MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
SEPTEMBER 20, 2011
Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:23pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by LOU KULULINSKI
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
Meeting was delayed pending the conclusion of a special meeting of the Rotary Club due to a mix up in scheduling.
BOB acknowledged that several of our regular members were missing tonight due to the Western Carteret TEA Party meeting in Cape Carteret.
BOB wanted to know if anyone had heard anything from EULA PARKIN since she was absent. No one had heard anything. All hoped she was OK.
BOB asked DAVID COX to introduce the lovely lady with him. DAVID introduced his wife, SHEILA and a lot of ribbing followed.
BOB recognized ANNE LOMBARDI from Cape Carteret. He said she was checking us out tonight and later would probably check out the Western Carteret TEA Party meetings (or as BOB refers to them ’the Out West TEA Party’. He warned us to be on our best behavior. He explained to ANNE that we were all the same group, but since Carteret County was such a long county, we had started another group to meet in the western end of the county and hoped sometime in the near future to get a group going down east.
BOB asked if anyone knew anything about CLAYTON and GRACE GILLIKIN. They have not been here in a few weeks now. At least not since the storm.
BOB reported that NANCY BOCK, our Treasurer, who was not with us tonight having gone to her son’s Soccer game in Mount Olive, had emailed him that we have about
$1,280.00 in our account. She promised all the money is still there, that she hadn’t touched it!!! Even though we have not seen her in quite a few weeks now, he understood she had showed up the night we cancelled the meeting for the storm.
He reported that ERIC BROYLES was absent tonight due to his wife illness. He understands that she is bed-ridden, something about a bad reaction to a drug she has to take. ERIC didn’t go into detail.
WAYNE WILLIS is also on the missing list tonight as he is tied up with completing the POP game which is progressing quite nicely now. The remaining additions are relatively simple now, and with the patriotic music selections, pictures, one liners, speeches, and ease of learning to play, he believes it will be good for all players. BOB said he thinks it is going to be pretty exciting when that whole board game (which is now on computer, not a ’board game’ anymore). BOB tried to explain, to those who were not familiar with the game, how it operated. PEGGY GARNER said WAYNE had told her that he had spoken with a nurse who was interested in adapting the concept into an informational data program for cancer patients and care givers. It would appear that it could be modified to accept many different subjects. We all might be saying one of these days – I knew WAYNE when!!!!’
BOB introduced Wayne Schriever, who is with the Carteret Literacy Council. Wayne said he was familiar with the TEA Party. He had been at a GOP meeting last Tuesday where he is a member of the board and met some of our members there. He also had gone with the group of TEA Party members that went to Washington last year. He explained that he was on the Carteret Literacy Board and like every other program in the state it has been cut back in funding. Most of the money they raise is through a fund raiser “A Spelling Bee” that they hold in October. The Literacy Council’s objective is working with about 60 adults that sometimes can neither read nor write, and sometimes both. They usually are of American background, not people who come into this country not knowing how to read or write, but are Carteret Countians who either have very little education or in some cases are High School Graduates who never learned. Wayne is currently working with a 36 year old who has learning problems but graduated from high school. He is currently reading at a kindergarten level. It is unbelievable that there are people like that around today. But there are a lot and some of them may even be your neighbor. But they have learned to hide it so well you never suspect they have a problem. They also have a program at the hospital called ’Books for Babies’. Every child born in Carteret County gets a book that is easy to read. They also have a program in Newport where adults go into the schools and read to the very young children. They do a lot in the county and they are asking for support of this spelling bee. They sell letters ’ABC’s (alphabet). They have about 36 organizations in the county that have pledged $100 each for a letter and he thought he would come to the TEA Party and request their support. He said he had received checks from Republicans and Conservatives but found that the Democrats were tighter with their money. They talk a good game but do not support as often. Members of the Literacy group that are Democrats were amazed at the difference in the groups with their donating. They have a budget of about $20,000, which pays for the books they buy, their Secretary, office fees, printing supplies, copy repairs, etc. It is a lot to get out of the $20,000. The Spelling Bee is the 28th of October (Friday before Halloween) at the History Place in down town Morehead City. He invited us to join them. It is a dinner and the spelling bee is quite nice and a lot of fun, with contestant teams from East Carteret, West Carteret, Croatan, Wachovia Bank, etc…about 8 teams or so and they have some fun and it’s a great way to raise some money. Each team has 3 people (all adults and from the schools are teachers). They have articles in the paper listing the sponsors/supporters, their names are included in the folders they pass out, and your sponsor name is shown beneath your letter. It is a good way to let Carteret County know who supports this worthy organization and Carteret County. Often it is the little Mom and Pop businesses that appear to have to struggle to make ends meet that are the ones that make the donations. BOB asked if there was a motion on the floor to support this Spelling Bee Fund Raiser by buying the letter “T”. Motion made and seconded. BOB asked for discussion. BOB said he thought this was a good idea, since we had just gone through a big battle over the school budget. Helping kids, he is all, for but does not want to use just tax payer money to educate the children. HOWARD said this is for adults except for the Books for Babies. BOB asked who was the spelling bee champion last year. Wayne said Croatan has won for the last several years. HOWARD said he wanted to make a comment on who donates and who doesn’t. He has read about several studies that showed liberals do not donate to causes as much as conservatives. The liberals want to give away ‘your money’ but conservatives don’t mind giving what they have earned. BOB said he had read that the most charitable state in the nation is Mississippi, the poorest state in the union. BOB asked for a show of hands for buying the letter “T” for $100.00. It was unanimous. He asked PEGGY to contact Nancy and have her write a check to Carteret Literacy Council for $100.00 for the letter “T” from the Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriots and mail the check to Wayne Schriever, 106 White Sands Drive, Emerald Isle, NC 28574. BOB thanked Wayne for attending tonight and for all the good work the Literacy Council was doing for the county.
BOB asked who looked at our Face Book page on a regular basis. Did anyone have any comments about it? PEGGY said that we had a lot of people putting stuff in there. BOB said it really is only about 3 people but Face Book is supposed to be a social networking where people can have ongoing discussions but these folks who are not a part of the Carteret County group have joined on and they are just posting everything they find while cruising the internet and find anything they find interesting they just post it up there. It doesn’t have anything to do with Carteret County or anything to do the TEA Party’s three principles. He wrote one fella and said, ’Please cease and decease spamming our Face Book with everything that ‘you’ find interesting. It is already on the internet, you do not have to tie up the Face Book, unless you have a comment to make on it.’ He has ignored BOB’s request. That was why he was asking if anyone tried to read all the posts and links involved. You will run out of time of day if you try. Other concern is people who are anti TEA Party, anti conservative, or anti anything, could put a link up there that could include a virus when you open the link. He and Ken are thinking about just banning these people from the Face Book Page. LOU said don’t you have to unfriend them when you do that. Didn’t you have to make them Friends prior to their being able to go on our Face Book. BOB said no it was open to the public. ERNIE GUTHRIE said he thought we could make it so you had to join in order to log on. BOB said we may have to go to something like that but we advertise our web page, and he hates to have people go to the web site, and when they click on the Face Book icon have to ask permission to join. LOU said other Face Book pages are like that. BOB said that is for personal pages not an organizational page. ERNIE said you still could have it so they had to join the group to be able to view the information available. We need more information on Face Book joining.
ERNIE said he had seen a blog on Havelock placing a ban on carrying a weapon onto their park areas. LOU said “They only have one park in Havelock, right? Answer was no there are three, the small one near the plane, the bigger one where they have the circus and then there is a big one with tennis courts on Hwy 101.
BOB asked HOWARD to tell us about the event he went to last week. HOWARD said “Last Friday night he and PEGGY, HARRY THOMPSON and his wife, Sarah, and JERE along with a large crowd, attended the Craven-Pamlico Christian Coalition 18th Annual ‘God and Country Banquet’. It was exceptionally informative. BOB asked if it was well attended. HOWARD said the room (convention center) was packed. HOWARD read their Mission Statement since he felt it pretty much paralleled ours: 1. To inform and educate the public on issues of moral and political concern. 2. To restore to all levels of government the Judeo-Christian values upon which this nation was founded and 3. To encourage and activate pro-family voters. He said the speaker was LTG (Ret) William ’Jerry’ Boykin. He graduated from New Bern High School in 1966. He made a speech on God and Country and it was truly outstanding. He also has a web site ’kingdomwarrior.net, but PEGGY has not had time to check it out yet. Invocation was given by Justice Paul Newby, NC Supreme Court, and benediction was given by Representative Norman Sanderson. Frank Palombo, candidate for congress 2012 was recognized; as was Jean Preston. BOB asked wasn’t Sanderson an ordained minister?
Reply was yes. HOWARD said this retired general got to a point in his talk and said ’now I’ve gone to preaching and mentioned that he was an ordained minister. He travels constantly. HOWARD wants to go to his web site and find our more about him. The general did say his wife was a member of the TEA Party and had a TEA Party license plate (TEA Partier). HOWARD said he would recommend that if you get the chance to go next year (it is an annual affair) you need to try to make it. PEGGY said the food was outstanding also. BOB asked what was it…BBQ? She said no, it was turkey and dressing , gravy, mashed potatoes, beans, corn, tossed salad, and fabulous deserts. Tickets were $15.00 per person. BOB asked HOWARD to put it on his calendar so he could remind the group so they can get tickets next year. HOWARD said he didn’t know right now when it would be but would try to find out in time next year. They sell tickets in advance and there were no seats left untaken.
BOB asked if Walter Jones was there and HOWARD said no. BOB said that reminded him of an event that occurred after the hurricane this year. The storm hit Friday night/Saturday morning and he called Palombo Sunday morning just to see what he was doing. Palumbo was in Minnesott. BOB asked what he was doing there and Palombo said he was checking to find out what kind of emergency response they were getting from the government. He was checking with FEMA, Red Cross folks, and others. He said the following day he was going to Pamlico. He said the people down there really got wiped out. He said the people there were alright but they didn’t know who was going to pick up the debris they were placing along the road side. They had no trouble cutting it up, but had no way to dispose of it. BOB checked Walter Jones site, thinking he would be all over the 3rd District since it had taken pretty much the brunt of the storm when it came inland, and found Jones had boarded a Coast Guard Helicopter and did a fly over. The next day he co-signed a letter with both of our Senators urging Obama to expedite the emergency declaration of disaster for NC. BOB was upset that Jones had not bothered to even land and talk with or reassure some of the survivors of the disastrous storm. BOB thought it was commendable that Palombo, who lives in New Bern, drove all the way to Minnesott and Pamlico County. Doing a fly over is not as effective as meeting and talking to a person who has a tree laying on top of his house.
BOB said he understood that CURTIS WILLIAMS is a fan of the new Glenn Beck television show. Did he want to tell us about it. “GBTV” He paid for a whole year, rather than mess around with payments every month. It comes on at 5:00 pm each day of the week and runs for two hours. It has been pretty good, except for a few glitches at the beginning (maybe because of his stupidity, not knowing what was going on until he figured it out.) The show is pretty much a steady stream (occasionally it will have to hesitate and let it catch up). For the most part there are very few interruptions. He was kinda worried because it was going to be a two hour show (and when Glenn had a one hour show CURTIS was always concerned about the world coming to an end). But this is not that intense. He has a history lesson, guests that come on, Blaze does a news segment – 2 or 3 times during the show. His favorite is the history part. Friday he had a segment with David Barton on the Declaration of Independence, how it related to the Constitution and Federalists Papers. They were talking about how ‘they’ are trying to discredit the Declaration of Independence. Once ‘they’ get that out of the way, then ‘they’ can work on the Constitution. It is real interesting and he had enjoyed it but you have to have two hours to put into it. BOB asked what did he mean about the Constitution going together with the Declaration of Independence. CURTIS said they were talking about where our founders based their laws on Judeo-Christian values and the bible and that is how a lot of our laws came about. In the Declaration of Independence they talk about the creator two or three times, so if anybody was trying to say we were not a Christian nation, they need to go back and read it. HOWARD said that is something that General said in his speech the other night that Europe is gone but we still have time to save our country. But if we don’t do something we are down the drain too. JERE said if anyone was interested in David Barton to go on line to wall builders.com. You can buy CDs, books, all kinds of stuff there, about the founding of this nation. You mentioned that the Bible was one of the documents that was used by the founders; it was used more than 3,000 times, more than 10 times any other document. So anybody that doesn’t think this nation was founded on Christian values they need to go back and read history.
LOU asked if anyone went on line to the Hillsdale Constitution class. Except for one professor it was excellent. The one that did the Federalist Papers was about as boring as you can get, but the rest was excellent. On the web site now, they have all the sessions on DVD, links available to check it out and it is all free. Plus you can sign up for Imprimis newsletter.
BOB asked was anyone getting excited about the upcoming Republican candidates and the debates. FRED said he was waiting to see who else was coming in. ERNIE said Ron Paul had won the straw poll in California. HOWARD said Ron Paul was speaking at Walter Jones fund raiser at the Country Club in Greenville. Tickets start at $125.00. BOB said Jones endorsed Ron Paul last time he ran and is going to do so again this time.
HOWARD read an email he received about the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools claiming they are up the creek financially to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, in a bid to get the county to raise taxes and fork the loot over to them. Then when they get the money – or not – they later conveniently discover they were never actually broke to begin with. This is not the first year they have done this. It appears that this is routine for many of the school districts in the state. The Gilford School System hid $10 million. (HOWARD read where Gilford County only funds their schools $7,000 per student where Carteret funds theirs at $9,000. $8800 he believes) The schools are desperate, everything is going to fall apart, gonna have to fire teachers, and sacrifice special education programs, etc.,… and ’wow, guess what we find out…. they found enough money to keep both the programs and teachers they were going to lose. Sound familiar – happened in Carteret also. BOB said his neighbor across the street put up a For Sale sign in front of their house. When he asked about it he was told that she had lost her job as a teacher. Later the sign came down and when he asked again, she said she had been rehired. HOWARD said a lot of that happened. BOB said when they talk about how many employees the schools are losing, he found out many of them are let go every year anyway due to being temporary employees whose jobs run out at the end of every year. They are later rehired at the beginning of the next school year. They are just playing word and numbers games.
ERIC and KEN have been boning up on the school issues, with a lot of emails between, school board, superintendent, money people (budget guy for the school system). He feels by the time this comes around next time, we are really going to be prepared. He understands that C4 is still functioning and working on increasing their funding. HOWARD said he understands they have even joined the Chamber of Commerce. Question was raised why the School Board did not have to undergo and audit every year like businesses do. BOB said they are currently undergoing two audits right now. (Someone said yeah, probably auditing themselves). BOB said he understands that the company Joy Bell sold out to (McGladrey and Pullen) is doing one of the audits, and the state, he thought, was doing the other audit. HOWARD said McGladrey and Pullen was doing most of the audits of the Fire and EMS Departments in this county and the commission, that he serves on, gets a report from them. Their audit report is nothing but a CYA thing. It is useless, in his opinion and he has seen a bunch of them, and they get big money for it. It is disgusting. BOB said what do you suggest we do. HOWARD said he didn’t know the answer. They are careful what they point out because they want to get the contract again next year. If they stir up too much they won’t get it again. Question – Why don’t they put the audits out for bids? Don’t know how the system works. ERNIE said maybe we need to go out the county to find someone to audit. HOWARD said McGladry and Pullen was a national corporation, he was pretty sure. ERNIE said maybe an auditing firm that was not in this area. BOB said we probably would if we were in charge but we’re not. FRED said this is another reason why we need to find someone to run for the school board. HOWARD said KEN and ERIC and some of the County Commissioners are having an extremely hard time getting the facts.
PEGGY said “On Nancy’s email, she stated she was out of medium and 2XL short sleeve tees and wanted to know if she should order some“. Since we are talking about changing our emblem, PEGGY recommended that we not order anymore and let our supply run out until we decide what organization we plan to sponsor. BOB said he concurred with that plus he didn’t think we should be ordering short sleeve shirts right now anyway. PEGGY asked about the lady that came in last week to order a TEA Party shirt…didn’t she leave the money for one? BOB said Diane is in charge of that and hopefully she will contact Nancy, since Diane was the one that got the money. DENNIS TOMASO said the Hope for Warriors had the same emblem and we had been considering that as one of our charities. (Discussed Andrew, our Wounded Warrior, who went to Washington).
JERE wanted to remind everyone that the One Man/One Woman Marriage amendment has finally come out of committee and instead of getting on the November ballot, it will not get voted on until the May primary. That thing has been languishing in the General Assembly going on like 7 or 8 years. About 3 or 4 years ago he wrote a letter to every member of the general assembly and the governor. He got 3 replies. One from Mark Basnight who said we already have a general statute so we don’t need an amendment and he promptly shuffled it off to another committee, the Ways and Means Committee which had not met in 3 years. He got another letter from Fred Smith, who ran for governor from Johnston County a few years ago, a real nice letter saying he agreed with every thing JERE had said but unfortunately Mark Basnight has control of both houses and he does what he wants. The 3rd letter was from a lady representative, who just scribbled on his letter “I agree with this but there is nothing we can do.” This is our chance, so figure out how you are going to support this. It is important, because right now only a general statute keeps one man from marrying another man, or one man from marrying his dog, or his horse or his cat. This is important, because any liberal judge who sits on a law suit that concerns this statute can overturn the statute, but he can’t overturn part of the Constitution. HOWARD said it is going to be fought hard too. JERE said yes, and the Democrats have already caused it to be moved from November to May, because they are afraid that on the November ballot it would pull more Republicans out of their houses to go vote on it. Normally not as many people vote in May as in November. BOB said isn’t it today that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ends. So now anything goes! BOB said he was listening to Lockwood on the way to the meeting and a Marine from Jacksonville, said something to the effect that the Military Justice was going to take all the laws about sodomy off the books, which BOB disagrees with since it is illegal to sodomize anyone. While there may not be a ban against homosexuality, if you are admittedly a homosexual, but if you are, say the barracks officer going around doing room inspection and you open a door and there is one Marine sodomizing another …sodomy is still sodomy. You can get prosecuted for sodomizing your wife. If they are planning to remove any legal opposition to sodomy in Military Laws, he thinks other laws will override the military. ERIC said he thinks we should call every church in this county and tell them what is going and get them to stand up for what is right. FRED said they already know. The southern Baptist Assoc. has put out the word to their congregation. HOWARD said he hated to tell everyone but we have some gay preachers right here in this county but he wouldn‘t name any names.
BOB said in November we have local elections going on. In the 2010 election we had people sitting at the polls, passing out TEA Party recommendations. He would like for us to do that again this November, but time is running short. We have had a couple of them come and talk to us ….Jerry Jones and David Horton, running for mayor of MC. A lot of people are upset over the sulfur plant occurrence under Jones’ watch. Who is running for City Council? We don’t know because they have not come and talked to us. Down at Cape Carteret we had Dave Fowler, candidate for mayor of CC, and Renna (?) who is running for Town Board, come and talk to the newly formed TEA Party group. BOB said he was impressed with both Fowler and Renna and would like to see the TEA Party support them. Richard Hunt has done an excellent job in looking into the EMS. BOB said they had spent a lot of money on building a crematorium for burning road kill, when there was one already available in the county. ERNIE spoke on Dave Fowler having run unsuccessfully in the past and it would be a long shot if he won this time. ANNE (who had been a board member) said she had been impressed with Mr. Fowler in conjunction with the park there and how hard he had worked to get a bond approved, but was unsuccessful. But she appreciated what he had tried to do. BOB said Dave struck him as an honest, straight shooter. HOWARD said he was impressed when Mr. Fowler spoke to us that night in Cape Carteret; although he had worked for his opposition a few years back; there was no hard feelings.
BOB called on DAVID COX to talk to us about the Atlantic Beach races. The two ladies that had attended our last meeting had given us their side, so he understood that David had another side to tell…that one of them had gotten voted out of office last time. He said Ruth had gotten voted out the time before and had run again this last time, but did not get the votes needed. She is a real estate person. She was a member of the council and mayor that his (DAVID’s) group got together and voted out. The reason they did that was because, in his opinion, the old town board was looking out for the new town board which was made up of realtors, His thought was, that they thought whatever was good for them was good for Atlantic Beach. They wanted to put in an expensive sewer treatment plant so that they could build high rise condos. A group of regular people got together and ran against them and won. BOB asked who was in there now? DAVID said the group he had backed. BOB asked if they were happy with that group and why? DAVID said ‘they listen to the people’. They send out surveys, they listen to the people (property owners) and the residents. DAVID said they had a meeting coming up to discuss the upcoming election. DAVID said he had never been involved in politics until recently. He had moved down here to the beach about 10 years ago and he started going to the meetings since he only lived about two blocks away. It didn’t take him long to see the folks that were in office; when home owners and residents would stand up and try to voice their opinions, were ignored. It was obvious that they were disrespected by the “ins”. They would say ‘you don’t have anything to do with this. We’re the town board and mayor and we know what we need to do’. DAVID said that is why he got involved in politics at AB. BOB asked who was mayor of AB now and DAVID said Cooper. BOB wanted to know if anyone was running against him and DAVID said not that he knew of. They had Miller who is running for the vacant seat. They only have one vacant seat but they vote in all the commissioners and the mayor at each election. The important issue is ..there is a piece of property that they want to build a new town hall on. The other group wants to put the sewer plant there because there is no sewer on AB. He was still curious how they managed to build condos and apartments in some areas which were nothing but swamps. When you realize there are only 1200 residents on Atlantic Beach, year around, the influx of people are only there during vacation season. They have had water checks done and some of the water there on our beaches is the cleanest in NC. So the sewer system is working except for the restaurants on the causeway, which are more or less hooked up to Honey Wagons. HOWARD said that area was pumped in marsh so he didn’t see how they could possibly operate without the wagons. When the wagons are full, it is carried to Newport. It is not handled by the town of Newport, but by the farmers who use it to spray on their fields.
BOB informed us it was almost 7:30 and if there were no other items to discuss he was going to adjourned the meeting.
ERNIE said he had read where the man that originated the TSA is now calling for it to be disbanded. He thinks we are the laughing stock of the rest of the world. But who are they. Europe is falling apart anyway.
BOB adjourned the meeting at 7:33pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary