1100.00 in the bank and she said she thought it was $448.00 last year.   They had to have a minimum amount of people, remember?  And she thought it had costs something like $5.00 to attend, but that was to cover the hall and all.  BOB said he thought one of our failings about getting the word out for such things is, we are not taking advantage of the churches and the use of their church bulletins.  It would be nice if we had a master list of all the churches with their mailing addresses where we could contact them.  STEVE said he could get that for us.  BOB said good, that is yours for action.  All the churches in Carteret County mailing or email addresses that we can send a file or advertisement of what is going on for them to include in their Sunday bulletin.  He thinks that will really get the word out in a big way.  Probably hit more people than with the News Times.  BOB told HARRY to set it up and STEVE the addresses.
BOB said he wanted to take a brief moment to introduce VERNE THOMPSON.  He asked if VERNE had been to our meetings before, where was he from and how did he find out about us.  VERNE said he had been around for a while.  He had bought a place down on the sound in the late 80’s.  He still had his place up near Raleigh up until recently.  He had been dividing him time but finally managed to sell the place up there and move here full time.  BOB asked him if he had registered to vote here yet and he replied Oh, yes, he had been registered here for some time.  BOB told him we were glad to have him, that we meet here every Tuesday,  (5:00 dinner/social hour and meeting at 6:00).  He explained that KEN ran another group up at Emerald Isle.  The county is so long we decided to split it up so the members would not have so far to travel.  The Wild West Group meets the first and third Tuesdays at 7:00 pm.  Eventually we hope to get a third group organized in the eastern part of our county (the DownEasters).  He introduced all our officers…him as Chairman, PEGGY, our secretary (so be careful what you say, because she records every word into our minutes),  KEN, our communications director, (he runs the web site), NANCY, our Treasurer, and who else have we got!!!  Several said don’t forget ERIC BROYLES, the vice chairman.  BOB said Oh, yeah, ERIC.  CLAYTON told ERIC ‘now he knows how Biden feels’.
BOB showed his latest bumper sticker….picture of Obama with the words, ‘does this a– make my truck look fat?’  He plans to place it right below his ‘you lie’ sticker.  The man that runs the land fill on Hibbs Road saw BOB and his TEA party shirt the other day as he was dumping his trash and  gave it to him.  KEN said he had sent an email out to a half a dozen people with that bumper sticker plus several others that he had thought were really entertaining.  There are a few web sites that as we continue our meeting tonight he has a proposal that will involve that bumper sticker plus some others.
BOB reported that STEVE has a new movie coming up at the Cave Saturday 28 at 4:00 called the Paper Clips.  He said for those who do not know, STEVE has converted his garage into a “Christian movie theater”.    STEVE said he had not seen the movie yet so could not tell us what it is about.  He has heard it is a very good movie.  He is preparing (? Could not understand what he called it, but did determine it was a Greek food from a cook book he got in the mail and it sounded good so he had tried it.)  He is preparing it for those who come to see the movie.  LYN asked if everyone had heard of the movie ‘Fire Proof’.  This movie was about fire departments, and they now have another movie out about the Police Department.  They are showing it at the First Baptist church next Sunday at 7:00.  BOB said while we are talking about movies, STEVE has procured a free movie called ‘Iranium’.  It is all about Iran’s push to acquire nuclear weapons and their international threat.  BOB asked STEVE to let us know when he planned to show this ninety minute documentary.  BOB asked him to read the cover on what it is about.  STEVE said it is about how the government is trying to take over and run everybody’s life.  KEN said it is a really good movie, that he had screened it for STEVE and he had wanted to show it at his Emerald Isle meeting but the folks there thought it ought to be done at some other time rather than a meeting.  He recommended that STEVE show it over at his place.  It goes through the history of how various governments have taken over and draws parallels to what is happening in the US now.  It is kind of scary.  It is not just about Obama’s term in office, it also talks about both parties.  BOB said every president we have had has grown the government.  It even grew under Reagan.
BOB recognized KEN to speak on several issues (billboards, Spokesman for the Rally/Fund Raiser Committee etc.)  KEN said he had passed around a sheet of paper with a couple of ideas for the Billboard Project and wanted to know if everyone had seen  them and marked which they preferred.  Those are drafts of proposed ideas for the Billboard Project that he had brought up several months ago.  They are probably going, in the next three or four days, to decide which one to go with.  There is very little difference in the two, with the most obvious being the ‘enough’ that is coming out of the eagle’s mouth is white on one and yellow on the other.  Slight difference in the size of the eagle’s head also.  The billboard project started with the MooreTEAParty group in Moore County.   In 2008, they put out several billboards in the Moore County area that were pro-TEA Party messages.  There are probably 15 or so TEA Parties represented in the committee that is looking at selecting a billboard design that will be posted around North Carolina between July and the election.  Billboards cost on the border for discussion about $400 per month.  So right now they are looking at definitely 4, or maybe 6, plus a mobile billboard to be used around Charlotte during the Democratic National convention.  So they are trying to collect money from individuals and TEA Parties to build up enough money to be able to put these billboards up around the state.  On the website (nc4TEA.com or net or several other .’s which will all lead you to the same place)  will give you a little bit more of the background of the billboard project and where they are proposing to put them.  They currently believe they have enough  money, or soon will have enough, for four billboards.  Most of those are located in the middle part of the state (higher populated area and on highly traveled roads).  The next two on the list (if he is not mistaken) are around Jacksonville but they need additional money to be collected to be able to fund those.  One of them is down near Swansboro at the intersection of 24 and Belgrade Road and the other one is somewhere on the other side of Jacksonville on 17.  He is not sure exactly where.  VERNE said it appeared that this was just a ’get out the vote’ type of advertisement not endorsing any particular candidate, so what is the basis for the choices about the locations.  Raleigh has a very high turnout rate.  He did not see much need for a ’get out the vote’ campaign there.  KEN said it is advertising the website also, which promotes fiscally conservative candidates, limited government, and pro free market.  It is basically to stimulate awareness that we have had enough of our current government; that we want people to reclaim America and; we want people to get out and vote.  Implication in there is that we want people to vote conservative because it is sponsored by the TEA Party.  There is only so much you can say on a billboard that people can read when they are going down the road at 60 miles per hour.  So you have to make sure that the billboard is flashy enough to catch the eye  and the message is concise.  Believe me we have gone through a ton of slogans and stuff like that.  The purpose is not to endorse a particular candidate because we typically do not endorse, but do make recommendations in the local areas as far as this TEA Party is concerned.  We do not back any particular candidate, only suggest or recommend.  BOB brought up a situation in Onslow County with Americans for Progress (AFP) that explains why you do not pick a dog in a fight because that is what brought the AFP down.  They had backed a couple of candidates which created a fight among members, getting really nasty and totally split the group apart.  It disbanded.  We have at the Emerald Isle group a guy that is currently coming from the Hubert area, that was a member of that AFP group and that is how KEN knows what happened.  What happened to that group is a good example of what we should not be focusing on so that we don’t get split up.  Our message is to elect fiscally conservative candidates.  Anyway tonight when he gets home he will probably notify the billboard committee which sign we think is best.  They will cast their vote and probably by the end of the week they will have all the votes counted from the members of the committee and will have finally made a selection on what they are going to do.  What he would like to do is, for purposes of discussion, to make a motion that this TEA Party group fund a billboard for $400.00 which will cover a month for one billboard.  HOWARD seconded the motion.  BOB said we have a motion and a second so let’s vote on the motion.  Do we want to sponsor a billboard for one month?  Is anyone opposed to the motion?  No.  Motion carried.  BOB said he wanted to know if anyone had any ideas on how we are going to collect this money.   KEN said he suggests we write a check for the billboard project and then discuss how we are going to pay back what we had gotten from our treasury for the billboard project.
KEN said that kind of leads him into another topic.  About three or four months ago  BOB appointed a committee to look at fund raising.  That is especially important now since we really don’t have too long before the November big election and prior to that the May Primary.  NANCY had reported earlier that we had something like $1100 in the Treasury.  We just voted $400 for the Billboard Project; then we have the John Locke Workshop which is going to cost; and if we have a Tax Day Rally, as BOB suggested, that always costs us money because at the very least we have to have insurance.  Last time the insurance cost us $940.00.…so now our money is gone.  So it is important to have some mechanism to raise money to be able to have money to do stuff we have to do between now and the elections; cause we know none of that stuff is free.  I think we can take advantage of some free advertisements like with the John Locke thing we can  get on Lockwood’s show, public service announcements, the community calendar in the Carteret News Times; but when you start advertising in the paper or pay for advertising on the radio, we are talking about fairly good chunks of money.  So we need to take advantage of as much free stuff as we can to stretch the little bit of money we do have.   Anyway, the fund raising committee met (as well as discussed over the internet/email several times), we thought a good fund raiser might be like a barbecue dinner.  Then we got to talking about where, and when we would have it.  We discussed the park in Newport where we had our picnic last year or the Fort Benjamin Park.  KEN had suggested a few days ago that we have it on Tax Day, sort of with the rally.  Well, one of his esteemed colleagues, HOWARD, informed him that that was like 3 or 4 days (a couple of weeks actually) after the Newport Pig Cooking contest.  So it was decided by the committee that that was probably not a good idea to have a barbecue so close to the Newport fund raiser.   He said HOWARD thought a barbecue would likely be more successful in the fall rather than during warm weather.  However, that might be an idea for raising funds later but was not compatible with us raising funds now before the fall.  We’ve got to have some money earlier on, so he wanted to kind of throw out to you folks or you throw some out to us, on what we might do beforehand.  He knows BOB wants to do a rally, and that is a good thing but $900.00 for insurance, we will have to sell a lot of tee shirts to cover that.  BELVE MANNING said how about instead of  a barbecue dinner, have a chicken (barbecued or fried).  She said the alumni association does that a lot.  KEN said that’s a good idea.  Several of the fire departments have barbecue chicken dinners (or fish frys) to raise money.  (KEN checked to make sure PEGGY was taking notes and as HOWARD said  also recording).  BOB said he was not SET on having a rally, that he would like to have a rally or a fund raiser or both.  He was not totally set on the TAX Day Rally.  KEN said he understood that BOB was not demanding a rally, but he was just saying the pig barbecue would not work out to be held in conjunction with the TAX Day event.  A chicken dinner might work fine.  We could do something like that.  He asked the members if that sounded like a good idea?  And it could still be in conjunction with the TAX Day, since that is traditionally when we have our rally.  BOB said April 15 is on a Sunday, so did we want to think about Saturday, the 14th or Friday the 13th?  Several thought Saturday would probably work best, especially for the rally.  ERIC asked how many names did we currently have on our emailing list,  he figured somewhere around a thousand.  KEN said maybe close to that.  ERIC thinks we should come up with something  where they could send money in to help support our events and fund raisers when they are unable to attend.  KEN told ERIC he was getting ahead of him, that he hadn’t gotten to that yet.  Our list the committee had come up with was more than just a barbecue dinner fund raiser.  That was just one of the items.  KEN said what we will do then, at least for tax day or there about, is sort of formulate a little bit more about the menu and schedule and stuff like that.  He really likes the idea about the chicken cause that is not hard to handle.  The four of us (committee) will talk some more about plans and get something back as soon as we can  so we can make a decision on what we are going to do.
In addition to that, as ERIC led into, we have some other ideas also.  He is going to give an example, (not saying we are going to do it this way or whatever), but the Republican Women’s Club made a lot of money this year and they had a raffle for a couple of guns.  He can’t remember exactly what they made off of it but it was their biggest fund raiser that they have ever had.  (BOB said ‘we can raffle off the bullets for those guns).  KEN said his thought was that we ought to consider a raffle of something like a gun or something that will appeal to people in this area.  That is something  we don’t need to decide, but if you have some suggestions, please either give them to us now or at a later time.  He would like to suggest that we consider having a raffle as a fund raiser where we would presell tickets and then have a drawing, at sometime, didn’t have a time determined yet.  HOWARD suggested we hold the drawing at the Tax Day Rally on April 14th.  Most agreed.  KEN asked if anyone had any suggestions.  BOB said he had one, not necessarily Tax Day, but maybe sometime around Easter time frame.  A lot of organizations have Easter Egg Hunts and he was thinking that we do an Easter Egg Hunt and ever how many eggs their kid collected would pay a dollar an egg.  It not only would be a fund raiser but would get the family out.  HOWAR D said he wasn’t sure how that would go, since there are at least two big free ones here in Newport.  BOB said we could bill this as a fund raiser for the TEA Party.  It was just a crazy idea he had.  KEN asked that we stay with the raffle right now.  He asked if everyone thought a raffle was a reasonable thing to do?  Some minor discussion followed with most saying  they thought it would be OK.  Someone volunteered HARRY’s truck.  KEN said maybe BOB’s truck, but decided that might not sell too many tickets and BOB said no, he needed his truck to haul all the TEA Party stuff around since he had burned his shed down and had not other place to keep it.  PEGGY said since TOM HARMON was out of the country, maybe we could raffle his almost new truck off.  He wouldn’t miss it for a few months anyway.  HOWARD said TOM wasn’t to sure about this crowd and had carried his truck out of  the county.  KEN said we could knock it around a little bit more, he was just trying to find out if anyone had any experience with raffles.  The only one he has a first hand knowledge on was the gun raffle and he knew that was very successful.  LYN said some organizations that hold annual raffles will get a business to donate a motorcycle.  HOWARD said to raffle a motorcycle you are talking a whole lot of tickets you have to sell cause that Harley Davidson costs big money.  LYN said usually a dealer donates it.  CLAYTON asked ‘in this economy, they will donate a motorcycle?’  LYN said maybe they can’t sell them so they donate them and take a tax deduction.   KEN said we’ll knock that around a little bit more, but if you come up with any ideas, please let us know.
One of the other things that he thought of is kind of a combination of expanding the items that are available for sale from our store on the web site and that we sell at rallys and parades or anywhere we can set up a table.  Some ideas he has …right now we have tee shirts on our web site and that is really it.  Part of the reason behind that is we got hats now, but he doesn’t have them on the web site.  And the reason for that is he does not know how to work that into the web site, so he has to get up with the guy that does it, so he can find out how to do that.  We have short sleeve  and long sleeve tee shirts ,  and hats.  Some of these, from conversations with NANCY, we need to buy some more of different sizes.  We also have now that POP game that WAYNE WILLIS said we could sell on the web site and receive some revenue from that.  So that is another item to be added to the web site.   We have some bumper stickers “Crystal Coast TEA Party” bumper stickers.  And we have plenty of Cain bumper stickers at a very reasonable price!   Collector items.  BOB said he had gone on the web site and clicked on the store and there was nothing in it.  You can click on the home page and tee shirts and get an order form from there, but if you go to the store there is nothing there.  KEN said he knew it was kind of messed up but he figured if we add some things to the store (and get the store working properly) then maybe we could earn a little bit of money that way, but it also would give us a repository of supplies that we could take to put on a table and sell like we did at the 4th of July parade in Beaufort.  What he is suggesting is we pick out some bumper stickers, in addition to the Crystal Coast TEA Party stickers, maybe like the one BOB has and some others we think will attract attention and sell and put them on our web site also.  We need to look for someone local to make them.  These things are not copy writed.  There is no sense in us going and paying $3.00 a bumper sticker and then having to sell them for $6.00 (and not selling due to cost).  If we can have them printed locally and make up our own bumper stickers.  So if you see a good bumper sticker let us know about it.  Then we need to ask NANCY or somebody else to talk to some local people, because he would like to see our business stay here in the county/community for printing these things.  Someone mentioned coffee mugs.  KEN said some of the website TEA Party stores do sell coffee mugs.  If you go to TEA Party Patriots, they have all kinds of junk on there.  However they are pricy.  LYN said she had not followed through but had looked into ‘car fresheners’ maybe shaped like a flag, something inexpensive.  She thought they might cost something like 70 cents and maybe sell for $2.00.  KEN said he thought that would be a good idea.
Another things we thought about was ‘TEA Party Patriot’ buttons.  Some people like to wear buttons to meetings and rallys,   As an additional use for the buttons…  if we can get people interested this year in doing this, remember that workshop that we went to in Greenville on lobbying they talked about wearing a name tag when you go to the State House and meet your Senators and Representatives,  then we could wear our buttons.  They don’t want you running around with a whole bunch of signs, but a small button identifying who you are will look better than a paper name tag.  NANCY proposed including a pocket Constitution with every order for free.  We already give those out at the various events, so when somebody orders something we just put one in with their order.  LYN said we could also let them know they could pick their order up here every Tuesday night (which might bring them out to our meetings).  KEN said he would send out an email with some suggested thoughts for the bumper stickers (not to the whole list he has, but to maybe 30 or 40 people, mostly to the active members) and get their input and then you all will have his email address so you can keep him informed as to what you think.  Don’t treat it as SPAM.  It will say it is from Ken.  As he was saying, in addition to having these items for sale on the website, we will have them for sale on tables at various events also where we can promote the TEA Party.  Discussed the problems we had at the Morehead City parade and not being able to find out where we might could have a table.  LYN said the Pope’s would always let us set up in front of their restaurant.  KEN said we need to keep that in mind.  Some other venues that we might could use, but would probably cost us, would be like the St. Paddy’s Day at Emerald Isle, because they have a real good turnout there, but you do have to pay for you space.  Does anyone remember what that cost.  We have festivals, like SeaFood Festival, Mullet Festival, etc, but we have to commit to paying for the spot, and having people who are going to be there for an hour or two taking shifts.  PEGGY told KEN we could probably have a space at the Newport Pig Cookin’ also, but she thought it costs also.  ERNIE said we didn’t want to have anything there.  There were fights and everything else there and we didn’t need to be involved in something like that.  The majority of the members in attendance disagreed with ERNIE.  They had never heard of any problems like that at the Pig Cookin’.  It was watched too closely for any problems.
KEN asked if there want anything else he was supposed to bring up from the committee tonight.  PEGGY said yes ‘about the drawing and the 50-50’.  KEN said that some of the other TEA Party groups he had talked to always put out a donation jar at their meetings.  Anyone attending that would like to help out, can put whatever they would like into the jar to help raise needed funds.  HOWARD was going to get a big jar and PEGGY was going to print up a design with the TEA PARTY PATRIOTS Donation Jar.  NANCY said she already had several jars made up that we had used at the rallies.  KEN asked her to please bring two to the next meeting (one for here and one for the group in Emerald Isle).  We can give the one for here to BOB to put in his truck along with all the other TEA PARTY supplies he has in his truck shed.  Does that sound like a good reasonable idea to the group?  SCOTT said how about like the Republican Men have something where you buy tickets and they have a drawing and you get some money.  PEGGY said that is the 50-50 she had referred to when KEN had asked if he had forgotten anything.  HOWARD said he still had most of the box of tickets we bought for the rally in Newport.  He had such grand ideas for how much money we were going to make, he bought a whole case of tickets.  We have enough tickets to last a looooong time.  Some thought we should have the 50-50 every Tuesday.  BOB wanted to know how many would commit to buying 50-50 tickets every Tuesday.  Almost everyone there said they would.  BOB said do we want to decide if we want to have a donation jar or buy tickets for the 50-50 and how much would we sell the 50-50 tickets for.  One for $1.00, three for $2.00 was recommended by DIANE LANG and all thought that would work.  BOB said he was all for having a donation jar, and having a 50-50 raffle, but he did not want to discourage anyone from attending the meetings.  HOWARD said he did not think we needed both on the same night.  He said he had a certain amount of money that he is willing to throw in and he is going to throw it one place or the other.  KEN wanted to know if we wanted to do one or the other.  Discussion followed.  BOB said he wanted to make one hard and fast rule if we do the 50-50 and that was the winner cannot turn around and donate it back to the TEA Party.  A lot of people do that at these organization feeling like they have to or feel guilty for getting the money.  If you win it, you take it home.  DIANE said and then next week you can bring it back and put it into the jar.  KEN asked how many thought it should be a 50-50 raffle and how many a donation.  “Thanks a lot, it was split evenly”.  KEN told BOB that he would suggest if he didn’t think it was too complicated, a couple of nights a month we have a 50-50 and the other two nights we put out the donation jar.  SCOTT said we should keep a record of how they are working and after about 6 months whichever is doing the best for the group, then use that system.  KEN said he agreed that was a good idea.  BOB said as long as the donation jar did not cut into the tips we leave for the waitresses, he had no problem. CLAYTON wanted to know if we couldn’t send out to the other 900+ members who do not attend our meetings and ask them to please donate something to the TEA Party.  KEN said he could put that into the next email he sent out.  CLAYTON said a lot of people will send you 5 bucks or so, just to not have to spend all that money for gas just to get to the meetings.  HOWARD said just be sure to give them an address where to send the donations.  KEN said the money should go to NANCY because she is the Treasurer and she needs to keep up with how much money is coming in.  ERIC said he feels that all these people who consider themselves members of the TEA Party because they are on our mailing list, do need to get some skin in the game.  And the way they can do that is we just say look we need your help.  KEN said he agreed and he would include something in the next email he sent out.  BOB wanted to know if the ‘donate’ button on the web site works.  KEN said that was a real good question.  He would check it out tonight.  He did not know.  NANCY said didn’t we used to get PayPal payments  but KEN thought that was specifically set up for that particular purpose.   BOB said it said you could pay by PayPal or send in your check, but nowhere could he find an address to mail his check.  KEN said there is no where on there about shipping either.  He promised to fix all these problems as soon as he could.  ERIC said he thought we should take advantage of our 900+ email addresses.  KEN said something like that had come up at their Emerald Isle meeting where they had about 18 or 19 attendees, so he thought they were doing pretty good there.  Not gang busters, but OK.  Discussion about donations and stuff like that came up and he and DIANE had talked about it afterwards and you know like pushing too hard for donations scares people away.  He agrees you have to mention it and make it easy to donate, (the donate button has to work), but if you push too hard then you scare people away too.  You don’t want to make people feel they have to donate, because this is a pretty much a put your money where your mouth is, but you have to be delicate about how you do this and not push too hard.  You don’t do anything related to politics for free.  Unfortunately everything we talk about in here, rallies, fund raisers, work shops, costs money.  You got to pay for it if you are going to do it.  KEN asked if we had noticed his truck when we came it.  He has painted it up – on the back window he has TEA PARTY and the shortened web site www::cctpp.info.  On the two side windows, it says ‘November 6, 2012, The End of an Error!’.  He is getting a lot of thumbs up and a lot of positive comments.  ERIC said he thought KEN should include in his email about donations ‘Your support of your TEA Party in 2010 and the election of 24 conservatives made a difference and we need your help in 2012.’  DIANE said she did have some bumper stickers that are collectors items, (Cain) and if anyone is interested in them she will bring them to the next meeting she comes to and she will let them go for a small donation to the TEA Party.
PEGGY reminded KEN about the TEA Party business cards.  KEN said that is another expense.  We need to order some more business cards.  We are running low on those.  He thinks we should modify them and put the web site on the front instead of the back and that we include the Western Carteret meeting on the back of the card along with the Morehead City meeting data.  He would like to see us include the TEA Party principles of ‘Fiscal Responsibility’, ‘Limited Government’ and ‘Free Markets’.  He said he would talk to DENNIS later about printing.
BOB called on PEGGY to make an announcement about CATIE coming to speak to us.   PEGGY said first of all CATIE misses everybody but is so busy right now with school, the Sex Trafficking Program and working, she can not work us into her schedule right now.  BOB said for those who do not know CATIE, she is HOWARD and PEGGY’S granddaughter. PEGGY said no, she was our Great Granddaughter.  BOB said you’re older than I thought you were.  HOWARD said he would be 77 Thursday.  DIANE wanted to know if we were going to celebrate this year like we did last year.  PEGGY said no, CATIE did not have the time to plan something like that now.  HOWARD said he was going to the Newport Town Board Meeting Thursday night to stir up hate and discontent.  That for him would be fun too.  PEGGY said, to get back to CATIE, she has gotten interested in this Sex/Slavery Trafficking and is a state representative for the program.  They are hoping to build a home for the girls they rescue from the houses of prostitution they are held in.  When the police find them now they have no place to put them so as soon as they are free, they go right back to those houses and their pimps.  The organization that CATIE is associated with’s  goal is to help these girls learn about God and His love for them;  how to make a living in another occupation; and help build them self esteem so they can function in the real world.  CATIE drove all the way to Charlotte a couple of weeks ago to speak to a ‘mega church’ congregation (one than has over 2000 members) to raise money for this home.  She and another girl raised over $5,000.00 for this home  I’m not sure about all that she would like to talk with you about, but since she feels you are the inspiration for getting her started in trying to change the world to a better place for all, she would like to tell you all about what she is involved in today.  She would like to come next Tuesday, the 17th.  She wanted to come both the 17th and the 24th but since we have the Palombo event on the 24th,  I plan to bring her with us to that also, because she would like to see Palombo,  He asks about her every time we run into him.  HOWARD said her mother, Dawn, figured it up and in addition to her school she is working about 30 hours a week also.  She is also a member of the group that Lockwood has on Monday nights discussing various subjects of interest.  So she is kind of busy.  And we all need to remember our CATIE is only 17 and a Junior in High School.  To be able to drive to Charlotte and speak before that big crowd of people, the TEA Party can pat themselves on the back, because they gave her her start at the rallies that she spoke to for us.  HOWARD said he understood she had been invited to come and speak to this church.  He’s not sure how it came about but she actually had been looking forward to it.  As for me, I would have been terrified.  BOB said she is aware that we cannot compete with that church and come up with $5,000.00, right?  PEGGY said they are planning a dinner at Glad Tidings Church, that she is in charge of organizing, to raise money so she will probably tell us about that also.  CATIE is involved in their youth activities and HOWARD thinks that is how she got into this program.  PEGGY said she did not want to go into any more details, that she would leave that up to CATIE.  SCOTT’s wife asked if she was involved in the Atlanta program on slavery that raised so much money.  PEGGY said she thought that was a different program.
BOB called on EULA PARKIN for her report on J’Had Watch.  She said it boggles her mind that our government  is aware of the fact that there are 35 Terrorist Training Camps in the United States.  They know where they are, how big they are, how many are involved in it and nothing is being done.  A radical J’hadish group responsible for 50 attacks on American soil, is operating these camps.  The government refuses to recognize the organization as a terrorist group on the list of foreign terrorists they have compiled.
They have purchased hundreds of acres of land from New York to California in which the leader is conducting the training of the most horrific Islamic warfare.  In a recruitment video captured from them he states in English we are fighting to destroy the enemy.  We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America.  And though he and his troops are suspected of committing assassinations and fire bombings inside the US, it is also suspected of the beheading murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, in Pakastan.  The terrorists camps spread through the country and they continue to expand in numbers and population.  Their goal is the purification of Islam.  She said this just boggles her mind that the Department of Justice knows all this and has done nothing to put a stop to it.   BOB said we have to get rid of that Muslim in the White House first.
PEGGY asked if everyone had seen the letter from Chris about fishing.  Anyone that has not, she would like for you to take a copy and read it and try to help Chris by voicing your opinion to your representatives if you will.  KEN said he would  post that on the website.   Also did you all read ERIC’s letter to Rep. Pat McElraft.  It was a very good well written letter.  BOB asked ERIC if he would like to say anything.  He said as you all know for this past year he has been paying close attention to all the editorials being written in the Carteret County News Times.  A lot of people have stood up for the TEA Party especially in reference to Ken Humphrey’s.  He has now come to the conclusion that Ken Humphrey is just trying to suck our energy off by getting us to respond to him and his radical views.  ERIC feels that now in this election year we need to focus our attention and articles on Gov Beverly Perdue and Obama.  We need to put Mr. Humphrey aside…if you have read any of his articles and letters you know he is a far left nut case.  So let’s just ignore his ranting and focus on Perdue and Obama.  If you prefer to attack Walter B. Jones, so be it, but those are the ones we need to get rid of, not Ken Humphrey.  He means nothing to us.
Question was raised on the gas tax increase.  Discussion as to how it worked followed.  How the tax  gets increased with the increase in gas prices and the fact that it was voted to be rescinded by the  House but  the Senate refused to consider it.  The increase for the designated period of time denoted an increase of 3.9 but as you know, it gets upped to 4 cents.  By the Senate refusing to rescind it was like voting for the increase.  GRACE GILLIKIN said we have one of the highest gas taxes in the country and our Republican Senate voted for the increase.  HOWARD said no they didn’t vote for, they just didn’t vote and let it go.  GRACE said a non vote was the same to her as a yes vote.  HOWARD said he guess in a way she was right.
KEN said before we close he would like to discuss more on Chris’s letter.  Lockwood Phillips had a show on last week about the proposed game fish ban on three species of fish for commercial fishermen.  They want to reserve those three species strickly for recreational fishermen only.  BOB said this whole thing is driven by those out in the western part of our state (Raleigh west) who come here on the weekend or vacation .  KEN wrote, even though he is not a commercial fisherman, it seems to him that whenever government gets involved in picking winners and losers and destroying an industry that is as old as …. There is something wrong with that.  People don’t realize it impacts us the consumer as well.  If those fish are banned from commercial fishing, you won’t be able to go to a fish market and buy those fish or go to a restaurant and order them either unless they come from China or some other foreign country that are not imposed with this ban.  This ban will affect 3 % of the fish that commercial fishermen in the state catch and will just multiply all the other regulations they are having to fight against.  Recreational fishermen claim that the amount of money that is brought in by these commercial fishermen is only a few millions of dollars whereas the amount of money brought in by the recreational fisherman will, based on this ban, will be in the trillions.  His question to Lockwood was how could just 3% of fish account for such huge amount of money/income on the recreational side.  He does not believe it.  He thinks their numbers are made up.  They are not based on actual scientific data.  He sent an email to Pat McElraft, Jean Preston and Senator Harry Brown because they are the three on that commission that represent this part of the state.  Pat wrote him back almost immediately, it was the day before the commission had their first hearing, and she said, Ken, you are the first recreational fisherman that has come to me and spoke on behalf of the commercial fishermen.  She said she had not heard from any recreational fishermen except those who are opposed to it.  Those who are opposed to it, Ken feels they have some skin in the game.  That means they are going to make some money either through boat sales, boat rentals, charters…they are going to make money somehow.  The recreational (quote) fishermen are not the guys like him that go out there and throw a line out in the water and feed the fish.  Also those guys from Raleigh that come down here and charter a boat from one of the captains and go out an catch fish.   He doesn’t believe that those people coming here from Raleigh and the western part of the state are going to benefit us in the billions of dollars that are cited with only 3% of industry that is curved and limited by the state government.  It does impact you so, he would urge us to look into this (go to McCaffity’s website …Ken will post the addresses on the website, he can’t remember them right now).  Please write an email to Senator Preston and Rep. McElraft and let them know what you think about  this, because it does affect you.  If you eat fish it is going to impact you because the only way you will be able to catch or enjoy one of those three species is you buy a boat, get a license, and get out in the water and catch it yourself.  GRACE said that she understand s that NC grows those little fish, especially the red drum and send them to Florida, and put them in rivers (their breeding grounds).  They are all tagged and if you catch one of those with a tag, you are to send that tag in and they will pay you for it.  So North Carolina is supplementing Florida’s income by two different ways.  Ken said Lockwood is going to have another show on this.  The show he already had had a guy from Harkers Island (actually from Rocky Mount originally) and he is associated with a recreational fishing organization called NCFish.  They are very pro this fishing ban.  This guy called in Lockwood’s show and filibustered.  Lockwood could not get a word in edgewise.  Ken contacted Lockwood and said what do you know about this guy and Lockwood said he had talked to him before but really did not know anything so Ken looked him up on the internet.   He is a life member in this organization called CCA, which has something to do with environmental groups who are anti-commercial fishing.  He is also on the board of this NCFish .org organization.  His daughter is a lifetime member of that organization.  Ken has found audio of him being interviewed on various radio programs where he was basically giving fishing reports.  He is tied into the money end of this somewhere.
HARRY wanted to know if KEN knew how much of the catch made here remains here.  KEN said he did not know.  When Chris came in and talked to us a few months ago, it just hit KEN wrong that government should not be getting involved in any industry.  BOB said Bill Hitchcock interviewed Chris a few weeks ago and Chris said basically everything he had in the letter.  GRACE said these recreational fishermen go out and catch these fish and if they don’t want them they will come back and sell them to the fish houses and make enough money to pay for the chartering of the boat they used.  KEN said from what he understands when these recreational fishermen go out and catch the fish, and release them, something like 80% of them die because of the way the fish were handled.  The fact that they are charging the commercial fishermen kill a lot of fish, doesn’t stand up to what they are doing to the fish either.  At least some of you that care, please drop an email to Pat and let her know how you feel about this.
One final note.  Don’t ever ask BOB directions to the rest rooms!!!!
Meeting adjourned at 7:50pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
JANUARY 25, 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:03 pm by President Bob Cavenaugh
Pledge of Allegiance led by Jere Geurin
Invocation given by Jere Geurin
20 were in attendance

NEW ATTENDEES:
John Polosky – new and Brendan McAuliffe, who has been a member of the Crystal Coast TEA Party almost since inception, then married and moved to New Bern, made a special trip to be with us tonight.

APRIL TAX DAY RALLY:
Ken Lang, speaking for the appointed committee, reported they had agreed on the theme, “Restore the Constitution” due to the fact that the Constitution had been attacked so much recently.  Discussed ideas for speakers.  If Willie Montague can get here for the rally, we would like to have him on the agenda.  Ken said that one of the speakers at the John Locke ‘A Citizen’s Constitutional Workshop’ (Kickler) had volunteered to speak if we were interested or would conduct another workshop if we would like.

TREASURER’S REPORT:
Nancy Bock, Treasurer, reported that we have $2,001.17 in the treasury.  She has 101 tee shirts.  We are a little low on medium (4) and large (33).  Large and XL are the most popular sizes and suggested we order more.  She thought we should put our website address on the sleeve.  (Discussion followed on this subject as to how we could put it so it would show up and how much it would cost to add it.)  In addition she also has the following:  a big bag of donation jugs; 10 each 12”x18” flags; a ton of bracelets; Contract for America forms; lots of paper weights; clipboards and pens; a bunch of the clear 8 ½” x 11” vertical and horizontal sign holders and some smaller ones; and about 1200 pocket Constitutions of which 1,000 need our
name stickers.  She also has the cash box.  Plus, two signs 4’x4’ (1) TEA PARTY PATRIOTS www.moreheadteaparty.com (one sided) and (1) TAX DAY TEA PARTY HERE!!!! www.moreheadteaparty.com (two sided) plus the stakes for the signs.  Discussed the red banners that Marianne Kukulinski had gotten for us (2’x6’ laminated and grommeted for $20.00 each).  These signs had not held up due to weather conditions (rain, wind, etc).  Nice signs but not for long periods outside.  It might be more practical to spend $60.00 or so in order to get more durable banners.  We will probably need about 4.  Nancy thinks we should get a couple of hundred bumper stickers advertising the Tea Party.
All our stage decorations were destroyed.  Ruth Parker has about 25 or 30 small flags but will need about 100 more to use by the highway.  Might consider giving  smaller flags away to the kids that attend.  We do need labels.  Probably have enough pocket Constitutions.  Nancy was authorized to purchase the needed tee shirts.

Bob Cavenaugh talked about the TEA Party Patriots joint conversation on the web.  Some of the topics discussed were:  Education reform (schoolchoiceweek.com); March 4th Budget expires; March 14th Debt fund ceiling – national debt, federal debt, pledge to reduce by $100 billion.  Rand Paul recommended $500 billion over 5 years, but decision was to remain with the $100 billion as promised.  We need to hold their feet to the fire since this is what they promised us; eternal vigilance program.  Each TEA Party can blog their elected representatives (federal, state and local).  We all need to become very familiar with the staff of our representatives.  Shelby Blakely is setting up procedures.  Bob will send info to the members with a blast email.  Individuals can go to our web site and several others to get voting information.  Ken posts the voting records and other information on our web site and tries to keep it updated.

WORKSHOPS:
Howard Garner commented on the workshop held by Freedom Works in conjunction with John Locke at Cox’s Restaurant this morning, sponsored by the Republican Women.  He, Peggy and Nancy attended.  It was a most informative program with excellent speakers.  Wish more of our members could have been there.  We might consider holding more of these programs, both like the one this morning and also the one last Saturday.

AGENDA ITEMS:
Eric Broyles was not in attendance but had sent Bob an email with information on various bills  that have been introduced in the House in the past 48 hours, concerning Balancing the Budget and Immigration.  On January 24, 2011, nine bills concerning immigration were introduced.   A large majority of those bills are to enforce and tighten our immigration system and laws.  Following are five bills he felt were extremely important, especially H.R.140, that we should push very hard:
H.R.140 – Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011
This bill would eliminate birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants in the U.S.  Current U.S. law automatically recognizes any person born on American soil as a natural born citizen.  Under the bill, only children with at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, a legal permanent resident, or an undocumented immigrant serving in the military would be considered citizens.  (Introduced Jan 24, 2011)

H.R.98 – Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Social Security Protection Act of 2011
To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to enforce restrictions on employment in the United States of unauthorized aliens through the use of improved Social Security cards and an Employment Eligibility Database, and for other purposes. (Introduced Jan 24, 2011)

H.R.77 – Border Security, Cooperation, and Act Now Drug War Prevention Act of 2011
To provide for emergency deployment of United States Border Patrol agents and to increase the number of DEA and ATF agents along the international border of the United States to increase resources to identify and eliminate illicit sources of firearms into Mexico for use by violent drug trafficking organizations and for other lawful activities, and for other purposes.  (Introduced Jan 24, 2011)

H.R.45 – Criminal Alien Accountability Act
To amend section 276 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to impose mandatory sentencing ranges with respect to aliens who reenter the United States after having been removed, and for other purposes.  (Introduced Jan 24, 2011)

H.R. 100 – Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act of 2011
To provide for enhanced Federal, State, and local assistance in the enforcement of the immigration laws, to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, to authorize appropriations to carry out the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, and for other purposes.  (Introduced Jan 24, 2011)

There is a change in the Senate rules.  Bills have to be read twice and then voted on.  Senate Majority leader Harry Reid  has scheduled a vote to rip apart Senate rules so they can ram through more Big Government power grabs.    What the Democrats are considering a “filibuster”,  is the initial ‘motion to proceed’ cloture vote.  This requires 60 votes for a bill to make it to the floor.  Depending on the makeup of the Senate, this generally ensures at least some degree of support from the minority party.    So, Reid may try to dodge the two-thirds majority rule by appealing to the Vice President to authorize a rule change with a simple 51 vote majority.    Since every returning member of the Democrat caucus signed a letter of support in modifying the rules (which puts them at 53 votes), the ‘nuclear option’ mentioned above represents a serious threat, not just for the current Republican minority but for all future minorities under the proposed rules.    Guaranteeing the minority an opportunity to delay, modify, or completely reject the majority’s legislative agenda is a cherished part of our Republic that we must defend.  When you finish reading these minutes, please stop and call your representatives and ask them to please do the right thing and stop this power grab.

DATES FOR RALLIES AT FLEA MALL
Howard was asked to go ahead and check with Morgan Garner at the Flea Mall and determine what dates he has already gotten blocked in March and July so we can determine available dates that we can plan for our rallies.

Tom Austin said he understood there is to be a rally in Raleigh.  Did anyone know where and what time.   Someone said they understood it would be held on Edenton Street and that the New Bern TEA Party and Tax Payer Groups would be leaving from the Harley Davidson place of business tomorrow.

TEA PARTY CAPS
JERE GEURIN would like to see us get TEA Party caps, printed with the same logo as the front of our tee shirts.  Said he thought they would probably run us about $8.00 with the printing.  If we can get them for $8.00 then we could sell them for $10.00.  Edith Wade wanted to know if we could get some long sleeve tee shirts printed up.  Nancy will check on the long sleeve shirts when she checks to find out how much having the web address (even if it takes 2 lines) put on the sleeves of shirts like we currently have.  With approval of those attending, she was requested to buy just a few of each size of the long sleeve tees to see how they will sell.
MISCELLANEOUS
Tom Austin showed us a “Non-achievement Award” (like they have used in the military) and said he would like to have something like this made up to send to representatives when we disagree with what they are doing.  Something to think about.

Ken said he had heard that insurance rates were going up again, especially in this area.  There was some discussion as to whom it will affect.

Meeting adjourned at 7:15 pm.

Minutes submitted by Peggy Garner, Secretary

MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
JANUARY 18, 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:03 PM by President Bob Cavenaugh
Pledge of Allegiance was led by Bob Cavenaugh
Invocation was given by Debbie Rucker
30 were in attendance

NEW ATTENDEES:
Dennis and Marlene McAtee, Jim and Pat Nalitz, Jere and Phyllis Brehm, Jonas Hill from Dover, and Doug Hill from Deep Run.  The two gentlemen from Dover and Deep Run were in attendance to gather information on instituting a Tea Party organization in their respective areas.

TREASURER’S REPORT:
Nancy Bock, Treasurer, reported that we have $1,991.00 which includes the check Bob Cavenaugh had given her, that he had received from the Insurance company for items the Tea Party had lost in Bob’s recent shed fire (t-shirts, banners, etc.).

SATURDAY’S WORKSHOP:
The John Locke ‘A Citizen’s Constitutional Workshop’, held at Joslyn Hall, Carteret Community College, Saturday, January 15 was discussed.  Everyone at our meeting, that had attended the workshop, was very impressed and all hope we can continue with this type of ‘educating the public’.

OBAMACARE:
Everyone was urged to contact their congressmen and senators to request they vote to repeal Obamacare.  We understand that it will probably not be repealed until after Obama leaves office, since Harry Reid  has announced that he will not allow it to come to a vote in the Senate.
However, we need to get as many elected officials as possible to vote to repeal, thereby reinforcing our commitment.  Many were upset that Walter B. Jones abstained the first vote, saying he was not there to vote.  Some said ‘you had to be there to vote to abstain, otherwise your vote would be counted as absent’.  A lot of discussion continued on ‘where has Jones been since the November election’.  No one has been able to get up with him.  A lot of unhappy voters!  It was recommended that we put pressure on the North Carolina Attorney General, requesting that NC join in the law suit with Florida and the other 20+ states declaring that Obamacare is unconstitutional.

FREEDOMWORKS NC LEGISLATIVE CONFERENCE:
Freedom Works has scheduled a rally Wednesday, January 26 in Raleigh.  It is encouraged, that everyone, who is able, to try to attend.  The conference/briefing, that was scheduled to be held here in Carteret County on January 11 and cancelled due to inclement weather, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, January 25 at 8:00 AM at Cox’s Restaurant.  If you would like to attend please contact Judy Wilgus at 252-354-3081 to register so she will have an approximate attending figure to give to Cox’s.  These important briefings are a great opportunity to receive essential updates on our goals for 2011 at the local, state and federal level.  Everyone is probably aware of the big job we have ahead of us on the federal level as we work to repeal ObamaCare and stop the spending, but North Carolina has some big jobs ahead at the state level as well.  For the first time in over half a century, Republicans have control of the state legislature.  We need to be ready to hold them accountable and make sure the limited government promises that were made on the campaign trail are brought to fruition.

SCAMMING BOB:
Bob Cavenaugh reported on a scam that is hitting Face Book on him being overseas in England and needing money to get home.  Please ignore, as he is here in Carteret and OK.

THEME FOR APRIL 15 TEA PARTY RALLY:
Suggestions:  Hearse with coffin (Howard knows someone with a hearse) – portraying Edenton/Wilmington tea party – followed by mock funeral “Death of Liberty”.  Nancy thinks we could use that in the 4th of July parade with attendees in costume.  Ken said there is a saw mill near him where we could get logs sawed for the coffin.  Roma Wade would like to see us more upbeat and portray our ‘making a difference’.  Bob likes that idea.  Eric Broyles recommended a “We the People” theme.  Discussion on Trump’s appearance on TV today and the fact he is thinking of running for president.  Someone said they understand that the April 15th tax deadline has been changed.  Maybe we should check into that since we usually try to hold our rally on tax day.  Jere Geurin recommended that we appoint Roma and Edith Wade, Ken and Diane Lang as a committee to determine theme.  Bob recommended that Jere also serve on that committee.  Bob also appointed Nancy Bock to get together her committee to plan the July 4th parade entry.

Bob reported that he had talked to Willie Montague and he had told him he hopefully would be here for the April rally,  Bob also asked that all attendees think about who we can get to speak at our rally and make recommendations.  We need to determine date we will be holding the rally and determine if the Flea Market will be available.  Howard said he would talk to Morgan as soon as we get an idea of when we wish to hold the rally; then they, Howard and Morgan, will determine availability of grounds.

ORGANIZATION STATUS:
Bob discussed our attempts at organization; our core values; principles; goals; educating the public; arriving at the best candidates to support our ideals; methods of dissemination; social outreach groups and committees; membership drives; cookouts; picnics; accumulating a list of businesses who support us; organizing a Legislative committee to follow the legislative activities.  Ken was asked if he could post the voting records on our web site.  He said he has posted all of last year’s and to date this year.  It was asked how WB Jones voted on the Charlie Rangel situation; that Jones had said he did not vote for Rangel as he has been accused.  Ken said he would check the records to determine actual Jones vote.

Bob asked if everyone had read the Principles/Functions that were included with the minutes of the January 4th meeting, and if anyone had any objection.  No objections were made or changes made.  Jere recommended that we develop a set of By Laws.  Eric said he has contacted several Tea Party groups who are talking about establishing by laws.  He thinks we should hold off and see what is going on with them.  There are several groups who are looking at a more structured organization.  Eric said he would prefer we keep our “mom and pop” group that everyone feels comfortable with, where they feel they can speak their views.  Debbie Rucker agrees that we should stay our close friendly group.  The deeper and more complex we get, the more legal assistance we’ll need.   Bob said he just didn’t want us to lose site of our goal of educating the voters.  Roma wants us to become more involved with establishing Tea Party groups around the county.  Fred Decker would like to see us work to hold rallys down east – that Eddie Bo’s field behind his service station would be a great place if available.  Ken suggested Fred head up a committee to get a rally going and Clayton Gillikin said he would check with Eddie Bo.

Ken was asked if he was the communications officer and did we have a newsletter.  Bob said Ken kept up the web site and corresponded via email with anyone needing to know things; that the only thing we had considered a newsletter was the minutes of our meetings submitted to Ken by Peggy Garner, our secretary.   If anyone would like to volunteer to serve as Editor of a Tea Party Newsletter, please feel free to do so.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Ken read a letter to the editor on Candidates to Replace RINO’s he had drafted and asked for suggestions, comments, or corrections.  If we approved it, he would like to forward it to the paper.    Howard moved that we approve the letter as written.  Motion carried.  He was directed to forward the letter as written.

ADVERTISING OUR PARTY:
Since we have had several comments about not knowing about the Tea Party or seeing anything advertising us, it was suggested we think about maybe getting us mentioned (our meetings, dates and time and maybe our web address) on Channel 14, community service announcements. Asked everyone to think about it and come up with ideas for getting our group’s  name and activities more before the public.

Meeting adjourned at 7:40 PM.

Minutes submitted by Peggy Garner, Secretary.

MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
JANUARY 4, 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 PM by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by ROMA WADE
Invocation by NANCY BOCK
28 were in attendance

TREASURER’S REPORT/JOHN LOCKE WORKSHOP
NANCY BOCK reported we had approximately $1,800.00 in the bank.  Bob wanted to know if she had paid for the advertising and she reported that we had not begun the advertising about the upcoming John Locke’s “A Citizen’s Constitutional Workshop”.  The ad has been designed and will be 3 columns wide and 3” high.  Bob said he noticed that the TEA Party was not mentioned in the ad.  Nancy said she would get it modified and wanted to know if we wanted to put the ad in the next 4 issues of the paper.  It was decided to go with the 4 issues.  There was some discussion on difference between ‘host’ and ‘sponsor’.  Emails will be sent out to the membership informing everyone of the seminar.  Harry Thompson reported that a meeting has been set up with Dr. Shippard (?) and Ben Ball for Thursday at 8:05.  Going to get with Lockwood about setting up a session with him on the radio.  KEN LANG said he had sent out an email to the talk station requesting they put the seminar information on the air.  TOM AUSTIN said he had been by the Havelock News and given them the info and the man he talked with assured him he would include it in the paper and would contact those in charge of approving such info with the Wind Sock.  ERIC BROYLES said he had sent emails to newspapers, radio and other news media.  HOWARD GARNER said he had been trying to contact the John Locke Society about registering and had finally gotten up with a representative who said it would be alright to wait until the day of the seminar and pay cash when he got there.  She also informed him that they already had 40 people registered.  He told her that he had heard that and was concerned about getting a seat.  He is getting old and handicapped and did not want to have to stand during the seminar.  She said she did not think there would be a problem.  KEN LANG said he, also, had not registered yet, and he had understood that although they had requested pre-registration, there would be no problem registering the day of the seminar.

APRIL 15 RALLY
Bob requested that we all put on our thinking caps and come up with ideas, a theme, and possible speakers for our April 15 Rally.  TOM SMITH said he would check with LB Page about the use of his trailer again this year.  Bob apologized about the lost of almost all of our paraphernalia that was stored in his shed during the fire.  He said he had 4 (I believe) shirts that were in his truck that were not destroyed.  Nancy said she still has some.  One banner, that RUTH PARKER has, is all that he knows of still in existence.  Approximately 30 shirts were destroyed, all our signs, banners, bunting, etc… all gone.  We need to be thinking about getting resupplied with what we will need for our rallies.

PRINCIPLES, GOALS, AND FUNCTIONS/COMMITTEES
Eric asked if everyone there had read the information he passed out at our last meeting.  Most said they had not or had not gotten a copy.  Since Eric had not brought additional copies to this meeting Ken said he could put a copy on the web site or maybe email so everyone would get chance to look at it prior to our next meeting.  This is to be the foundation of our party and should be approved and voted on.  Ken said he is looking into doing some Web Site or Facebook surveys, opinion polls, email alerts, blogs, articles, etc. to keep our membership informed.
Bob reemphasized our 3 main TEA party principles:  (1) Fiscal Responsibility, (2) Constitutionally Limited Government and (3) Free Markets that promote US products, businesses and labor.  The only way the TEA party can make a difference is through education, not only ourselves, but the people.  Determine what you are most interested in and keep yourself informed so as to be able to keep others informed also.  Volunteer to chair a committee and ensure a good group of members to work with that committee.  Bob would like to see each member having to serve on only one committee.  The various subcommittees will vary according to the actual event with various jobs assigned.
ANDREW ONORIO said he felt we needed to start ‘getting the tea thrown overboard’ and start making a difference, not just talking or writing letters.  This is our government and he is tired of it being taken from us.  It was brought up about all the work we had done with the election and our successes there and until the next election there was no way to throw any politician out of office.  All we could do right now was rally, write letters,  enlarge our membership and get them involved, and be on the lookout for good, conservative, possible candidates to run in the next elections.  They need to be being prepped, preparing their resumes, and getting their names before the people who will be voting.
CATHERINE MIDGETT said we are a party of volunteers and we need to get organized, and get our principles, goals, and functions/committees in place so we can go forward.  This takes time, and people, with all working together.  We are still building.  Maybe we have been walking around in circles at times; and we did great with the election, but we can’t rest on our laurels.  We realize our mistake with the Jones rally in relying on another group to get it organized.  We sat around and waited for them to do something.  Next time we should think about what WE are going to do and work from that.  In the meantime we need to review the principles, goals, and functions/committees and make a decision if this is what we want and vote next week.
JERE GEURIN made the motion and Ken seconded it, that we table tonight’s discussion since many had not seen the report, and have Ken post it on the web or email all members; whichever is more appropriate; give everyone an opportunity to digest it and at our next meeting make any approved changes and vote.  Motion carried.
Walter B. Jones was discussed about the fact that no one could find him over the holidays and his voting record.  We need to be looking for a good candidate to run against him; either a Democrat or a Republican; only must be conservative.  Bob said after running against Jones last time in the primary, he was convinced that Jones was unbeatable.  HILDA DAVIS recommended that we invite Jones to one of our meetings and send a copy of our invitation to be published under letters to the editor.  Someone recommended that we publish the voting records on the web site.  Ken said he had been looking into that.  It may be a little complicated.
It was recommended that more people write letters to the editor, not just the same ones who always do the writing.  Some think that it may be possible that readers see those names and say “I won’t waste my time reading that, I already know how they think”.  If you can’t write a letter yourself, please find someone else to write it for you and you sign your name.  The more varied names we can get; the better.  Just remember to be clear and concise.  Do not ramble.  For example:  explain why something is disliked that possibly had made the government grow even larger, and emphasize that our goal and principle is limited constitutional government.

ESSAY CONTEST – REQUEST FOR PARTICIPANTS
SUSAN RYNAS said the Federation of Republican Women is sponsoring an essay contest.  The theme of the essay is ‘What the US Flag Means to Me’  It should be at least 500 words in length but not more than 550.  The contest is open to any student in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade during the 2010-2011 school year, is a resident of North Carolina and is (1) enrolled in any school in North Carolina or (2) is enrolled in a ‘base’ school overseas where a parent is serving in the US Military.  Schools include public schools, private schools, charter schools and home schools.  Students will have the opportunity to write and submit essays to their local club between now and February 12, 2011.  The local Federation of Republican Women club will review and select a first, second and third place winner.  The monetary prizes will be $200.00 for first place, $100.00 for second place and $50.00 for third place. The local first place winner’s entry will be sent to the State Federation, whereupon the state winner will be awarded a $1,000.00 Savings Bond.
If any member knows of a student that fits these requirements and would like to submit an entry, please make a copy of the following entry form and rules and get it to them.

Complete rules and Official Entry Form are attached to these minutes.

Meeting adjourned at 8:15 pm.
Minutes submitted by Peggy Garner

Official Entry Form
For
2011 North Carolina Federation of Republican Women
American Essay Contest

“What the US Flag Means to Me”

Name:________________________________________________________________________

Address:______________________________________________________________________

Phone Number (optional):_________________________________________________________

School Name & Address:_________________________________________________________

Teacher:_______________________________________________________________________

I have read, understand and agree to comply with the Contest Rules.  This includes the fact that my entry will not be returned to me.  Also, I hereby grant to the North Carolina Federation of Republican Women the first right to publish as stated in the Contest Rules.

I agree to release my Social Security number to the Essay Chairman if I win a U.S. Savings Bond so that it may be issued in my name.  I do not release my Social Security number unless notified that I have won a Savings Bond.

I certify that the essay I am entering is an original essay written by me with no help from anyone else.

Student Signature:_______________________________________________________________

Parent/Guardian Consent:_________________________________________________________

To be completed by the local Federation of Republican Women Club

Local Club Name: ______________________________________________________________

Region and County of Local Clue: _________________________________________________

Name of Local Essay Chairman: ___________________________________________________

Phone Number of Local Essay Chairman: ____________________________________________

E-mail Address of Local Chairman: ________________________________________________

North Carolina Federation of Republican Women
Americanism Essay Contest Process and Procedures

2010-2011 Essay Topic:  “What the US Flag Means to Me”

In this day and age our Country is going through transitions that would not necessarily
please our forefathers.  It would be beneficial if more young people understood the roots
that this Country was built on.  It took much fortitude to establish a New World in those
early days before even cars, trains and telephones eased transportation and communication.

For the 8th NCFRW Americanism Essay Contest, NCFRW has asked school children to
go back in time to research the origin of our beautiful and symbolic flag.  There is much
history involved in the flag’s development.  Old Glory means a great deal to us and it will
be interesting to see what our young people understand about it.

Contest Overview

Students will have the opportunity to write and submit essays to their local club between
now in 2010 and February 2011.  The local clubs will review and select a winner whose
essay will be forwarded to their Region by February 26, 2011.  Each region will review
submitted essays in their region and will select one winner.  The winning essay is then
sent to the State Federation.  There it will be reviewed with the other four winners.  There
will be one overall winner who will receive a $1,000 US Savings Bond.

Contest Rules

1.    The NCFRW Essay Contest is open to any student in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade during the
2010-2011 school year, is a resident of North Carolina and is (1) enrolled in any school in
North Carolina or (2) is enrolled in a ‘base’ school overseas where a parent is serving in
the U.S. Military.  Schools include public schools, private schools, charter schools and
home schools.

2.    All essays submitted should:
a.    Address the chosen topic as stated for the contest
b.    Be typed, double spaced and at least 500 words in length, but no more than 550
words in length.  In the top right hand corner of each page the student’s name, school and
page number should be noted.  The essay should be submitted in English.
c.    Be original works by the submitting student.  Students may briefly but accurately
note quotes or facts.
d.    Be submitted to the local essay chairman or postmarked by February 12, 2011.  No
entries will be returned; therefore it is recommended that the students make a copy of
their essays before submission.  An official entry form should be attached as the cover
sheet to the essay.

1
e.    Students are permitted to enter the 2010-2011 Americanism Essay Contest for 6th,
7th and 8th graders only once each year.  However, if the student has won the State contest
in a previous year, he or she is not eligible to enter in succeeding years.

3.     Essays will be submitted to and initially judged by local clubs.  First place winners
from each local club will then be judged within one of the five state regions.  The five
state region winners will compete for the State prize of a $1,000 US Savings Bond.  The
local club will appoint local contest judges and their decisions will be final.  The North
Carolina Federation of Republican Women will appoint region and state judges and their
decisions will be final.   At each phase of judging (local, regional and state) the following
elements will be considered:
a.    How well does the essay address the topic? (15%)
b.    Is the content well developed?   Does the author incorporate his or her own point of
view?  Is there a clear thought process?  Are any quotes or facts cited inaccurate?  Is there
originality?  (50%)
c.    Are grammar (includes punctuation and sentence structure) and spelling correct?
(20%)
d.    Is the conclusion clearly stated? (15%)
e.    Were the rules of the contest followed?  (if not, essay is disqualified.)

4.    The author grants to the North Carolina Federation of Republican Women the first
publication rights, except for local newspapers, to all submitted essays for an anthology.
Publication is completely to the discretion of the NCFRW.  After such publication or
twelve months after the State winner is announced (whichever occurs first) all rights
revert to the author.

5.    Essays with the official entry form attached and/or inquiries should be submitted to
the local club’s Essay Chairman.  All mailed entries must be postmarked on or before
February 12, 2011.  Clubs may elect to receive submissions via e-mail.  For such submissions,
the date stamp by the recipient’s e-mail system will be recognized as satisfactory meeting
submission requirements.  A copy of such should be attached to the essay if not noted
otherwise.  Neither the NCFRW nor any of its affiliate organizations will be accountable
for electronic submissions whose format is altered during transmission (i.e. double spacing
becomes single spacing).  If the essay is hand delivered the collecting party for the
Federation or affiliate should note the receipt date in ink on the back of the envelope or essay.

A copy of these contest rules will be provided separately for distribution to schools,
students, etc. when soliciting contest entries.  Likewise, a copy of the entry form will also
be provided.

Attachment

CCTPP Principles

Fiscal Responsibility
Constitutionally Limited Government
Free Markets that promote U.S. products, businesses, and labor.

Goal
Elect officials to public office that embrace the Tea Party Patriot principles and hold them accountable

CCTP Functions/Committees

Membership (Rally’s, Events, Out-Reach & Tea Party Coordination)
Rallies
Tax Day Rally
July 4th Rally
9/12 DC Rally
Down East Rally
Festivals (e.g. Seafood Festival)
Youth Involvement Groups
Picnics, cookouts, socials
Voter Education
Workshops (e.g. Constitutional Workshop)
Tea Party sponsors
Forums (e.g. election forum)

Legislative
Meetings
County Commissioner’s (meeting/meet & greet, etc.)
County Board of Education (Arrange for Board of Education to talk to CCTPP)
County Board of Election
County Precinct
Public Official Accountability
Races & Elections
State Legislature & Governor
Congressional & President
Judicial
County

Communications
Website and Facebook
Agenda
Minutes of Meeting
Congressional Report Card
Polls
Other Information
Website Maintenance
Newsletter
E-mail
Newsletter (currently: Minutes of Meeting)
TV
Radio
Newspaper
Blog
Adults
Teens

Suggested Offices & Committees
Chairman
Vice Chairman
Secretary
Treasurer
Legislative Committee
Communications Committee
Social and Out-Reach Committee