MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
2 AUGUST 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 Mayor Jerry Jones
Invocation was given by LYN BAKER
Number of Attendees – 25
New Attendees – Gene & Kathy Crain (2nd visit); Larry Shock (attended about 6 months ago);
Julie Purdy (here once before) and Kelly Gordon and Angela Murphy (who
came in late).
Bob read a portion of an email from the TEA Party Patriots in regards to just before the House vote:
President Obama promised to bring change in 2008; the Republican Party promised change in 2010. Even with all the talk about change, lower taxes, raising taxes, etc., things haven’t changed enough, we still see politicians waiting until the last minute to address the problems; two or three politicians wheeling and dealing behind closed doors; passing legislation no one has had time to read; possible down grade in our AAA credit rating, massive out of control spending, and the spiraling unsustainable debt. They are trying to sell us a deal, which means we will be 23 trillion in debt in a few years instead of 26 trillion. They are saying the projected amount will be a little less than they thought. That’s not cutting spending, it’s just a failure of leadership and they are trying to blame us, the TEA Party, for it. While politicians get away with this, the TEA Party is getting blamed. Probably right now the only ones with any courage is the TEA Party who is willing to fight for the future of our country. So no matter how much they throw at us, we will stand firm because we don’t do this for us, we do it for our country.
BOB asked if anyone has any comments about the events of the past couple of days. Does anyone like that we got our debt ceiling raised? HOWARD GARNER said he was not convinced that it was going to hold – that there were too many loopholes and wiggle room. ERNIE GUTHRIE said he thought the stock market had said it all today when it didn’t rally back. Business people understand two things – making a profit and when the profit isn’t there, you make the cuts. Tough choices – you look at the interest on what they are borrowing and the ten years it is going to take us to cut that trillion dollars is going to cost a lot more. BOB said he was really proud of the TEA Party elected officials that stood firm in the House. A lot of them voted against this bill although a bunch of them did vote with it. He was really surprised at all the talking heads on TV and radio – they were all capitulating that we should take the chips off the table, put them in our pocket, and call it a win. Someone else said they thought this was because we got ‘no taxes increase’. BOB said well, according to the bill, it removes the Bush taxes in January, so that is an increase in taxes. A member said he thought they were saying ‘the big picture is the next election’ and we have to continue what we are doing – we just have to get better at it – and we have a lot of Republicans we have to work on and/or replace and hopefully in 2012 we can get rid of this President and only then may we have a chance; but we have slowed things down. PEGGY GARNER said, ‘but we gave Obama the time to get pass the next election’. BOB said that was one of the things he did not like. He would like to have this whole debt ceiling thing on the ballot next year to be a part of the election cycle. HOWARD said many of them in Washington think ‘most of us peons do not know what is going on’. BOB said, ‘true and half of those peons don’t care since they do not pay any taxes. You have all heard the statistic where the top 1% pays 30% of the taxes, top 3% pay, and all that and yet Obama says ‘it is time for the millionaires and billionaires to put some skin in the game’. BOB feels these people have already put in a lot of skin and more besides. PEGGY said ‘we need a flat tax where everybody pays’. BOB said maybe one way the Republicans can come back on this tax the rich thing is to call it the ‘Oprah Winfrey tax’ – that the Democrats want to tax Oprah and take her money. Several said that might help. BOB said the Democrats have created this image of people with wealth are all the old ‘cigar smoking, balding business guys. They don’t want you to think about all the people you see on TV, the movie stars, professional athletes, the Oprah Winfrey’s, the guy that owns the black entertainment network, etc. LYN BAKER said ‘people who earn their own business through hard work, where is the incentive now to continue’? BOB said he was talking to a friend this week that runs a large wrecker service here in the county. He recently cut his employees down to the bare bones because he doesn’t know what is coming down the pike, and is worried about what the health care thing is going to do to him. There are all kinds of regulations that are in the works as a result of this financial restructuring bill, plus the Obamacare thing. There is just so much out there being thrown at you that you are afraid to go out and buy new equipment, do any modernizing, or hire additional help. You can’t depend on anything being restructured, rescinded or even helping with a write-off. We don’t have any confidence in the Government. We are concerned that the Government is going to some how come up with other ways to increase revenue. HOWARD said one reason business is down for the wrecker service is the number of wrecks that have apparently dropped somewhat. Example: In the last submitted report Wild Wood Rescue Squad’s calls were down significantly for the last quarter. BOB said that is also a product of the higher cost of gasoline; and also possibly because we have had dry roads for the whole spring and summer, so people haven’t been sliding off the road into the ditch or each other.
ERIC BROYLES said he has not seen anything on the 9-12 this year. He wonders if they are going to do something on the balanced budget. BOB said there were rumblings from the TEA Party Patriots about coming up with something on what we are going to do this year about 9-11 or 9-12’. Nothing firm yet. BOB personally thinks that the time for getting on the bus and going to DC is past. Now is the time to get involved in the local neighborhoods and working on your neighbors, trying to gin up the votes. We need to maximize as many votes as possible. This is very important, especially during the primary season. The primaries are usually in the middle of May and the voter turnout in Carteret County for the primary is just abysmal; so when election time comes they are all going ‘where did all these yahoos come from and how did they get on the ballot?’…a choice between two devils. We need to somehow crank up the voter interest in the primary so they will be better informed on election day.
BOB reported that KEN LANG is not here tonight, due to setting off the fireworks for the Jacksonville Night Out. The Western Carteret TEA Party organization that originally was scheduled for tonight has been postponed until Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at the Cape Carteret Community Building. BOB asked, ‘In order to help kick that organization off and also meet some of our “down-west” potential members, would you all like to move our meeting for that night to Cape Carteret. Just for that one meeting to help get the group started?’ He said he realized that everyone here cannot make it, since some live all the way down east and that is quite a journey from one end of the county to the other. PEGGY was asked to put the change of venue into the minutes and spread the word that we will meet on August 16 at the community center in Cape Carteret, in lieu of Golden Corral in Morehead City. Question on how to get to the Community Center…Bob said easiest way is to just go through the traffic light at Cape Carteret like you were going to Swansboro, and just beyond the traffic light is a BB&T Bank on the right. There is a little road next to the bank. Just follow it back to the Center which will be on the left. Discussion of time of meeting. BOB said he thought it was 6:00 but PEGGY said Ken had said at our July 29 meeting that they were thinking about 7:00. BOB said we’ll check it out and let everyone know. This is not a restaurant, so those of us who normally eat before our meetings, need to either eat prior to attending or bring a snack and drink.
HOWARD said we had found out what the Board of Education was doing when it was discovered by the County Commissioners that a 5 million surplus had been found hidden in our Carteret school system budget. He said it was happening all over the state. Gilford County had 10 million hid, and Charlotte/Mecklenburg had pulled the same stunt but their commissioners had not found it out until after they had approved the budget – so as he has stated before, they are all trained by the same group and singing from the same song book.
BOB wanted to know, since he was absent last week, if PAT and JIM NALITZ had made a report on their findings on number of teachers in the schools. PEGGY said “apparently you didn’t read last week’s minutes. Their complete report was in them.” HOWARD said he found some discrepancies (not in PAT and JIM’s report) but in what had been reported to him by a lady Tabbie Nance had referred him to. She had said they did not have any Ag Teachers in middle schools, but the web site for the schools (that PAT and JIM had looked into) showed they did have. So who do you believe?
BOB said he hated to keep jumping around on topics, but we had talked in the past about candidates for public office coming to our meetings and talking to us so we could ask them questions. Since we started out as the Morehead City TEA Party before we changed our name to Crystal Coast, we had decided to ask the Mayor of Morehead to come and speak to us first and he has graciously accepted. He will be challenged in the upcoming primary by David Horton, a current city council member. Mr. Horton has spoken to us before about the O’Neill park, but he will come back later in August (16th had been originally proposed but there will be a conflict in dates since we are planning to go to Cape Carteret that night.) Eric said he would contact Mr. Horton and arrange another date.
BOB introduced Mayor Jerry Jones and turned the floor over to him.
Mayor Jones said he was enjoying our comments and discussions. He told us he has been mayor of Morehead city for 12 years and is seeking another term as mayor. BOB jokingly referred to term limits. Mayor Jones said, well, yes and no. If you were being paid a great salary, but for someone who volunteers their time to civic organizations, and is doing a very good job, I think they should be able to carry on. BOB asked Mayor Jones how much he was paid as Mayor. Mayor Jones said $400.00 per month, or about $350 or so after taxes. He said he was going to give a brief presentation and then open the floor up for questions. He felt that we would better understand his platform with that type of format. He has taken a lot of notice of the TEA Party. The TEA Party effort is doing wonders throughout the country. He thinks it was time to slow things down a little bit; make people stop and think about what is going on and just regroup. He knows that ERIC is Vice President of this organization, but is also very active in the local government in Morehead City and throughout the county. ERIC has included him on his email list and the mayor appreciated that because it kept him updated on what was going on. But just to talk about him and his philosophy, ideology, will give us a better idea about our local government. He still feels he is doing a good job as mayor. First of all, local government, or all government begins at home. Local government is where we can really get involved. By getting involved in the local level, we can them move up to the state and federal level. I jokingly tell people all the time, ‘if you want to see good government, look at local government; if you want to see bad government, look at state; and if you want to see out of control government, look at the federal government.’ It is out of control right now. Some of this out of control is on the debt ceiling. We have some issues on term limits, and stuff like that, that we really need to address. Until we can take all the benefit packages out of our career politicians and that level, it is going to be hard to do.
He was born in Morehead City. He told HOWARD he understood he was born in Newport. HOWARD said yes, downtown Newport, before it moved up the street. The Mayor said Newport has changed a lot, just like Morehead. Growing up in Morehead City, times have changed. Things change fast. You never want to lose sight of, don’t ever forget where you came from. He thinks that is the philosophy of our country and our families, and our local governments. Never, ever forget where you came from. If you don’t know where you came from, how do you know where you are going? It wasn’t that long ago, growing up in Morehead City, we didn’t have a sewer treatment plant. We didn’t get one until 1966 and before that time; on the falling tide, that’s when the sewer got emptied into Bogue Sound. He said he jokingly tells everyone that is when he learned to do the breast stroke. We can all relate to those types of stories, but times do change and change is usually good. It is a moving target. We have to be diligent, aware of that target, because we do not want to forget our roots and forget where we came from. We live in Carteret County for a reason, and that is the quality of life here. I tell my wife all the time; she wants to complain about every time we want to fly somewhere, we have to go out the county, drive to New Bern, fly out and puddle jump to Charlotte, and get another plane to go somewhere else; so I remind her, yep, on the flip side it is hard to get here. And that is the life style we like in Carteret County. At the local level, that is what the mayor strives to do. He does like to remind people although each municipality has it’s own governing body and Carteret County has it’s own governing body…they really are not the governing body, the people are the governing body. The citizens are the governing body. These are the people we grow up with, work with, our kids go to school with, go to church with. We have a vested interest in this community and yes, while I do get paid a little bit of money that helps with reimbursements, I can’t retire off of that, believe you me. To me, there is a passion about Morehead City, and just growing up here, really wanting to maintain this small town feel. I also recognize that you can’t just stand still. If you don’t move forward, you are going to fall backwards. One of our neighboring communities, refused to look forward, and that town is paying for that now. Yes, I am talking about Beaufort. They are struggling to even get a water system or sewer system over there. That is something that we have strived for here in Morehead City, to stay ahead of that curve. Engineers call it a 15 or 20 year plan. I call it a 30 year plan. I am always looking at the long term plan for this. I want to make sure that I leave my children, your children, the least amount of worries as I can about the finances of our community. A municipality’s primary duty and responsibility is health, safety and welfare of our citizens. The purpose of a municipality is to provide a higher level of service. That is why we choose to live in cities. We have a responsibility not to go overboard, and don’t forget we live here and pay the same taxes as everybody else, but sometimes it is easy to get caught up in this whirlwind and because we are volunteers, working with you, going to church with you, we also have other jobs and we just want to give back to our community, so it’s difficult sometimes. It is a big responsibility. I don’t want to pay more taxes than anybody else, but I also recognize that by living in a municipality I expect a higher level of service. And I expect when I call for police protection, I don’t want to hear the sheriff is 30 or so miles away. I want a quicker response time than that. Same thing with the fire department. When I turn on my water spigot I want to be sure I have good clean water coming out. I don’t want to have to worry about that. Right now our well water around here, once you get the initial approval from the health department you do not have to get any more water tested. You do not know what is in that water, but in the municipality we have a little over 100 tests that we do and the water monthly to make sure it stays clean. Our garbage cleanup – I will admit it is a whole lot better than it was when I was growing up – a lot cleaner, but that’s not because of the actual city itself, it is because of the citizens themselves. We are more aware now of our health and cleanliness, so we are more attentive to that. Another thing, and we hit on this hard, talking about the PCS thing that almost snuck in on us here, is that we protect our citizens by zoning. We create these zones for land use where you can live in comfort with your family, and not have to worry about an industry going right next door to you. That was kind of the issue we had going on down there on the water front. That was my initial problem, when I heard about it. I had heard back about 6 months or so that PCS was going to expand their facility, but that didn’t raise a bell for me, alarm or anything. They are down there now and just expanding their facility. Well, early in June I heard they were building a sulfur melting facility. That did raise a flag and that is about the same time everybody started hearing about it. We came together as a community and did what we had to do to protect our health, safety and welfare. But it is a moving target and we are not over it yet. I met with TV people today and they questioned about the zoning – are we going to change it? The answer is ‘we are going to look at it’. We are going to have to be very careful about that too, because you can’t just spot zone somewhere. When you zone something it impacts on all the zoning districts. You don’t want to be knee jerking on that and hurt somebody else in the process. We provide park services, places for people to gather for community services or play sports. Morehead City has done well, and done well without having to raise taxes over these years. In fact, we have reduced. That’s a good number too, not having raised taxes. You can raise the tax rate without raising taxes. The tax is how much you write that check for. That is what I am mindful of. Somebody that has a 20 cent tax rate and now has a 28 cent tax rate; actually could be paying less tax. I know I am. It’s not much; maybe 30 or 40 dollars a year but it is still less, so you know you don’t want to get blindsided by that either. But the mayor, and talking about me, that is the reason I’m telling all these stories is so you can get to know me and why I feel I am not finished yet as mayor. There is continuity here. I had the mayor of Atlantic Beach call me up the other day and wanted me to try and get one of his commissioners to run for reelection.
I’m not saying everything is great – we need to quit all the wasteful spending and bring jobs back to America but there is money out there that if you don’t get for your community, someone else is going to get for theirs. So there is no need to get ridiculous about it and not go after it. If you have continuity in your organization and, things do not happen in a year or two years, some can take up to 10 years or longer to happen. These agencies look at that and that is why Morehead City has been so successful in obtaining a lot of assistance from federal and state agencies. We haven’t had to spend our local tax dollars. Another thing the number one thing that a mayor does is he is the public relations person. He is the one that sells his community. He is the one that makes people feel comfortable and want to come live in that
municipality. It is his job to set the tone – and I don’t mean burden – it depends on his personality that sets the type of tone for that community. You have been to some boards where you have seen unruly meetings where they get out of control. When that happens you can’t make responsible decisions – you make knee jerk decisions – you make mad decisions – or you walk away and don’t make any decisions. Under these circumstances, it will not be good for the community. So you want to maintain that calmness, and get better results from your governing board.
That’s my job. I feel that when you come to our city council meetings and you are sitting out there, you are looking at a business, at a board of directors, and you want us to act like professionals. You want us to understand that we are spending your money, your investment, and want to be aware of what we are doing with it. And I want to know what we are doing with it as well. I want you to know what we are doing with it. That is another big roll for a mayor is to have that personality; that trust between the council members, and the community. It is a trusting relationship. The mayor’s position is an honorable position. It is a very integral position and an honest position. It is not a gray area. If you know me I am not a gray person, I’m either black or white. You will know where I stand at, but I am not always firm on that stance. New information could move me over a little bit, but you will know where I am standing. I will not be on the fence teetering one way or the other, so that you walk away feeling uncomfortable about your leadership and investment. This is my passion. I wish I could make a living doing it, but I owe too many bills. When I first got elected, 12 years ago, I had help. I don’t know if any of you remember Mayor Horton, who was well respected in the community, and I tried to follow in his leadership style. I grew up with Bud Dixon. Bud did a lot for Carteret County. Before I close I would like to reiterate that this is why it is so important that you have continuity. We, in Morehead City, governed about 26 to 28 thousand people. That is almost half the population of Carteret County, so you are influenced even though you may not be in our ETJ. What we do affects everybody in the county. We try to balance our residential areas. I want you to feel safe at home. We do have to have our business districts. We want to be able to buy things, but just as important –we want them to come in and pay a lot of taxes, so they can keep our taxes low – and that is why we have designated this place out west of Morehead to be our shopping center and I don’t want them to get much closer into our residential area.
In closing, I am reminded about a lot of wisdom from a lot of people over the years, and three terms of advice that have been given to me are (one from Ms Geri Femia) (1) hold everybody up to the highest esteem (2) never, ever forget your roots. (3) Love your people and they will love you back. You may not live in Morehead City and be able to vote for me, but you probably know someone who does. If I could ask you to do that, I would appreciate it. Now I’ll open up for questions.
BOB asked when was the election – November 6th ? Mayor answered it is the first Tuesday in November. It is not a primary, but a general election.
BOB asked how many town council members are up for election? Answer – Paul Cordova who is our tenured council member has filled for reelection. David Horton, who has vacated his position to run for mayor and John Nelson has retired.
BOB – What is the city manager’s job in relation to everything? Answer – Randy Martin, our city manager, makes about a $100,000.00 a year, plus benefits. (Probably around $110 to $115). In the US there are two types of mayors. You have your strong mayor system and your weak mayor system. In NC they are all weak mayors. The strong mayor system is what you find in the large cities, like NY City, where the mayor has veto power. He is able to appoint department heads, committees, and has a lot of control. In North Carolina we have the weak mayor system and the weak mayor system is that the mayor doesn’t have that veto system, doesn’t hire or fire, and doesn’t appoint committees, by himself. He works with his council. There are two types of government there also. You have the mayor/council form of government and the council/manager form of government. The manager works at the pleasure of the council. The council hires the manager to run the city. Back in the old days the mayor ran the city. If your roof springs a leak, you call a roofer; if your city has a problem you call the city manager. Randy works at the pleasure of the board. He does not answer to one or two on the board, he answers to the whole board. He is very influential, but that is what he is hired to be.
BOB – How long has Randy been town manager? Answer – He’s been in Morehead City about 15 or 16 years.
ERIC – Thought the town manager reported to the mayor and participated in council meetings. He does the general day to day management? So the mayor can’t say ‘Hey, Randy, I would like you to look at this and get back to me.’ Answer – In a working relationship, yes, he does answer to me as the mayor, and I can tell him to do something and he should do that, but the mayor does not have the authority by himself to really order him around. The council can, but just day to day routine and I say Randy, I would like you to do this, or that; yes, he will do that.
ERIC – So in reality you are in the chain of command for him. Answer – Yes, I represent the council and am the chief executive officer of the town. But I can’t fire Randy. That would have to be a majority of the board decision.
Questions, remarks, and answers were made on the O’Neill Park; most of which have been covered in previous meetings.
BOB brought up the subject of the PCS situation. How in the world could all the officials, town council members, even county commissioners, not know what was going on. Now they are all sitting around going like this (fingers pointed away from each other), while shrugging their shoulders. How could they not possibly not known what was going down the pike. The innuendo appears that someone was on the take. He said the mayor had said it kinda got sprung on them the first part of June and he had read in the paper that the mayor was going to do something that would ensure this type of thing never happened again. Answer – Yeah, you are right, those doing the finger pointing thing are not leaders. You will never see me do that. Morehead City policy is when environmental permits come in; it is handled at the staff level, planning level. All they are doing is reviewing and ensuring it meets city ordinances before it goes out. This is the current policy. I did not write that. It has never been a problem before, but apparently we have a problem now. That is what we are going to review, so we won’t have the same problem again. Yes, there was some verbage in there that said melting facility, but it did not raise a flag, even though it probably should have. As far as that department, they did nothing wrong. They were just following policy. I can not blame any of them for that.
ERIC said he had talked to the second in command and he said the air quality control assessments had gone out to everyone, including New Bern, the latter part of December and there was a comment period that all the government agencies involved had until January 31 to respond. He knows it was received by Morehead City. It landed on someone’s desk, whether they had the ability to review it or not, communications broke down at that point. How did it get all the way to June, when only one more permit was required before anyone became aware of what was happening. Mayor said he did not know if it was a communications breakdown or just a bad policy. If he had been looking at that assessment, he would not just be looking at the air quality, but also the zoning. He lives in down town Morehead and he does not want a smoke stack down there. Talking about a 95 million dollar (offensive) facility right here, you have a yacht basin there, and if you build that facility, where are they going to go. You know they are not going to stay there. They are going to move out, so what have we gained. Not a net gain, but a net loss, so that is what he would be looking at from a tax base and job maker.
PCS said they were going to create 18 jobs, but 13 were already existing. If you are going to build a $95 million facility, I don’t think 185,000 dollars is going to make or break that project. That is how much money they were talking about receiving from NC Commerce. To receive that $185,000.00, Carteret County had to match $90,000.00 of it. So everybody was sworn to secrecy. I did not know this as Mayor of Morehead City. I found out about this on June 7 as President of the Economic Council. My director came to me and said Jerry, I’ve got to tell you something. I know I signed a confidentiality paper, but I have to show you something. Even our board didn’t know it, because our director had signed it. The Executive Board met and said ‘No, this is not going to happen.’ Since then we have changed our EDC policy. Keep in mind we have a brand new director. I’m not throwing him under the bus either, and he, the mayor, was new to the board also. Now, any member of the EDC board can sign a copy of confidentiality agreement and if he does he can disclose it to the rest of the board. Mayor Jones said he found out about it as President of EDC before being told as mayor what exactly was going on down there. Expanding the facility, putting more docks in didn’t mean anything to him. ERIC said it was his understanding that since all this had come about the matter was now going to be put to rest. The mayor said yes, but not to mislead anyone, the Morehead City council had known about the expansion a long time, but did not know about the sulfur melting until recently.
ERIC said ‘in his speech to the City Council on May 10, 2011, I raised the concerns that our city government has a prioritization and spending problem in the allocated use of taxpayer’s money. Since the latter part of 2007, when the economy started its downward spiral into a deep recession, Morehead City spent over $10 million dollars on projects that was not critical to the operations of the city. The projects that the money was spent on was $1.3 million for the JIB property; $6 million on a new police and EMS station; $1.2 million above the original $1.2 million on the O’Neill field, and $1.2 million on two boat ramps. This does not factor in the ongoing operational or maintenance costs for these projects or the High School building that was purchased on Bridges Street for $1 million that is currently underutilized. How does all this type of spending, especially during a recession, fit into the world of things concerning one of the primary principles of the TEA Party which is fiscal responsibility? That’s the first question.
Would it not have been wiser to apply these funds towards the outstanding debts owed by Morehead City, NC (i.e. the Water Treatment Plant)? What can you say that would make these folks here believe that your future policies and recommendations to the City Council will be of a sound nature and fiscally responsible?
Mayor Jones said he would answer that in three parts: The Jib Property in downtown Morehead. Morehead is synonymous with its water front. Without its waterfront you will lose a lot of tourists spending money there. And the Big Rock, which is a private organization, has over a ½ million dollars in this project. And that is just the beginning of it. It is not all on the tax payers, but we are looking at the bigger picture of revitalizing down town Morehead to actually help the taxpayers. When our guests come in and spend money it keeps our tax burden down. On the police department, as I previously stated I look at the 50 year plan, and this is the first police department ever built. Previously it was in the old municipal building on A Street, and they did put a jail cell in there but that has been there since we had 4 or 5 policemen and now we have 30 + policemen. It was time. Not being a wealthy person, I tell this story about when he bought a new boat and someone asked how much it had cost. He told them $250.00 a month. He said no, he wanted to know how much it cost. I asked him why, did he have $14,000.00 to buy it. I don’t so it costs me $250.00 a month. To me that is part of budgeting. We have a debt service that we have allocated X amount of dollars per month or annually; however we pay them back. This police department was presented as a net savings (I would have to check to get the amount for you). Out of the $6 million building the county owns $2 million of it. They put the 9-11 center up there. Since they have done that, we have, and luckily the Morehead City police department they also hired MC dispatcher. They had to apply for the position. They got hired in there along with some others. So we don’t pay for dispatchers any more. So the savings of the salaries and benefits also offset the costs of that building. I feel like it was a good fiscal plan.
ERIC said but was not the building on Bridges Street purchased to be the next police station?
Mayor Jones said actually it is supposed to be the next administrative building for Carteret County. That is their plan. They are going to renovate ½ and MC is going to renovate the other ½. We sold the property. That was kind of a flip, for property that was down on Sunset Drive on the water that we sold for 1.6 million dollars and we used that to buy the Bridges Street building. He thought that was a good deal.
ERIC asked what Morehead City’s current debt service was. Mayor said well, the Water Treatment Building is about $16 million, so would guess somewhere around $25 million.
ERIC said he understood the city employees had not had an increase in pay in several years. You know when you walk into the grocery store what is happening to the prices, so he feels it imperative that the city take care of these employees.
ERIC said as you know the TEA Party’s core values are Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government, and Free Markets. As mayor how do you expect to achieve these values in the next 2 years if reelected? Fiscal Responsibility – The mayor said he feels they do that. He feels that if anything happens to him tomorrow, he is confident that he has set the stage for future generations where they will be OK in MC. He only sees Operational Spending, and no more Capital Spending. He does not see any further capital projects coming on line in the near future. Limited Government – Do not take to the extreme but maintain balance. Rumor is going around that they are going to raise taxes. He said they will remain revenue neutral and that means they will not take in any more than they did last year. It was 28.3 cents and they did it for 28.5 cents. It is not like they went above revenue neutral, not with 14/100s of a penny. It is not devastating by any means. We do operate under a balanced budget. We are mandated to. We’re not like the federal government, we can’t just print more money. Free Market Capitalism – In the past few years we have increased the number of businesses here. Is there anything new coming down the road that you know of. Morehead City (Carteret County) has the highest retail sales in any city in NC. It is not because of the locals in Carteret County. It is because all these people that come through Carteret County spend money here. And for those of us who grew up here we know how much better off we are. I remember the days when Labor Day came around and everybody went back home, we rolled up the streets. It was a tough time to make a living back then. Carteret County is a little more buffered than most counties because these people come here and spend their money. HOWARD said we also have Cherry Point and Camp Lejeune. The mayor said he hated to hear about those F18’s that we lost to Calif. HOWARD said NC had a lot to do with us losing those planes. When the government was denied the chance to have an outlying landing field for these planes, it was obvious to him we would lose them and we did. This landing field was necessary, and NC didn’t want it in their back yard. If we here in Carteret had helped them get this OLF, we might could have gotten those squadrons. HOWARD said you talk about the tourists spending their money in MC, where do you think Newport citizens spend their money? If MC would get a Sam’s, then you would get all of our money. MC gets a whole lot of sales tax money, also. You would be amazed how much these little fire departments in the outlying towns, get in sales tax money. The mayor said in MC alone, they get 28 million a year in liquor sales. HOWARD said he did not buy his liquor in MC.
ERIC asked what set him apart from his opponent. Why did he think he was better to serve as mayor than Councilman David Horton. Mayor Jones said he felt one of his qualities is ‘team building’. He learned a long time ago that you can’t achieve anything by yourself. You have to have the trust of those you are working with. That is a very strong suit of mine. I strongly feel that it’s not always about the money. The money is very, very important, but it is not always about the money. You have to balance that out too. When you are providing public services, you have to look at that service and sometimes it comes at a cost. If it was all about the money we could just get rid of it all completely. I think the position of the mayor is a very humble position. You need to maintain that and be respected. It needs to be one of integrity. It doesn’t need to be confrontational and when people come to Carteret County and MC, they need to be made to feel welcome here. One philosophy of mine is ‘my door is always open’ and I am for anything until proven differently. Some people’s door is shut until you force them to open it. As far as business ability, I think it is tit for tat on that one. We are both business owners.
CLAYTON GILLIKIN asked if the mayor knew what percentage of local people, that have been here for over 50 or 60 years compared to the outsiders moving in (sometimes referred to as ding batters or dit dotters. The mayor said there is a difference. The ding batters come for a visit and the dit dotters come and stay. Which is Clayton referring to? The mayor said he could tell about MC (which kind of balances with Carteret County). About 40% of home owners here are absentee home owners. That is a big positive. That’s 40% that is paying taxes and getting part-time services. CLAYTON said in other words about 60% were born and raised here. Yeah. The mayor said he left the area and went to college, and things didn’t work out for him back then, and for financial reasons, plus that is where he wanted to be. When he go to evaluating and was looking for ways to make it work out, and deciding where he wanted to live, which was Carteret County, so he chose to come back here and started his own business, and has been doing it for 30 some years. A lot of his school mates left the area and went elsewhere because they couldn’t make a living here…and there is still not a lot of potential today, but it is better than it used to be. What are these old friends doing now? They are coming back and they are buying investment property, but they are ultimately buying their retirement home. This might not be the greatest place to make a living but it is the greatest place in the world to raise your family, or retire to. A lot of people who were born here are coming back.
Question – As mayor, what do you find to be your biggest challenge as far as motivating your council and community…getting them to follow where you want to go? Mayor asked, do you mean in general or specific? General. Mayor said his biggest challenge is juggling his mayor’s job, his family, and his business. You can’t afford to just be mayor unless you are retired or wealthy and I am neither. I am MC first working mayor. Every mayor before me was retired. The first thing you have to do is tell people what you are going to do and do it. Once said, they know what to expect. I structure so many hours a week for mayor duties. I am at city hall every day from 10 to 11 o’clock (exceptions to every rule). Now everyone knows if they want to talk to the mayor they have to come between 10 and 11 o’clock. That has been one of my biggest challenges is juggling my personal life with my business and mayoral life. Evidently it is working. People are not dumb. They know when someone is just there for personal reasons. They can see right through them. Someone once said there is nothing more sincere than the heart of a volunteer. I think people see that in me and realize it is not for any personal gain. It is because I love my community and want to continue working with the public.
ERIC asked if he considered himself a fiscal conservative. Mayor said ‘I was raised a Democrat and one of the things we had to do at the school I attended on finances was to declare a party. You had to do that before you graduated political leadership. When he mentioned this to his dad, he was told ‘what’s to decide – you’re a Democrat’. Growing up in Carteret County, most of us understood that back then. Things have changed now. One day his professor came up to him and asked what he had decided he was. He guessed he was embarrassed to say he wasn’t a Democrat. He said he had kinda made up his mind and he thought he was leaning toward Republican. He said what’s the problem – it’s quite obvious. He was just waiting for Jerry Jones to say that. He told Jones that he was a moderate conservative. You have a balance. When he was president of the League of Municipalities, he was told the same thing. He thinks that is where he has a good cross over with people, but he is definitely on the conservative side. I would like to say this in answer to the question, I understand partisan support to get elected somewhere. I don’t think you should elect someone just because of what part they are in. I think you should support them for their beliefs, their ideology, and for what they stand for, but I also believe once you are elected, you need to take that party hat off and serve all the people.
BOB asked if anyone else had a question. Last chance to beat up on a living, breathing mayor. BOB thanked Mayor Jerry Jones for coming tonight and told him he was welcome to sit here and listen. We are going to go on a little bit longer.
BOB told about his coming to Carteret County from New Jersey, fresh out of boot camp, and thinking ‘the Marine Corps had to look long and hard to find such a remote place’. He remembers standing in line at the grocery store and the cashier and the lady ahead of him were just chit chatting away. BOB was getting a little antsy wanting to get his pack of cigarettes and get out of there. Finally the lady at the register turned around to him and said very calmly, “Sonny, just take it easy, I’ll get to you”. It took him about 4 years to get New Jersey out of him to where he could finally just sit back and relax and enjoy the tranquility of the area. His hobby all through school, the Marine Corps and to this day, was collecting butterflies and the woods and fields of NC were just a butterfly paradise. I stayed here in this area when I got out of the Marine Corps, because this area reminded me of the coast of New Jersey where he grew up back in the 60’s. In 1992 he went back to NJ to attend a funeral of a nephew who had accidentally shot himself (playing Wyatt Earp), and decided to take his wife through the hood where he grew up. When he was there it was a rural area, with small strip malls, farm fields. Now he had no idea where he even was. It had totally changed, endless strip malls and subdivisions. The boundaries between towns were totally erased. You couldn’t tell when you left one town and entered another. It was so depressing. It brought a tear to my eye; what happened to my world. It only survives in my memory anymore. I hope Morehead City and Carteret County will be somehow be able to hang on to its ambiance, its character, so that 50 years down the road when some of our kids come back here, they won’t be saying ‘My God, what happened to my world?’ That is what BOB wants to pass on – keep Morehead Morehead and don’t let it turn into another Myrtle Beach, SC. ERIC said like maybe Harkers Island. BOB said even Harkers Island has changed drastically. Have you seen all those big fancy homes there now? Several other changes to the area in recent years were mentioned.
FRED DECKER said there was a piece in the paper today about Pat (McElraft) and Jean (Preston) about the award they won. (being conservative) It is the second year they have won this prestigious award. They explained their campaign support (campaign contributions) quickly. HOWARD said it is on the front page of the Jacksonville paper, an excellent article. Be sure to read it. Fred said that she had received a 39 cent donation and she had included it.
HOWARD told BOB ‘speaking about when you first came here, Peggy worked in payroll at Cherry Point in 1954. They paid the marines in cash. Those marines when they came here, were constantly cussing about why would anyone want to live in this God forsaken place. A lot of them, if they are still alive, are still around here. You couldn’t run them off. PEGGY said she would get so angry at the way they talked about her home here on the coast.
BOB recognized a couple of ladies that had arrived late. They were Kelly Gordon and Angela Murphy. BOB invited them to come back. They live in Craven County (Havelock). Both their husbands are marines.
RUTH PARKER reminded BOB that we had made arrangements to meet on August 16 in Cape Carteret, and hadn’t we invited Mr. Horton to come and speak with us. BOB asked ERIC to please contact Mr. Horton and try to arrange another date.
ERIC held up a small cup (usually used for pills in the hospital) with a small pill in it, and said, We have all heard about Cut, Cap, and Balance and all the arguments surrounding it. Well, he and his wife had had an argument last night and this was his cut, cap, and balance ‘ his supper’. She used to be a Democrat but is now a “fiscal” conservative. He is thinking about getting her to go back to being a Democrat. This is what you call deficit spending.
With that, BOB adjourned the meeting at 7:00 pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary
