CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
11 DECEMBER 2012

Meeting held at Roland’s Barbecue in Beaufort, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:02pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by BOB CAVANAUGH
Invocation by STEVE BEST
Attendance – 17

BOB gave a brief description of the meeting in Kinston this past weekend of various TEA Party groups that he and KEN LANG had attended.  TOM AUSTIN also came up from Jacksonville with two other fellows.  They wound up meeting another group at the meeting who were also part of another Jacksonville TEA Party group that neither knew about prior to the Kinston meeting.  Hopefully the two groups will be able to merge and grow.  A lot of the people at this meeting were young, Libertarian, Ron Paul type of people.  They  want to de-emphasize all the more radical Ron Paul ideas and keep the group focused on more TEA Party type issues – Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government and protection of Free Market system.

There were a number of speakers there and BOB was the first to speak.  It was about forming a political action committee.  GLADYS SUESSLE said she heard he did a great job.  He said it was short and sweet…that he had done a better job in the follow-up email that Karen broadcast to everybody that attended. He had just wanted to plant the seed of the idea in people’s minds as they go back to their groups to think about.

A number of the groups that were there were registered as 501C4’s or C3’s, which legally prohibits them from getting involved in campaigns.  So these are the groups that have constitutional seminars and always have a long line of speakers come down and talk to them.  They just can’t get involved in electioneering of any sort.  So he presented the case that forming a political action committee (PAC) separate and apart from your TEA Party allows the PAC to go ahead and get directly involved in the campaigns and electioneering of various issues.  It was well received.  One guy on the way out the door yelled back “Bob Cavanaugh you are exactly right.”  At least he was enthused.

Bob said he thinks it is a way for us to go because ….he didn’t know if he had reported it or not,
but when TOM AUSTIN was advertising the TEA Party ballot in the Jacksonville Daily paper,
he got a lot of blow back from the daily paper about it having to have a disclaimer at the bottom
of the ballot and then he got a follow-up phone call from the North Carolina State Board of
Elections wanting to know who paid for this, who was involved, etc.  TOM put them off saying
’look, I paid for it off of my credit card.  No one else was involved in this.  I am advertising it for
the TEA Party.  Wanted to know who was the Board Members.  TOM said didn’t have any Board
members.  So anyway, that was when BOB first started thinking we need to find another modus
operandi if we are going to be continuing with our TEA Party ballots.  We have not gotten any
blow back yet, but not telling what kind of pitfalls lie ahead during some campaign.  When
maybe someone has some extra money or deep pockets and they want to try to get court
injunctions to try to keep us from doing stuff like we have been doing.  So if we organize under a
more legal framework that is sanctioned by the state of NC, and we operate within those
parameters then we will be OK.  Also it allows us to go and directly try to do fund raising from
businesses and stuff like that.  One of the fellows there was from Virginia and they had started a
PAC up there, a kind of blanketed one of the congressional districts of Virginia and he said they
had two big pocket donors (he could not give names) but said one of them donated a million
dollars to them.  That is the type of money you can raise with a pact.  There is record keeping
involved.  It is the same record keeping that is involved with any political campaign.  You have
to have a Treasurer.  There is an on line training course.  There is about four or five different
blocks of training and a small written test after each block.  Anyway you can knock it out in
about a hour and a half or two hours. Basically it just teaches you how to fill out the forms.  He
has a list of the forms but the forms themselves are pretty much self explanatory.  This is
something we will need to talk about after the first of the year when more of our group re-
assembles, both here and Cape Carteret group.

A member in attendance asked if we would still be able to campaign like we have been doing?
BOB said yes, but we will be doing it under the auspices of the Crystal Coast TEA Party PAC,
which is different from the TEA Party Patriots.  You can not co-mingle the money.  You have to
have a separate bank account. Question – will it keep us from wearing our shirts when we work
the polls?  BOB – no, that is fine.  Actually nothing changes other than giving us a legal
framework to do what we are doing.  Then we can put on our ballot – the TEA Party supports this
person…however we want to word it…we don’t have to worry about that anymore.  HOWARD
wanted to know if we could go to an office supply and buy the forms we need and do it on our
own and get incorporated?  A lawyer is kind of expensive to form a corporation.  Several years
ago he was with a political action group (probably at least 10 years ago) and the lawyer charged
them $700.00 just for legal fees to file for it.  BOB said he was just talking to the owner of the
Cigar Store he patronizes and she incorporated just a couple of years ago and it was $500.00 and
that included the filing fees, the CPA (don’t need a lawyer, just a CPA).  You can do it yourself,
all the forms are available. You just want to make sure all your “I’s” are dotted and your “T’s”
crossed.  He had set up a non-profit 501C3 for this organization called the CR Society and we did
it out of a corporation in Nevada and it was $600.00. To organize as a political action committee
all the forms are right there on the NC Board of Election.  You just download the forms, fill them
out, put in the names of the chief officers, the secretary, the treasurer, the president, vice-chair, or
whatever.  You have to keep an accurate list of your donors.  There is a separate sheet for those
who donate under $50.00 and another sheet for those who donate over $50.00, which have to be
submitted quarterly.  As far as out of pocket cash donations, what he would do is when there is
enough money there, he would just take it out, stick it in the bank and write a check and make it
look like he gave all that money…or one of the other members.  If you incorporate, what would
you incorporate as?  We don’t want to do a 501C3 or C4 and we would basically be a 527 group
as a political action committee.  HOWARD said he thought we should do some research on that.
GLADYS wanted to know if we would have to pay taxes on that money.  BOB said that was one
thing he was looking into.  You have disbursements and all that.  You wouldn’t pay like an
income tax, but there may be some tax liability at the end of the year and you have a whole
bunch of money sitting there…I don’t know.   That is something he will have to look into.
GLADYS said maybe we should look into the Republican Party because they have PACs and
find out what they do.

BOB said the other thing he proposed is that if each of the TEA Party groups formed a
PAC….when it came time for a major (like a state wide election) we could form a super PAC
and have a separate PAC for all the different individual PACs to donate into so that we could
help fund someone like Causey or Judge Newby or whoever rather that trying to do little bits and
pieces.  And another thing, as a super PAC or a congress of PACs footprint in North Carolina it
gets the attention of politicians because money is the milk blood of politics and boy they know
that….that TEA Party down in the 3rd Congressional District they can come together and
generate some money.  So they would pay us more attention to us if they knew we had a lot of
money.  Especially if we were able to dry up the money that we would normally send to the
Republicans…send it in to the TEA Party.  That is another way to get the GOP’s attention….
having the funds we normally give to the GOP and having it going into the Tea Party PAC.  He
said he knows we are all just as disgruntled as he is about how the Republican Party is just trying
to throw all the conservatives over board.  We need to slap them into the face and give them a
wake up call.

One of the other things that came out of the meeting Saturday was taking over the GOP and this
is already well underway in Dare County and possibly Moore County…and a big effort in Pitt
County to stuff the precincts.  Everyone wants to get rid of Robin Hayes as the State GOP
Chairman.  Don’t know who they will support yet.  Rumor has it that Hayes is going to run for
re-election and then quit sometime in midterm and turn it over to Mike King so that he would be
the incumbent when it is time to run again.  That type of deal.  BOB said he was not real excited
about Mike King either.  The general idea was to infiltrate the GOP as opposed to these ideas
being thrown around by a lot of people about forming a third party.  The infrastructure is already
there, we do not have to duplicate, just take over what is already there.  Discussion by the group
on this idea.

HOWARD said he was listening to the radio this morning and a congressman from Michigan (he
thought) that had been thrown off the committee he was on by Behner was saying that a score
card was kept on the congressmen and if they voted liberal they got a good mark or a plus and if
they voted conservative they got a minus.  BOB said that sounded like a good idea for us to have
a score card on the county commissioners so when the next election came around and we start
trying to push candidates we can say like…back in July so and so voted this way.  Maybe cut out
the newspaper articles and start making a scrapbook on the different County Commissioners.  We
do need to be thinking about who would run for County Commissioner in 2014 against Greg
Lewis.  It has to be someone who wants the job and will work at it.

Discussion on Republican officials of the local party voting or campaigning for a third party
candidate or Democrat could cause you to lose your seat in the Party.  Example: when Betty Bell
ran as an independent and Jules Wheatly backed her, he lost his position on the executive
committee.  That was the end of him.  We need to be careful of anything like this.  BOB had told
a lady at the meeting Saturday who was lamenting about needing to be in two places at once (one
the meeting there and the other a Republican state meeting in Raleigh) that she had to make a
decision which was more important to her and she had ended up coming to Kinston.

GLADYS wanted to know who usually went to County Commissioners meetings and where they
met.  BOB told her that KEN and DIANE LANG and HOWARD and PEGGY GARNER usually
attended most of the meetings.  HOWARD explained where they met in the court house and how
to get there.  Question – When do they meet?  HOWARD said according to NC law it has to be
posted in the newspaper so she should watch for the notice.  They usually meet at least once a
month and if something important needs discussion, they can meet more often.  It is broadcast on
Channel 10 TV.  Don’t know if it runs live but it runs all weekend.  HOWARD said he would try
to let her know when the next meeting is scheduled, since he tries to keep up with them.

LUKE KUKULINSKI brought up about USAA Insurance down in Jacksonville and how much
money he had saved by switching to them from Nationwide. (On his cars and his house he had
saved $600.00 a year, with exactly the same coverage.)   Discussion followed.

Another thing that was brought up at the Kinston meeting was nullification, where the state can
vote to just not participate in legislation like Obamacare.  A lawyer up in Pitt county, head of the
TEA Party up there, is a prolific writer and talker, went into the history of nullification.  The
counter argument was Civil War settled the whole question of nullification (and no it didn‘t.).
BOB’s whole take away on the whole thing was the states can go ahead and nullify it.  Just say
NC goes ahead and nullifies it, then the federal government’s response would be if you don’t
want to participate in Obamacare which feeds into Medicare and Medicaid then you don’t get
any Medicare and Medicaid funding.  The federal government entices states to go along with all
these federal programs by funneling money down to them and once you get dependent on that
money it is hard to let go of it because now you have a budgetary shortfall and some people have
to get fired or whatever.  To him the whole thing is going to wind up in the courts.  He thinks
North Carolina should go ahead and assert its sovereignty and pass a resolution of nullification of
the Obamacare.  HOWARD asked wasn’t it too late since Perdue had already signed off on it and
we would have to refund all the money the federal government had given us.  BOB said there is a
lot of action by the TEA Party inundating McCrory as soon as he gets sworn in to send that
money back.  LUKE said he understood that McCrory had said he was not going to set up the
health exchange, so he will have to send that money back (something like 75 million dollars).
BOB said he bet Beverly had already spent that on something else.  FRED said, speaking about
Beverly, had we heard how she was trying to set up the court system right here at the end of her
term.  HOWARD said the bad part was she had set up the criteria last year to be followed and
now she is saying there is not time so she is not going to follow her own mandates.  She had set it
up that a group would be established to vet the candidates prior to deciding who would be
selected.  GLADYS wanted to know when the judge was retiring the Perdue wanted to select the
replacement for.  Answer.  Right now.  Perdue wants to replace a liberal black lady judge with
another so that one can run as an incumbent.

BOB said another item discussed at the Kinston meeting was Agenda 21.  Didn’t go into any real
detail or depth about it, just cited different things about how the government is trying to move
people into smaller and smaller parcels of land and of course the 100 year sea level rise was all a
part of it.  One of the speakers was talking about how the Agenda 21 had infiltrated the education
system of the kids.  They are already starting to brainwash them.  BOB when asked questions on
Agenda 21 said the basic concept of Agenda 21 is a great big environmental bill.  The way
humans are using the planet now is not sustainable.  It is not just here in America, but has taken
really deep roots in Europe already.  There is probably no turning Europe back.  Europe does not
have the same problem as the US does with suburban sprawl.  Agenda 21, basically, tries to get
humans to move into smaller and smaller pieces of land.  They want to take all the national parks
and forests and make those off limits to any human activity whatsoever.  Then they want to put a
50 mile buffer around these parks and forests, move people out of there, and make these areas for
limited human activity (like hiking, hunting and stuff like that).  Then they want to connect all
these areas with green zones, green belts or green ways, so the animals can move back and forth
for migrating and keeping the gene pool from being destroyed.  In doing this it takes away more
and more land that people can use.  This is not going to happen by just one mandate coming
down saying everyone get the —- out of here.  It is going to happen in little bits and pieces so
you won’t even notice it happening.  Example:  the scenic byway down east that cuts out land
that you can’t develop.  This 100 year sea level rise was a test balloon cause North Carolina is a
hot bed where Agenda 21 is concerned and environmental activism.  If they could get it by NC
then they were going to just boom up and down the eastern seaboard and the western seaboard.  .
Just in Carteret County you are talking about 10’s of thousands of acres being taken out of any
future development.  GLADYS wanted to know how far along that is here. BOB said it was a
dead issue now a few years.  It is not dead, it has been kind of set aside until we get some hard
science to really come down with some positive evidence rather that just speculating based on
computer models.  Pat McElraft led the effort to stop that effort for now, but it is not actually
dead by any means.  SUSAN said she had read something recently about that being economic
justice to the effect that by having all the people in one area and allowed so much property they
are equalizing.  BOB said in the Lenoir Community College you can get a 2 year degree in
Sustainability.  Keep your eyes out for Agenda 21.  If you just sit back and don’t get involved
you are slowly going to be squeezed.  Bird sanctuaries, nature habitats, and stuff like that sounds
great done locally.  But the net effect of that on the large scale is people slowly build their own
prison.  Not some big mandate of “Get off the land”.  It is going to be accomplished over decades
of time and the ball is already rolling.  Discussion of the various groups just here in Carteret
County who are pushing this agenda.  They think they are doing us who do not know anything a
favor by encouraging these ideas.  BILL GRIFFITH discussed a portion of the talk he gives on
Global Warming, which was very interesting and the good it has done instead of what the liberals
would have you believe.  Further discussion on global warming followed.

BOB said the group who met last weekend in Kinston plan to have another meeting sometime
after the first of the year.  All of the speakers there were asked to send an email follow-up about
what they had presented and it will be put together and sent out.  Everybody will get a copy of it
eventually.  The plan is to come up with a list of agenda items for the next meeting that they will
talk about and vote on and things like that.  They will have a heads up about it so he can bring it
to us and discuss it here so he can take our groups opinions when he goes and can cast his vote
one way or the other on different things.

BOB said he went Friday and talked to Lockwood Phillips about an hour and a half about this
TEA Party radio program that has been floating around and it is going to happen probably
sometime in January.  Initially it is going to be a half hour program.  It will run at 9:00 at night
either a Tuesday or Thursday night.  BOB wants Thursday since we meet on Tuesdays.  It will
involve the Crystal Coast TEA Party, the Jacksonville/Onslow TEA Party and the Craven County
Tax Payers Association.  The format is going to be kind of like the “Five” on Fox TV.  Each
panelists will have a section of time to talk about a particular issue.  They will know in advance
what the issues are so they can do their research and be able to talk intelligently.  Assuming they
get good advertising lined up and they get the kinks worked out in the first couple of months then
they hope to expand to a one hour program.  He plans that when they expand to the one hour they
will open it up to the other TEA Party groups maybe as phone-in panelists.  They wouldn’t have
to drive all the way here but can do it in the comfort of their living rooms.  He and Lockwood
tossed around about having invited guests and maybe go through the vetting process on
politicians and stuff like that.  The idea is kind of a punch back at the GOP for trying to get back
at conservatives, trying to stifle the TEA Party.  We are alive and well.  We have been painted by
too many folks as angry, racist, bigots, you’ve heard it all.  Carteret County is a perfect place to
start that because of our conservative base here.  We do have such a wide kinship with the local
population, if you go by the parade enthusiasm shown at the parades as an indicator.  That is
what is coming down the road.  He asked Lockwood if he had any advertisers lined up and
Lockwood said they needed to talk about that some more.  BOB said he really didn’t see a
problem there with three counties and the three groups involved, we all know people who have
businesses who we can talk to about sponsoring our program.   BOB will be meeting again with
Lockwood sometime this week or early next week to discuss the feedback he receives from the
meeting in Kinston.  GLADYS wanted to know where they would be broadcasting from.  BOB
said right here in Morehead City.  It will be simulcast on an AM station in Jacksonville.

Other things we have already talked about … the spring time rally.  Do we want to call it a
Tax Day Rally or something else.  We need to have some kind of theme or some sort of reason
why we want to invite the folks to come out and join us.  We need to work on some ideas for
that.  Other thing we need is money.  We have $434.51 in the treasury.  That will only cover the
public address system and half of an outhouse.  The other thing is the Newport Pig Cookin’.
Discussion followed on the Pig Cookin’.  HOWARD said it was a little early contacting the pig
cooking committee but it was on the agenda.  GLADYS wanted to know if we could afford the
rally and the Pig Cookin’.  PEGGY said from her association with the event the pig normally
costs around $100.00 which is an entrance fee.  Therefore we definitely need to be trying to
come up with ways to increase our bank account in order to have the rally.  BOB said if we can
get in the pig cooking event, some things we need to look into are ‘can we sell our t-shirts and
hats and stuff?’  HOWARD and PEGGY said they would look into all that when they contacted
the committee about sponsoring a pig in the event.

The gun show in New Bern was mentioned.  BOB felt that we would be imposing on the New
Bern Coastal Carolina Tax Payers if we got involved with that.  He knows they said they had not
problem with us doing it, but he also heard them say they made just enough with their sales to
pay for the booth and he felt we would infringe on their income.  BOB felt that if it was a matter
of going up there and working all day and just breaking even, it wasn’t worth it.

BOB said we have a lot of things coming down the pike but the bottom line is we need
volunteers to step up to do the jobs.  We will be doing these things not just for the money but for
exposure also.

BOB said we need to find out where the GOP precinct meetings are going to be held for those
who are interested in attending.  We need to have a list ahead of time so plans can be made to
attend.  Discussed the fact that with McCrory  going in as governor (an a republican) we will
need at least 26 new poll judges.  Assuming the current republican judges will be elevated to
chief judges creates an opportunity to other republicans to step up and offer their services.  BOB
said he hoped we would not all run out and offer to be poll judges, because he felt we had more
influence working outside at the polls.

Tonight is the last meeting of this year.  Our next meeting will be January 8, 2013, here at
Roland’s.  Question was raised how many were interested in moving back to Golden Corral once
it opens back up, if they will have us.  Majority was in favor. BOB said the Golden Corral in
Jacksonville would have the TEA Party group but wanted a minimum of 30 people. He does not
know if it will be the same thing here, since it is run by different management.  No definite date
has been announced as to when our Golden Corral will open.

Everyone wished each other a Very Merry Christmas and the meeting adjourned at 7:18pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.