CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MINUTES OF
MARCH 27, 2012
Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
Attendance – 33
BOB recognized our guest speakers here tonight:
Pat McElraft – House of Representatives for Carteret County and Jones County (no
opposition in the Primary but will have in general election, Libertarian
Rike)
Dave McFadden – candidate for District Court Judge (running against Kirby Smith and
Bernard Bush)
Larry Land – candidate for County Commissioner, District 3 (opposition Terry Frank)
Harry Taylor – candidate for County Commissioner, District 5 (opposition Elaine
Crittenton)
BOB introduced Pat McElraft to speak to us first. BOB said anytime Pat showed up to one of our meetings, it made us feel like we were accomplishing something by getting the attention of those who matter. Pat said we had her heart. She reminisced about the first TEA Party rally we had at the Flea Market fair grounds that she attended and it was just amazing to see all those people getting involved, and the passion about saving this country and that is what it is all about. We start at the town level, county level, and state level, and all do our part. Without the TEA Party, this whole sleeping giant would not have awaken…so Thank GOD for the TEA Party. She came by today just for us, to answer any questions we may have, or discuss any subjects we might want her to talk about. She would like to go over some of the things they did this year. ‘It has been 140 years since the Republican party has been in control of the House and the Senate or really Conservatives have had control over House and Senate. They had one Unaffiliated who became a Republican at the end and was part of their caucus on the right. For the first time they had total control over the House and Senate. Everyone said they had a 3 billion dollar hole. It is not a good time for you all to be going in, you are going to be blamed for everything. We went in and we filled that hole by cutting; and going in and looking at and doing zero based budgeting, (not strict zero base budgeting) but looking at every department and seeing where they could cut; instead of raising your taxes. The easy thing to do was what our predecessors did for years and years was going and raising your taxes. You need more money you just raise taxes. When it comes out of your pocket; what does that do to the economy? So what we did this year is put 1.5 billion dollars back into the economy of North Carolina by lowering taxes! We did that by lowering corporate tax to bring more businesses here, because we had the highest corporate tax rate in the whole southeast and almost in the nation. We did that by cutting the three quarter cent sales tax out, which the governor is still trying to get. We put that money back in your pocket. The average that meant for each NC resident was about $200 per year. That is significant in people’s pockets when they are having to pay these gas prices today. On the House side, we also have voted to cap the gas tax. Now it goes over to the Senate side and they are going to do that in May. They promised us they would do it before it goes up again but they are going to look at it in totality to find out what can we do. When the wholesale price of gas has gone up then they penalized you more by having a higher gas tax. That needs to stop. We need to have a flat amount each year for budgeting and not worrying about whether gas prices go up or down. So they are looking into it, but the main thing they are going to do is cap it like it should have been done. The House did it at the very end and the Senate did not have the time to take it up is what they said. They are going to do that for you all, they promised this year. Some things that really help with businesses coming in to the state of North Carolina (not just businesses but people building houses or whatever) is regulatory reform. We did a lot of regulatory reform this year. We went out in six areas of the state that had public hearings about how you felt about over regulations penalizing you or your business. So we have regulatory reform in that it says ’no regulation, if there is a federal regulation for it, the state of NC can not be stricter than the federal regulation.’ The businesses are loving that. It is helping them a lot. Of course it was vetoed, but we overrode the veto. Governor Perdue came down into my district and said it was all my fault the sulfur smelting plant was going to be here because I was for this regulation reform. It had nothing to do with the sulfur smelting plant by the way. We also have a 50 thousand dollar personal income tax deduction for active business income for 450 thousand small business owners. So if you are a small business owner your first 50 thousand dollars of personal income tax will not be taxed. (Applause) We also took the cap off charter schools so that will make it more competitive for our public school system, so get out there and do a good job in educating the children. We also gave tax credits for children with disabilities, so they can leave the public school and go out – example, if they are deaf children, they can go out to where they can be best helped for their disability. That will be parental choice, and we figure about 10 to 20 percent will leave the public school system. The tax credit is exactly what we are paying to the school system, so it is not costing the tax payers any more money. It is doing a good thing for children with special disabilities. House Bill 588, this one you’ll love, it requires public schools to teach a semester in high school entitled ‘American History, the Founding Principles’. And it has to include ‘creator endowed inalienable rights of the people in the law, equal justice under the law, private property rights, federalism, due process, individual responsibility‘. That is going to be taught in high school now. (Applause) You know we wrote House Bill 2 to take North Carolinians out of the individual mandate and it was vetoed. It came back over and we had to do a political maneuver to have one of our members vote against the override so the bill could stay active. We have that bill for the override ready to go if they have a few members. On the Senate side they can override anything. On the House side we need four Democrats in order to override any vetos she has. We did it with the budget, we did it with regulation reform, and some other things, but Voter ID and House Bill 2, the health care thing, they did not go with us. We are waiting until some of them are absent and we have those bills ready to go. On property rights we repealed the land transfer tax. They can not do the land transfer tax in any county any more. Property land owners rights – we protect those with House Bill 762 and we reformed the involuntary annexation law. There were a lot of red shirts, just like you guys, came up to the Legislature for annexation reform and there will be no more forced annexation without a vote of the people. So that is a good thing. A lot of people said you need to take care of the economy thing and leave the social issues alone. Some of you may have that same philosophy, but we thought a lot of this was very important to do, so we went ahead. Amendment 1, be sure and go out and vote for or against, whichever you feel, the Marriage Amendment. That is very important to us because we are the only state in the south that does not have that in our constitution, that marriage is between a man and a woman. So it will be up to you to go out and vote on May 8. Whether you vote in the primary or not, you need to vote whichever way you feel about Amendment 1. That will then become a constitutional amendment. Then it will take more than just a judge to decide if North Carolina is going to allow same sex marriages. It should be a vote of the people, not of the judge.
ERIC BROYLES said several states have passed something like we are doing. What is going to make our state stand when some of those states are being challenged by the courts. Pat said she did not think the constitutional amendments were being challenged. (Short discussion) Pat said if Federal makes it a part of the Federal Constitution then that can override what we decide. HOWARD GARNER said Obama has spoken out against the constitutional amendment. BOB said California had a referendum but did not amend the constitution. Pat said right now we do have just legislation to have marriage between a man and woman in the state of North Carolina, as do many other states have it in their legislation. Now it actually takes a vote of 2/3 of the people to remove it from the constitution, so it is best if we can get it into the constitution, we are safer then than we are now.
Pat continued ‘The other thing the unborn victims act, we were the only state also in the south that didn’t have a pregnant woman who got killed and her unborn baby got killed also, (in North Carolina it was only one murder), until we had House bill 213. We finally got that bill through after trying for 6 years to get it through under the other control. We were able to get the “Unborn Victims Act” back in there. (Applause) We also got to choose ‘life’ license plates and then what happened, it went to Federal Court and there is an injunction on it cause they said we didn’t have a pro-choice one. But they could have put a pro-choice one in if they wanted to, but now the courts are going to decide that. The other thing there is a 24 hour wait for informed consent for a pregnant woman before an abortion. Only the ultra sound part of that is in court right now, but everything else is already. I was a primary sponsor on that bill. (Applause) BOB said he had heard that had saved 2200 abortions. Pat said ‘We have fiscal research on how much is this thing going to cost, a fiscal analysis, (even the people in the Fiscal Research Department were so against legislation, that they wrote that we were going to have to educate all these 2000+ children. It was going to cost the state $17 million a year to have these children born. We thought that was so ridiculous so everybody kinda said forget that. This is only 10% of babies aborted every year in NC. This is not taking away abortion rights, it is to allow a woman to have all the information, to hear and see an ultrasound, before she makes that important decision. We estimate that about 2200 women will change their mind and these babies will be born. I am very pro life and I hope I do not offend anyone here but I have always been and will be pro life. You can either fire me or hire me, but I will always be pro-life. We did a lot of other things but I felt these were the hi-lights of things you all might be interested in. Any questions?”
KEN LANG said it was more of a comment, because he was happy to have you guys still pushing that Voter ID thing. He heard on the radio today coming over here that there is an ID requirement now for taking the SAT for high school students. That they have to produce an ID
card now, because of all the problems that have been taking place. So now you have to show ID for almost everything you do, including taking the SAT, except vote…and we can’t get a Voter ID law. Pat said, “It makes no sense. And we are just one of a very few that don’t have a Voter ID law. But they are fighting it big time here. It just makes no sense at all. Most people, both Democrat and Republican want to show their ID when they come to vote because they want to make sure that their vote counts. It is very frustrating, but if we get a few people absent we can override that veto, so we keep it on the calendar, every time we go back into session. When we have a skeleton group there, everyone of them show up on the other side, because they were afraid we were going to bring it up again. The only problem is they ask for per diem too, so they tell them they are not going to get per diem when we only have a skeleton crew since this is to save the tax payer money, so you can come and sit if you want to but you are not going to get per diem for it.” She told us she had some North Carolina Constitutions if any of us want them, she will be happy to bring them to us, but after Amendment 1, they will probably need to be reprinted.
FRED DECKER asked if they did anything on that E-Verify stuff. Pat said, ‘We did, we have an e-verify law that says (it’s not as strong as what Rep. Cleveland wanted) but we got that the businesses need to check for legal status.’ ERIC wanted to know didn’t the business have to have so many employees. Pat said ‘Yes, I think it is 50 or more employees.’ Someone said they thought it was 25. Pat said it might be 25, she was not sure.
BOB said the 3 core values of the TEA Party are Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government and Free Market Capitalism and everything Pat had talked about tonight about the accomplishments of the Legislature fits at least one of our values. As long as you folks in office keep pushing in that direction we’ll keep you up there forever. We understand that we have to be taxed, this stuff ain’t free out here. We just want our taxes spent smartly and not wasted. We don’t want to keep throwing money to the education system just for the sake of throwing money at it. We would like to get North Carolina off the bottom of the heap there and take the burden of taxation off businesses; that will help NC grow more than anything. He wanted to thank Pat for all that and to tell her fellow legislatures we are behind them and keep on keeping on.
ERIC said he understood she was going to talk briefly on how the money is parceled out to the schools. Pat asked “With the lottery money?” ERIC said not necessarily just the lottery money. For example one county may get $15 thousand and another $5 thousand. Pat said ’It is based on the tier system and Carteret County is considered a Tier 3 because of our tax rate. You get punished in the Tier System that’s for economic development and for the way we give capital money, lottery and all, to the schools. Because , here in Carteret County, we have a low tax rate, we get punished for it and they say it is an effective rate because we have high values, so we really don’t have low taxes. They’re probably lower than a lot of other beach communities or whatever, but the problem is we get punished for it. To change this will probably be hard. We need to find at the county level some other way to work on that. It is already in legislation that the Tier System is set up for economic because you have poor counties that cannot afford sometimes and quite frankly with the lottery, most of the money is made from the poor and in those poor counties they don’t have money for schools and things like that; so when they set up the lottery I think their idea (not that I would have voted for the lottery, but now that we have the lottery, it is going to be hard to replace it is the problem.) The money needs to go back in that tiered way to the lower wealth counties and not necessarily their tax rate because that doesn’t really tell whether they are low wealth or not. Someone can set a real high tax rate and not be a high or low wealth county. Because most of the lottery tickets are sold in the poorer counties, then they should get a bigger portion of the lottery money because they really and truly are the ones paying for that (the lottery). ERIC said, they can’t educate the kids but can afford to play the lottery. Pat said, ’That is the problem with the lottery’. She even sees it here in Carteret County (and she occasionally plays the lottery and says she is supporting education, especially when it is over $100 million.)
BOB asked if she would be available after the meeting in case some of the other members may have questions. Pat said ’Sure, she would be glad to stay.’
BOB then recognized Clifton Rowe, candidate for District Court Judge, who spoke to us a couple of weeks ago. He arrived to our meeting after the other guests had been recognized. He said he was running against an incumbent and would not be on the primary ballot. He just wanted to stop by for a visit.
BOB then called on David McFayden to talk to us. Mr. McFayden said he would not take much of our time. We can talk and ask questions afterwards but he was honored to be here tonight. He said “I am David McFayden. I am running for District Court Judge for the position that was opened up when Judge Jerry Wydell retired. I just want to tell you a few things about myself. I am proud to be the only Republican and certainly the only conservative in the race. I have never really been a political person. It has never been a goal of mine to be a politician. In that I mean that I am not the kind of person who likes to be the center of attention. Hey, look at me, look at me. I think that type of person doesn’t make a good judge and that is my personal opinion. I am not that kind of person. I tend to think a good judge is like a good referee or umpire at a sporting event. If you leave a sporting event and all you talk about is what that referee or umpire did, then he probably did something wrong. He probably did something to make himself stand out. What I can promise you as a judge is very little, and Clint will agree with me on this, I can’t stand up here and tell you that I can reduce your taxes or work on the school board. What I can tell you about myself is that I will be fair and firm on the bench. I will be as protective of your constitutional rights to the extent I can be from the court bench. I will be a conservative judge for you. There is no question about that. I am from New Bern. I have been married for 13 years and have an 8 year old son. I will protect your rights as best I can and be a good conservative judge for you. I do have a primary on May 8 (early voting starts on April 19) Clint is lucky enough he can go straight to November and he doesn’t have to deal with this primary. I do have 2 opponents in the race. One is Kirby Smith and the other Bernard Bush, both Democrats. You probably read in the newspaper or heard on the radio or TV that Mr. Smith was rewarded by Beverly Perdue for his long financial and commitment of time to her over the years. I will tell you that the only thing that does in my race is make me want to run harder to win. It means I am going to need your help just a little bit more because now Mr. Smith can tout himself as sitting judge. (Temporarily, I hope) But I am going to need your help. I would love your vote, and love your support. If there are any questions, I will try to answer what I can. Clint will probably agree with me we have a hard time with policy questions. The code of judicial conduct keeps us from certain questions, but I will try my best to do what I can for you. Thanks a lot for letting me be here tonight. I am honored and look forward to your vote hopefully on May 8. Thank you. (Applause)
BOB asked Mr. McFayden what made him decide to run. Mr. McFayden said, ’I will try to make this brief. When I was younger, I was fortunate enough to be in elementary school when my father was in law school. So I was exposed to him learning to be a lawyer. He bought or gave me some older law texts and I started reading them. I had decided early on that I wanted to be an attorney, early in life and that is the goal I set for my entire life. After he became District Attorney and we moved back to New Bern, I was also again fortunate enough that on some Sunday nights when he would go to the office to work and catch up on some of the work of the week I was fortunate enough to go with him to the old court house building in New Bern. His office was downstairs at the time, and I would often take my homework. I liked to read the newspaper and I would take the newspaper or I would take some of those law texts or find something in the courthouse to read. I would usually end up upstairs in the superior court room in the judge’s chair. Since I knew I wanted to be an attorney, obviously it was interesting to me to think about what a judge might do. And sitting in that court room, I’ll tell you, you look at all those empty seats being filled with people who maybe a victim, or someone who is looking for justice; somebody whose liberty is possibly getting ready to be taken away or any number of people in that audience and you realize the impact that a judge can make. It was then, as maybe a 12 year old boy, I decided that if I was lucky enough to go to law school and become a lawyer, that I eventually wanted to become a judge and serve the people. It has just been a goal of mine. I did not want to be a District Attorney. Trying to follow in someone’s footsteps is not a good idea. But deciding to become a judge, I think that I have the personality and I’m not trying to pat myself on my back but I think I have a pretty good personality and temperament, one that will lend itself to be a good person who is able to stay in the middle of things and hear the facts of the case and use the law that Clint and I are given to deal with in District Court every day and make a decision effectively. I think that was a long round about way on why I wanted to be a judge.
ERIC asked what was his view point…should a judge just administer the law and go by what the statutes are or should he create law? Mr. McFadyen said, ’A judge’s job is to take the rule of law, take the facts, like he said, apply the facts, and put them all together, and make a decision. Legislating from the bench is one of the most poisonous things that we can have in this country. When you have folks who get up on the bench and think they are going to take a situation and bend the law, or create, or go around their elbow or something to mold the law as they like it, I do not think anybody is treated fair. It is the way I run my practice now. We have a book of laws, and you stick by that book. The legislation makes the laws and send them to us and we take the facts of each case and apply those laws. I tell you that is the type of judge I will be. (A couple of questions were asked (one about any American citizen can be detained without trial)). Mr. McFadyen said, ’Unfortunately I would tell you that is something I can not give you much of an opinion on. That problem may not appear before me but there might be some type of trickle down and I do not want someone in Raleigh to find out I am answering questions on policy.’ Another question was asked ‘on selecting judges to get a ruling you are looking for‘. Mr McFadyen said, ’I can tell you that from the moment I launched my campaign I have not gone to the folks I think wield the power in the defense bar, because I won’t be beholden to any individual or special interest group. I see the damage that that does to our district courts right now as a participant. I sympathize with you on your problem. I hope that if I am lucky enough to get elected that I can help make things move along more freely and be someone who is not beholden to any one person in a law firm or lawyer or special situation. Thank you so much again for inviting me tonight.
BOB said Pat mentioned Amendment 1. STEVE BEST has a number of the yard signs FOR the Marriage Act. He has some in his car, so if you are interested in displaying one in your yard, and bumper stickers also, please see him after the meeting. FRED said we need some of them to put out at the polls where you vote. We will need enough for 4 polling sites, Davis, Newport, Election Office and Western Carteret. STEVE said he would have them available.
BOB then called on HOWARD GARNER to introduce our next speaker. HOWARD said he had a tale he wanted to tell on him first. ‘This cousin of mine, he told me, it may be a lie, I don’t know, (Walter Guy). Well Walter Guy was fixing to go to a farm auction and Walter Guy believed in dressing to impress when he went off like that. He goes by Harry’s and Harry is out in the field on his tractor, so Walter pulls up and asks Harry to come on and go with me. Well Harry’s kind of dirty and all after just climbing off the farm tractor, but he agrees to go with Walter. At lunch time they are lining up for their meal and Walter Guy is talking to this man and Harry is close enough to hear what is being said. Walter Guy asked the man ‘you don’t need another farm hand do you? I’ve got one over there that I’ve got to let go.’ The man looked at Harry’s plate and said ‘I don’t know, it looks like he eats a lot.’ HOWARD said, ‘I have known Harry Taylor since he was a teenager and that is slightly after Columbus came to town. (BOB said and you were an old man then. HOWARD said, ‘No, I was a young whippersnapper.’) Harry has farmed and logged all his life. He has worked; he has made money. I was with the Department of Agriculture back in the 50s and 60s when it was all a farmer could do to survive. We got hurricanes year after year, prices went to nothing, but expenses didn’t go down. Harry hung in there and he fought and he has been very successful as a farmer and logger. I think you have all heard me say that once someone announces for office I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to what they say, I go back and look at the track record. A track record tells you what somebody is going to do, not what he is promising you. Harry did not call me. When I saw in the paper that he had filed, I called him and said I hope you win. I believe that if he is elected County Commissioner that he will do what he can to try to look out for our money. I give you Harry and let him tell you.
Harry said, ’It is kind of hard to follow the speakers in front of me. I’ve known Howard a long time and if you see him walking slow today, there was a time when he could out walk anybody in Carteret County. He worked for the Soil Conservation Service when people had to work for a living. I didn’t graduate from but one college…the college of hard knocks. When I was 18 years old, I told my daddy I was going to get married. He said ‘well son, I want you to have good luck and I am going to give you something.’ And I said, Daddy, what in the world are you going to give me? He said I am going to give you this whole big world to make a living in…and I started off. He stopped and acknowledged EULA PARKIN, since he thought she was the only one in attendance tonight from his district (5). Question as to what made up District 5. (Beaufort, Sea Gate, Mill Creek and part of Newport. He continued, ‘I understand you have already had the lady running against me to speak with you. I don’t know her, but I am sure she is a good person.
Anyway, I sat down and wrote a few things about myself last night. I had to be a true conservative because I was raised on a farm. I have a little bit of a record that I don’t think many people have. My granddaddy started farming in 1861. My granddaddy, my daddy, me and my two sons have never worked on a public job. We have never drawn the first dollar except for farming. I have been fairly successful. Everybody has been good to me. The good Lord’s been good to me and I have tried to treat people like I want to be treated. I do not have any ax to grind with this job. The only reason I decided to run is because I want to help the people of Carteret County. I feel like I can help them by tending to their money. It is not the County’s money, it is you folks’ money. You are the tax payers of Carteret County and I promise you I will never make a quick decision on anything I do. I’m not a yes person to just raise my hand. I raise my hand for one thing, if someone asks me if I am a believer, I will raise my hand and I won’t think about it. But to make quick decisions to vote to do this or that, I will never go in a back room and agree to any capital improvement without the taxpayers of Carteret County approving it. I don’t believe in spending a whole lot of money without the taxpayers having their say so. I would like to thank everyone for asking me to come tonight. Some of you know me, but for those who don’t these are a few things about me… As I have said, I am a farmer, and proud of it. I own some real estate (not a whole lot but I think I have done 15 subdivisions in my lifetime). I am no stranger to hard work and I know what it is like to meet a budget. I have always had to work with a budget. I have never been able to spend my money and take it and do this and that. I have overseen and worked a lot of people/labor in my farm. I have always been interested in County government and now that I have time, I feel that it is my responsibility to take an active role in planning the county’s future. This is my home and a very special place but I want to make it even better. I am a fiscal conservative and I pledge I will be as careful with your tax dollar as I am with my own. I will not agree to any capital expenditures without taxpayers approval. This county belongs to you, the people who live here and pay the taxes. I believe you have the right to vote on how you want to spend your money. If elected, job creation will be a top priority for me. Eleven percent unemployment is unacceptable. Even those lucky enough to be employed are struggling. I live out on 101 and people go to work at Atlantic Veneer, Parkers, and in the morning you see them come in with $5.00 to buy gas just to go to work. You know those folks are struggling but they are trying to work instead of going down to the Welfare Office and draw food stamps. They still want to maintain their dignity. The two top manufacturing companies (Bally Refrigeration and Atlantic Veneer) employ less than 200 people. Social Service has 105 employees. Now that tells me that job creation is critical in this county. More jobs could certainly reduce the dependency on public assistance. I want to lower taxes, as you know, but we must reduce our spending also. I believe we can cut spending and still provide good services. Perhaps you know the county pays rent on various departments. There is not enough space in the court house, but I would like to consolidate offices everywhere possible. Instead of paying a whole lot of rent, (I don’t know if you all know how much the county is paying for rent right now or not, but it is a lot). And so this makes me think of the school property in Beaufort. We have a nice big building sitting over there vacant. It has been sitting there for years. Instead of using a building that belongs to the county we go down the street and pay thousands of dollars and rent office space. I feel it is essential that we improve our school system. Our children deserve every opportunity for success. I also want more protection and enhancement of the environment. The tourist industry and fishing industry are dependent upon it. There is a difference between the wants and needs in my book. I believe in giving school kids a good education. I have two grand children in school now and I believe in giving them a good education and what they need. But I don’t believe in the school rooms having a whole lot of assistant teachers sitting in the school room, which is spending a whole lot of money. I want to give them what they need but not what they want. I am concerned about public safety. I’ll work with the DOT to have a stop light installed at the intersection of Hwy 70 and 101. At 4:30 of an evening you can set there for 10 minutes. The reason they gave for not putting a stop light there was ‘no body has been killed there’. So we have to wait for somebody to get killed before the state will put a stop light there. It just doesn’t make good sense to me. I want a strong effective government that works for you. I welcome your thoughts and ideas. We can make a difference. Again, thank you for this opportunity to speak to you all and I will spend your money very conservatively. (Applause)
BOB wished Mr. Taylor luck in the upcoming primary. He is running against Elaine Crittenton. Harry said he did not know the lady but he understands she works for the hospital and he is sure she is a very good person. BOB said we are not choosing sides on this but we have given each an opportunity to come and talk to us so we each can make up our own minds. He asked Mr. Taylor if he would be speaking at any other event. Harry said he would be talking to the League of Women Voters, who had called him today. He did not know the date right now.
BOB said our final speaker is Larry Land, who is running for District 3 County Commissioner.
Larry said, “Thank you very much and thank you all for being here. This is what this wonderful country is all about…people like you all that have enough interest to come out on a really pretty spring afternoon. I am sure there are other things you had rather be doing but you are here, showing your interest in government and our freedoms. Thank you very much and pat yourself on your back because that is very important. I am Larry Land and running for District 3. I have been a resident of Carteret County for over 25 years. I was born and raised on a small farm in Dallas, North Carolina which I am certain was a lot smaller than Mr. Taylor’s farm. But I did hone my work ethic in that environment. I started my business career the day after I finished my last exam at NC State where I earned a BA degree in Economics and I have been working ever since. My most recent business experience was here in Carteret County with Acme Moving and Storage (Allied Van Line Agency) where I managed about 40 employees at the high level. It was fairly seasonal and I can tell you, I do know how to make a payroll. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes not so easy. I have been married to Lynette Land for 25 years and we have 4 daughters and we were just blessed with our first grandchild (I have some pictures if you have time)…a mighty fine looking young lad that I went up to see in Raleigh. Lynette has a dress shop which she has had for many years. I have been involved with small businesses all my life. I spent 35 years in the chemical business where I managed 25 salesmen and that is a real job right there. It is like having 25 children. My involvement in the community includes being named Libertarian of the Year in 2004 for humanitarian services. I am also an active member of the Salvation Army Advisory Board which gives me a lot of experience in a lot of areas of the county. I have stayed abreast of county government for the last 10 years. I have been attending County Commissioners meetings for 10 years on a fairly regular basis, not regular, but fairly regular. I have been chairman and vice chairman of two of the appointed boards (the Equalization Review Board which is a tough job, and the Harbor Authority). In that capacity I have worked with numerous departments within the county government, the finance department, the county manager’s office, engineering department and the tax department. I know all these people and I mention that because this is a pretty important county commissioners election. We have 3 veteran commissioners retiring. All with 8 years experience. Excluding Mr. Taylor, I can tell you that I have more experience in county government and more knowledge of county government than anybody else running. To the best of my knowledge, my opponent has never attended a County Commissioner’s meeting. I have been to many. I was at the last one. I think that is very important. In these economic times, as Mr. Taylor said, it is really important to know the needs and wants. With my varied business experiences, I know how to make a budget. I assure you I will keep your tax dollars as low as possible, being sure that every dollar is spent or not spent wisely. Again, I think this is a very important election because we have these 3 guys retiring and I would appreciate your support and I do ask for your vote. Do you have any questions? (Applause)
BOB said he had a question for both running for county commissioners. One of the biggest issues is ‘jobs’. Bringing businesses down here and creating jobs so that when our kids grow up, go to school, can come back here and find a place to work. What do you think would be the best way of bringing jobs to this area. Mr. Land said he thought regulations were a problem (and that would be Mrs. McElraft’s issue) of trying to alleviate some of the regulations at the state level. We can also as a county make it more friendly for businesses. When asked in what way did he mean. Mr. Land said Well, one thing is the sign ordnances. It is crazy around here. Building permits and inspections, etc. Because we are surrounded by water here normally you have to get CAMA involved in any business you are going to do. I think our economic council needs a shot in the arm. I don’t think our economic council has many things to hang their hats on. They should be more active and successful than they are. Mr. Taylor said ‘environmental issues…a lot of times people would come and try to start a business but it is very hard for them to get permits since we are so close to the water here. I know we have to have regulations. Everything has to have a certain amount of regulations but sometimes I think we are over regulated. Have any of you started a house. You go to get your permits. You think you have them all. The next day someone comes to your job site and says ut oh, you can’t start, you have to go back, you forgot a certain permit. I believe in regulations but I don’t like to have persons hurt because of them. They are needed to ensure things run smoothly but as Larry said, this county needs some business. I want to say something about our community college. Everybody says we can’t find anybody to work because they do not have the skills…what it takes to work. Many of our kids can not afford to go to college because of the cost it is today, I fully support our community college to help kids learn a trade, so they can get a job in this county and stay here and pay taxes in this county without having to go off to another area.
HOWARD said he heard in the last couple of weeks that Rick Perry ran for governor in Texas promising a 4 year college degree from a community college for $10,000.00, total. He said people laughed at him, but he had been able to deliver. Sounds too good to be true, but if it is true, why can’t we do it here. Another problem and Pat is going to have to take care of it…North Carolina licenses twice as many professions as South Carolina. I do not feel a bit safer here than I think the people do in SC. I think there are a lot of things you have to have a license for that are ridiculous. Pat said that is a part of the regulation reform they are looking at. We have over 300 boards and commissions that the state pays per diem for that we are cutting in half right now. Some of them have not met and they still have to have staff to take care of things, so there is a lot of stuff we are doing. Another thing they have looked at is cell phone charges. Do you know that in one department they had 300 employees and everyone had a cell phone. Not only did they have a cell phone but they had a data plan which cost $150. They can just go get a data plan and charge it to the state. It is totally out of control. We have started scaling back and if you did not have a field position and you were where a land line was, you did not need a cell phone. We are not going to pay for it, or let you drive your state car home any more. So there is a lot of stuff like that that we are looking into. We just took down corporate income tax and we would like to take it down some more. We have some of the highest in the southeast for businesses. Last budget cycle, they actually put a tax on your taxes so if you were a small business person paying at a personal rate rather than a corporate rate then you had to pay a surcharge on top of the taxes you were already paying, but we cut that out this year. We’ve only had one year, just watch us, if we get back in control, we can keep going. Otherwise, we will go right back to tax and spend. HOWARD told Pat ’you did good this year, just keep it up.’
Harry said he would like to make another observation about the farmers and fishermen being over regulated. ‘Everybody sees how the fishermen are being regulated out of existence. It has completely killed the fishing industry. I had a fish dealer tell me his truck was stopped coming from down east, and one of the fishery men jumped on the truck trying to find a fish that was not passable on the truck. He found one fish and charged them a $250.00 fine before he would let the truck proceed. I raised a lot a cabbage and potatoes. We were very careful not to use anything that was against regulations. The state inspectors would come out, cut the potatoes and cabbage, test them for pesticides, to see if there was any trace of anything that would hurt anybody. I was never fined anything. The regulations that we have that the state imposes on us. Look what it has done to the fishing industry. I remember when people used to go oystering, shrimping, and they caught plenty. With all this regulating, there is nothing out there now to catch. Go down to the North River bridge. You see people there in cold weather with ice on their boots coming into shore. There sits a dressed up fishery guy with a state vehicle sitting there running with the heater wide open while he gets out a minute or two to go over and see if he can find an oyster or clam that is too small, so he can write him a ticket and come back over here to Morehead and say ‘look what I done’. I justified my job today. This to me is just unnecessary for poor working people to have to put up with all these regulations. Harry told Pat he appreciated everything she had done for this county. Pat said really the over regulating is coming from the federal government. It is really terrible. BOB asked why was it the authority for the federal government to come down here and issue regulations. Pat said anything within three miles of the coast was state, and outside that was federal government. However, the state was guilty of over regulating also.
ERIC said the biggest expenditure for the county is the school system. For the last several years the schools keep coming in with a 10 to 15 percent increase in the budget, even though the cost of living has only gone up 2 to 3 percent. In this county about 50% is low income, unemployed, or retirees. The only way we can meet the schools wants is to raise taxes. How can we raise taxes on those individuals that can barely afford to feed their kids, cause we are already feeding 42% of them at the school system. Mr. Land said he had been on what he called a learning tour on education because it is 67, 68% or even more than that of our budget. He said he could not get good information. (Much discussion arose from the audience about getting figures from the school board.) He thinks we need to be putting more money into the school themselves rather than that building over on Safrit Drive. He said when he went into office, he will organize a committee to enhance communications between the school board and county commissioners. They have historically been at logger heads with each other. He would like to see these committees meet maybe once a month and communicate and eventually establish trust between the two boards. There is no reason for the school board to come in with a budget 15% higher than their wildest dream is and then the county commissioners have to cut the funding to a standard level or slight increase, whatever. If there were trust between the two boards, I think it would solve a lot of other problems. ERIC asked Mr. Land if he would commit to holding the line at only a 3% (or whatever the cost of living was) increase Mr. Land said with the knowledge he had right now, he could not commit to that right now nor to only raise taxes to that 3% either. Discussion on the renewal of Dr. Novey’s contract early, All think the county commissioners should have a say in the renewal of the contract. It is not right that the board of education, under the superintendent’s power, should have the power to grant him another 3 year contract at tax payer expense. Pat said they funded 100% of the teachers from the state level. The problem that the Legislature created was that they gave the schools flexibility. When you give the superintendent of schools flexibility they can take that money for those fully funded teachers and teacher assistants and they can then move it into the central office or wherever they would like to use it. ERIC said we have also seen a decline in grades, and he thinks the legislature should look at some kind of evaluation maybe every 4 years to test the schools to see where they stand. He does not trust the current testing system. Pat said they are going to try to get away from the state test because we are comparing ourselves to the rest of North Carolina. We are not comparing ourselves to other states or other countries, so we are trying to get into the core curriculum where we are teaching the kids the same thing and testing at the same level. Part of the problem is teacher tenure because you can have a bad teacher that is tenured and there is no way to get rid of them. That is a bad thing. Most businesses usually get rid of probably 5% of their employees each year because of poor performance. Pat said they have a priority now to look at merit pay for teachers. It is going to be based on outcome base pay.
BOB thanked all of our guest speakers for coming in tonight and speaking to us. It was great to meet them all and hear what they had to say. To let everyone know how the TEA Party works: we plan on manning as many of the voting precincts as we can with a TEA Party table and we will have a ballot/TEA Party recommendation sheet which will basically say ‘The following candidates support the TEA Party principles’. Election laws prohibit us from saying vote for this or that guy. For example in the Senate race, we are not going to have Randy Ramsey on our list. We will let the voters decide between Norman Sanderson and Ken Jones. In other words we will eliminate the people we do not think support the TEA Party’s core values. Harry, you and Elaine will both be listed on the ballot as supporting the values of the TEA Party. I liked what you had to say tonight and I like what Mrs. Crittington had to say a couple of weeks ago; so the TEA Party, as individuals, will make their selections. HOWARD said he had already had calls wanting to know when we were going to have our list available. DENNIS TOMASO is going to type up the names and PEGGY will make up the copies to pass out. KEN LANG will forward the information he has already accumulated to DENNIS for inclusion.
BOB said ERIC has been talking to Randy Ramsey’s people about having Randy come and speak to us and give us his side of the debate, and the lady ERIC had spoken to said she would get back to him in a day or two. If he has not heard anything by Thursday, he will call her back. The TEA Party has been attacked in the paper saying we should not make judgments until we find out what his platform is. So we are offering Randy the opportunity to give us his side of the situation. KEN said he had invited Randy twice on the radio with no response. We have made every effort to hear his side. Since he has not shown up at any Republican event so we could hear what he has to say, all we can rely on is what we have found on the internet. KEN said he understood that he had accepted an invitation to the New Bern Republican Men’s Club and he would post the date on our website for anyone who wishes to attend. It is April 14 and a breakfast meeting starting at 8 a.m. at the Emerald Golf Club. The President of the New Bern Men’s Club called him and said anyone we have that wants to attend can go to their meeting and ask questions. Randy has confirmed that he will be there. FRED said the Republican District Convention is the 21st of April, but Randy has scheduled a ‘Getting to Know you’ down at the Newport Park on the 21st of April. That tells you how much he cares about the Republican Party.
BOB announced that SCOTT CARPENTER is hosting an event for Terry Frank and Norm Sanderson Friday night, March 30th between 5 and 7 p.m. at Hammock Place Community Building, Brandywine. You are invited to attend.
On April 1, Sunday, 5 to 7 a Meet and Greet at Blair Farms Club House for Terry Frank.
HOWARD said he was losing signs that we had put up. Twice already they have been taken down from the intersection at Hibbs Road. We were told that the first time they were removed it was by Bob Chambers. It happened again yesterday, and we haven’t heard who was responsible this time, but according to the rules for putting up signs, they were legal both times. KEN said if someone is taking your signs down, whether or not you think it is right for them to do it, (because you say this guy is claiming they are on government land), you should call the sheriff because it is illegal for them to take those signs. KEN said he knew of about a dozen Norm Sanderson signs were put up on the causeway and during daylight hours, two men were going along picking them up and throwing them in the back of their truck. Somebody confronted them and they said ‘what business is it of yours?’ The person said, ‘Because what you are doing is illegal and I am going to call the sheriff.’ They immediately went to the back of the truck and threw all the signs out on the ground and took off. They were reported to the sheriff for doing that, but they had told the guy that stopped them, that they were paid by Ramsey’s campaign to pull up the signs. If you see this happening you need to report it.
RUTH PARKER, ERIC, GLADYS and ED SUESSLE gave a report on the rally in Washington, DC this past weekend. RUTH said the weirdest thing happened. A young man came up to sing (it was Andrew Britebarts favorite song) and it was pouring down rain. Everyone was concerned about the possibility of the boy getting electrocuted with his electric guitar. About a minute into the song, it stopped raining, the sun came out, and when he finished his song it started raining again. It was just so weird.
WAYNE WILLIS asked if anyone had received a flyer announcing Mammograms, and Bonemass scans can save your life. Medicare must now offer them to you for free. Call your doctor today. No co-pay under medicare thanks to America’s new health care law. It is from the Democrat National Committee. They are doing this right now to over power what is going on in the Supreme Court. He received the flyer by accident. He does not know the person it was addressed to but it was put into his mail box.
BOB asked Clint Rowe if he would like to say a few words. Clint said just remember his name when we went to vote in November. BOB said remember ‘rowe, rowe, rowe your vote’.
Meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.