CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
9 OCTOBER 2012

Meeting was held at Roland’s Barbecue in Beaufort, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:00pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by RUTH PARKER
Invocation by RO THOMPSON
Attendance – 32

BOB said you all remember my prayer from last week…well, it appears that GOD was listening because Obama got his b–t stomped in that debate.  (Applause)  HOWARD said if you’ll  behave yourself, HE will listen to you.  BOB said he surely put the duct tape over Obama’s mouth didn’t he?  Everyone is looking forward to Thursday’s debate between Biden and Ryan.  BOB said he thought it would be more of a comedy show….another said there wouldn’t be a debate that Biden would put his foot in his mouth right to start with.

BOB said the TEA Party would be meeting here at Roland’s for the time being through December.  He has the back room booked until the 18th.  He announced that Jing Gionni had closed their doors (not just Monday and Tuesday) due to a family issue.  Social Services was requiring either John or his wife to stay home with his wife’s mother full time.  It was just putting too much of a strain on trying to run the business and provide 24 hour care.  So they decided to just fold up the restaurant.  We wish them good luck….and with any of his future endeavors….and thank them for their support.  Someone asked if we could send them a card thanking them.  BOB asked NANCY to take care of it.

BOB wanted to know if everyone had noticed that we are getting our TEA Party ballots published already.  He said most of you would not believe all the hair pulling over getting the ballots ready for publishing….correcting all his misspellings, wrong size fonts, duplicating candidates….but we finally got it all worked out.  (Pulled off his cap and demonstrated how low he is now on head hair!!!!)  (Laughter)   Anyway it will be run every Sunday until the election, and also will be run the Wednesday and Friday prior to.  KEN spoke up and said, he and NANCY had rebelled, and had decided to steer the ship of state in a slightly different direction.  They had decided to run the ballot Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from now until the election.  They will figure out if we will need some more donations…that somehow or ever we will get there.  BOB picked up Donation jar and said, OK, start passing this around.  He asked NANCY what the total bill was going to be on that.  She said she thought it was going to be somewhere around $2,700.00.  (A lot of ‘ooohs’)  BOB asked how much we had in the bank.  NANCY said we had $2,900.00.  (A lot of joking ensued….file for bankruptcy….apply for some stimulus money, etc.)  RUTH PARKER said she had passed out 250 of our TEA Party ballots since last meeting at Cox’s Restaurant, while she was working.  She said people came from Ashville, Greensboro, Raleigh and wanted the ballots when they found out what they were.  (Joking about how it affected her tips.)  BOB reported that RUTH, who served as a waitress at Cox’s Restaurant every week ponied up a part of her tips for the TEA Party kitty.  He thanked her for her support.  (Applause)

BOB held up some post it notes and said Mrs. Brown had sent them up for us to post on the gas pumps whenever we bought gas.  It says “In January 2009, Gas was $1.89 a gallon, Now it is $4.00 a gallon.  Vote to end this, Vote for Romney/Ryan”.  KEN has made up some Romney/Ryan bumper stickers and has them for sale for $2.00 each.   BOB said he also had a good stock of “Herman Cain” stickers also.  Those are going to become collector items.

BOB asked GARRISON SWIGART to introduce the lovely lady he had with him tonight.  GARRISON introduced his wife Barbara who was warmly welcomed.

BOB recognized KEN to speak:  KEN said ‘As you may know the insurance boards has proposed a rate hike on home owners’ insurance.  For the coastal area it is estimated that that rate hike will be about 30%.  He had a discussion with Lockwood Phillips last week about it and he also interviewed some people from NC-20.  They are having a symposium tomorrow, Wednesday, at the Civic Center in Morehead City.  It is $35.00 per person including lunch.  If you are interested in getting some facts about insurance rates and other coastal issues like sea level rise, you might want to go.  You can register on line at NC-20.com.  He asked if anyone knew what time it started and HOWARD said he and PEGGY were going and it started at 9:30 and ran until 2:30.
KEN said the paper had a fairly long story this past week on the insurance increase and at the end of the article it said that the public comment period on this is open now.  You can either by mail or email send comments to the Department of Insurance.  (He could not remember the email address exactly, but he would try to put it on the web page.)  He said he had sent a comment in to them (and also submitted it to all the local papers as a letter to the editor).  Basically, he made the argument that the chairman of the rate board in his interview with Lockwood last week, said that the reason they were having to raise the rates so much is because the values of property, replacement values, had gone up so much, and he made a distinction between how much it was going to cost to replace your property vs. what you can actually sell it for now even though a lot of property values have fallen.  But he tried to make the case that just because you can sell it for less doesn’t mean you can rebuild it for less.  The other thing was that he tied it to the increase risk to the insurance companies from hurricanes.  The reason that argument makes absolutely no sense is because the central and western parts of the state have historically been subject to wind and flood damage….not only from hurricanes but from tornadoes and other types of events.  What makes it even more ridiculous is that everything east of I95 is now covered either by Federal Flood Insurance or by the Wind Pool.  In neither one of those cases do the insurance companies have to pay a nickel out to a home owner who is covered under either of these two.  So essentially they are telling us they have to raise us 30% insurance when they have -0- risk and pay out -0- dollars on anything that comes east of I95.  It just absolutely does not make any sense.  He made that case in the comment that he submitted and also in the letter to the editor he wrote.  He also pointed out in his letter to the editor that it is unusual, weird, strange or whatever adjective you want to use that this proposal comes at the time of the election.  He also made this point on the Lockwood show also.  The Insurance Commissioner, Wayne Goodwin, is being touted in his advertisements how much he has saved the home owners in North Carolina while he has been in office.  He has it on fairly good authority from some insurance people that the insurance companies, the main corporate headquarters, are actually backing Goodwin in his race and prefer that he win over Mike Causey….not because they like him all that much, but it is sort of like the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.  One could suspect if you are devious that perhaps they are proposing this rate increase at the time of the election to give him the opportunity to deny all or part of the request so that he can now advertise how much more money he has saved us.  He said he was highly suspicious of Mr. Goodwin and the fact that he is proposing to now review this rate increase and possibly deny all or part of it because to him it is simply a matter of doing something that is going to give him more votes to get reelected.  LYN BAKER asked if he had heard anything from Mike Causey.  KEN said no, the only thing he had heard was Wayne Goodwin had raised a goodly amount of money over Mike Causey….that Mike have virtually no money left and KEN does not know how he is doing donation-wise.  Probably not real well.  It is apparent by the number of TV and radio ads Goodwin is running, that Goodwin is spending a lot more money than Causey.  Lockwood should have on his show either tomorrow or Thursday another series on this subject.  KEN would encourage everyone to listen to his show to see what else comes about this.  WAYNE WILLIS asked if he knew of any polling that had been done on the Causey/Goodwin race, about who is ahead.  KEN said he didn’t.  HOWARD said, yes and no, he understood in the Civitas Polling that the gubernatorial race  (McCrory) had nothing to worry about, but as you went down the ballot they were all in trouble.  A week ago (the poll he had heard about) the Insurance Commissioner race was within striking distance and Ed Goodwin, for Secretary of State was also.  People are not aware of the qualifications of the Democrat candidate for Lt. Governor or he didn’t see how she could even be in the running.  That is a fiasco.  KEN said the Civitas Poll he had seen had all the council of state races, including the Insurance Commissioner race, the Democrat incumbents were all far ahead of the Republican challengers.  Dan Forest and his opponent for Lt Governor were almost even.  The only one that had a real comfortable lead, in their poll, was McCrory.  He would assume based on the way they framed that Goodwin is polling ahead.  KEN said he had called in and asked questions on how the poll was conducted….registered voters, or likely voters.  He was told it was likely voters.  He also asked how they conducted the poll.  Was it a telephone poll.  It was.  That misses a whole lot of people because a whole lot of people have cell phones now and so the survey really only goes to people who have land lines.  That already biases the poll a little bit.  It is just like the presidential poll, we should probably should be rather skeptical of them.  Although today, they came out with a poll that said Romney is getting ahead.  But he is still skeptical.  We just need to keep pushing and giving these candidates our total support and get them elected and hope that they are doing a good job in the central part of the state also.  The most important race he still believes (as he, David McFadyen, Clint Rowe, and several others  had talked about last night) is Judge Paul Newby in the NC Supreme Court race.  Norman Sanderson spoke to that last night at his fund raiser.  He said if we don’t get Justice Newby re-elected, it will not matter about Pat McCrory for Governor, the Senate or the House, the Democrats are already prepared to challenge everything from re-districting to everything else that was passed by the Republicans….and they will have the majority in the Supreme Court if Judge Newby does not get elected.  So that is the most important race in the state right now.  HOWARD said Becky Grey had made the comment in her speech a couple of weeks ago at the Sanitary Restaurant that she had talked to some real high profile lawyers and they are of the opinion that this re-districting won’t pass court muster so therefore, if he understood her right, the Supreme Court justices will divide up the state.  So that is why that could be so important.  NANCY said she had been to the GOP Headquarters and there are no Newby signs.  She got one great big one but it is more than a yard sign.  KEN said judges fund raisers are limited.  They have a ceiling on how much they can collect.  Newby has already topped out.  KEN was told that Newby had decided to spend what he has left on radio and television ads in the Piedmont region which is where his race is going to be the toughest and so they were not providing any more signs.  KEN said he made a proposal to the Republican Party Chairman, after he and NANCY had corresponded last week via email, and suggested that we, the Republican Party, make some Newby signs.  He and others, decided that it was something that they didn’t want to spend their money on.  He does not know why, but he has to go to another meeting after this one tonight and he will bring it up again at that meeting.  HOWARD said he understood that there was a PAC up around Raleigh, that allegedly has raised a lot of money and is spending money on Newby’s election.  I don’t know how to get up with them, but they are not limited.  KEN said they are spending that money in the central part of the state.  HOWARD said if we could find out how to contact them, they may have some signs we could get.  KEN said he talked to Newby’s campaign manager, and also one of the guys consulting on his campaign and he could not get any signs.  FRED said if he was not mistaken at the last GOP mee
ting they said they had $46,000.00 in the treasury.  They agreed to spend $20,000.00 on signs.  KEN said that was a question to ask them tonight at the meeting.  HOWARD said some of us might want to get together….this friend of his has checked and says he can get nice signs printed for $3.00 each with a minimum of 50 signs.  That does not include the metal part.  He’s not sure what they cost…wants to say $1.40 but he is not sure.  Clint Rowe told PEGGY last night that what he was doing for the metal part on his signs is he goes to a building supply and buys those metal ladders that you put in a block building.  You can cut them up and make a whole lot more for less money.  PEGGY and I will gladly put $25.00 (or possibly more if needed) on the purchase of 50 signs for Newby, if others will help.

People from the other meeting began to file through to go out the building so a lot of chatting and talking went on during this time period.  Those who planned to attend the GOP meeting also left.

BOB said going back to this insurance deal, the squeaking wheel always get the grease, has always been the rule.  Letters to the editor and communicating with the Insurance Commissioner directly with snail mail is going to have a lot of impact.  I definitely do not want a 30% hike on my homeowners insurance.

BOB recognized and welcomed two new attendees: NORM and LINDA GRUSCHOW.

ERIC BROYLES said this insurance issue is very important.  He related one of his own personal issues:  he and his wife bought a house 13 years ago and at the time the cost for flood and home owners insurance through State Farm was about $425 to $450.00.  In 13 years it has gone up to over $1,800.00.  We have never filed a claim through 11 hurricanes.  This is ridiculous, we are being raped.  I understand that insurance companies have to operate at a profit but I think this is a little unreasonable as to what is occurring.  Pat McElraft, is vice chairman of the House Insurance Committee so he encourages everyone to call her and express your concerns to her.  She is also deeply involved with NC20.  She pointed out to ERIC that NC20 was trying to get buses together where people can go up and attend some of the hearings.  Pay attention to what is in the newspaper, because some people might want to make the trip if they can afford to do so.  He asked who planned to attend the seminar tomorrow and HOWARD and PEGGY said they had already registered, and paid, and would be attending.  He said he was glad the TEA Party had some who would go, because he felt we needed some representation.

HOWARD said, “adding to what KEN said while ago about what it cost to rebuild a house, a lot of insurance policies, including my own, has an automatic thing that keeps going up.  This year I got such a jump, that I called to see why.  It had increased enough that it had thrown me in another bracket, which meant $300 or $400 more there.  So, I called the Tax Office and they have an appraisal figure, but they also have in their records what they consider a cost to replace.  I have dropped my insurance down based on their figures because if I have a total loss, they are going to use those Tax Office figures to keep from paying me the full loss.

EULA PARKIN asked those who were former military if they got their insurance from USAA.  She said she had been with them ever since they built their house back in 76.  Actually they had been with them for years before that….in Greece, Turkey, and the only place they were not with them was in New Jersey and they would not insure you in New Jersey!!.  Any way to make a long story short, a few years back you had to have at least a minimum of two insurance policies.  One was with storm and hail and the other fire and theft.  Now she has a third insurance called ’rising water’.  Am I wasting my money or what?  HOWARD said the area where she lives did not flood in the worst hurricane of his life time ’Hazel’.  PEGGY lived just a few doors down from where you live so he is familiar with the area.  (Discussion over a rising water policy.)  EULA said originally the house she is living in was built around 1945 and cost somewhere around $4,500.00.  It is now valued at $195,000.00.  BOB said he had a small piece of land off Hwy 24, about a quarter of an acre.  He bought it back around 1987 for about $17,000.00.  He had it rezoned commercial and has been paying his taxes every year and he went to sell it a couple of years ago and the man that was interested in it came back and said that is not zoned commercial, it is residential.  BOB said, no it ain’t, so he went down to the court house to find out what was going on.  On the tax books it was still being carried residential but under the zoning books it was commercial.  The tax office said oh, well, this is a $247,000.00 piece of property with about 80 feet on the highway there.  So his taxes went sky high.  They had just had a revaluation here last year and his $247,000.00 piece of land has now been revalued at $63,000.00.  He doesn’t know how they come up with these numbers.  He had been trying to sell it for $84,000.00 so when he was told it was worth $247,000, he upped the price and he still owns it.  Someone asked could the Tax Office be accountable for this misappropriation of tax appraisal and was told no.  David McFadyen said all they will do is go back and re-assess.  That’s about all they will do for you.  HOWARD said when Jack Dawsey was County Commissioner…that was during the rise… he tried to argue with the tax department that if a house sold for twice what it was on the tax books they ought to up the appraisal.  They told him they couldn’t.  They had to do everything at one time.  A couple of years ago, he got a letter in the mail…and most of you are familiar with Ward’s Nursery.  Apparently they got a new employee and he went to the satalite and saw all those cold frames and thought they were buildings.  That piece of property, he thinks was on the books for maybe $100,000.00 and they sent him a new appraisal for over one million dollars….right in the middle.  They did not wait for a re-appraisal.  He got on the phone.

RICK GEOFF said he had talked to an insurance man and wanted to know why he needed to buy insurance.  The man told him it was like a casino.  You came in and placed a bet that you were going to lose everything you had (or betting against yourself) and he was betting you wouldn’t and he was setting the odds.  RICK said he felt that we were still paying for Katrina, Andrew, and all the insurance companies that had gone under.  We are paying for that.  The insurance company is going to show a loss and that is how they justify raising rates.  DAVID COX said he was a little confused.  He lived over there on the beach and he paid his wind and hail to NCIU.  Everybody else said they did also.  (Everyone began talking about NCIU insurance).

BOB reminded all that early voting begins on the 18th .  If anyone needs any more TEA Party ballots, PEGGY has brought a bunch with her again tonight.

Don’t forget the Vice Presidential debate Thursday night at 9:00pm.

NANCY wanted to know if we want to go ahead and order a dozen long sleeve shirts with winter coming on…and still use our old logo since we do not have time to work up a change.

LYN said she got an email about the League of Women’s Voters are going to have a forum at the courthouse on Thursday, the 25th , for the candidates.  Clint Rowe and David McFadyen said they would be there and they understand it is for the top down candidates.

BOB said he had been thinking about the conversation on polling and cell and land line phones.  It seemed to him that most of the land lines today would be held by the older citizens and they would tend to be more conservative, thereby skewing the results toward the right rather than the left.  LYN said but we also don’t answer those calls.  If we don’t recognize the number we don’t answer.  BOB thought it was because we couldn’t get to the phone on time.
BOB called on Clint Rowe to find out what he had on his mind.  Clint said first he wanted to thank the TEA Party for the amount of work you all do.  It is amazing and truly appreciated.  He appreciates our support and please remind the people who come to vote (early and election day) how to vote.  Must vote for President separately, then the other state offices, and then turn the ballot over and vote for the Judges.  Just voting a straight ballot will not be voting for the president nor the judges.  He ran into some today that were not aware of this procedure of voting.  BOB said not only will we be informing the public, but we had also put it on our ballot.  Clint said now if we can just get everyone to take one of the ballots and use them we will be OK.

PEGGY asked if anyone else had noticed that Clint was putting up some of his signs as three in a row.  Every time she saw this configuration, she automatically thought ‘Rowe, Rowe, Rowe your vote’.  She thought that was a neat idea.  HOWARD said he also noticed that wherever he had put his signs, his competition had put her signs up in front of his.

BOB called on David to speak to us.  He said to let him be very brief.  He knew where the next TEA Party was going to be.  It is going to be in a Mexican Restaurant!.  You know why?? Because he is on a diet.…we started out at a buffet, then an Italian Restaurant, now a barbecue (which is his favorite food) and none of this can he eat right now….and he loves Mexican food, so the next meeting will have to be at a Mexican Restaurant.  (Laughter)  Just want to be brief and say thanks, because he doesn’t know if he will get back to see us before the voting starts.  But he did want to thank us for everything.  He said he was here right now because of you guys.  There is no question about it.  I appreciate this.  It means the world to me.  Like Clint said, it is very important to make sure people know about how to vote for the judges.  Thanks again, and I hope to come see you hopefully in November or December and celebrate.

BOB wanted to know about the election of judges.  It currently was a 4 to 3 in favor of Conservatives, but how often did the judges had to run and how many at a time.  Clint said he thought it was every two years two would run, then two years later two more, two years later, two more and then the top judge would be running again.  BOB said he was interested since it was such a close division that maybe we ought to start looking at 2014 and try to get two more Conservative in office and widen that majority.

David McFadyen said these races (especially this year with Newby) is the most important race of all.  We can win every state office, the House and the Senate, as well as Governor, but if we lose this Judge race, they can overturn everything we have worked so hard for.  You can get all this great legislation and we can be all excited about it, and it can come before the court and poof, it is gone.  BOB said if we want E-verify, Voter ID and all these other good things we definitely need to keep the court on the conservative side.

David said when he first got into running he was a skeptic about palm cards, but he is a true believer today.  He said he didn’t think anyone would bother to take one but it appeared to him at the last election, from what he saw, about 85% of the people either took a copy or already had one.  And the results bore that out.

Discussion on the importance of vetting the candidates and maintaining the TEA Party reputation of only supporting the very best candidates.  We are not infallible.  Sometimes the candidates may either lie to us or change their views after getting in office.  Therefore it is important that we hold their feet to the fire after the election.  We put them in, we can take them out with the next election.

BOB asked if everyone liked where we were meeting tonight.  All said yes, but will like it better once we can get out of the hall way where people have to pass through to get to the rest rooms and the back room.  Next week we will meet in the back room, so there should be less interruptions.  Someone asked if that room was big enough to hold us.  PEGGY said we have been having 30 plus people in attendance at the last several meetings and HOWARD said he thought that would keep increasing, but BOB said he felt the room was large enough to hold us.  Only thing he was worried about was that after the election, many of our members will say oh, well, it’s all over now, and stay home.  Attendance might drop off a little but we are not just about elections, there are many other issues the TEA Party can get involved in.

Meeting adjourned at 7:00pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.