CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
5 MARCH 2013

Meeting was held at Golden Corral in Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:02pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Invocation by LYN BAKER
Pledge of Allegiance was led by BOB CAVANAUGH
Attendance – 23

BOB announced that STEVE BEST would be showing another movie at his “Cave” theater –
Apostle Peter and the Last Supper on Saturday, March 23 at 5:00pm.  Steve’s address is 103 Washington Ave., Newport and his phone number is 252-723-0493.

BOB said he had mentioned last week that he had ordered the “First in Freedom” book from the John Locke Foundation.  It came in this week and he hasn’t had the opportunity to read it yet; however, it would be available from our TEA Party ‘rolling’ library for anyone wishing to read it.

Comments were made on the letter to the editor by Tim Buck and all questioned why he did it.
It was just a little short paragraph that said “Note to the GOP. The GOP will live by the TEA Party or die by the TEA Party.  To the TEA Party – go crawl back under the rock you came from”.  Several members wanted to know who Tim Buck was.  They were told that Tim used to come to our meetings and had worn our Uncle Sam outfit in the parades we participated in.  One night he came and returned the outfit and told us he would not be wearing it anymore…and he has not been to a meeting since.  None of us know what happened or why he got upset but he has avoided us ever since.  It is presumed that since he was not re-elected Precinct Chairman, that he lashed out at the TEA Party (since BOB was elected chairman of the Broad Creek precinct), but we do not know for sure.

Discussion on the number of various TEA Parties now springing up around the country and all are asking for funding.  This is creating a bad name for the original TEA Party groups (the grass roots groups).  Someone said, since we are in need for money, maybe we should fall in line with them.  All others said ‘no way, we prefer to stay broke and honest and stay true to our convictions.  BOB said the TEA Party was supposed to be a bottom up organization – not a top down organization.   A lot of  the other groups are trying to assume some sort of leadership role.

BOB said he kept in contact with the surrounding TEA Party groups and they are still operating like we are…taking care of local stuff,  trying to stay in tune with what is going on within the state.  There is not a whole lot of enthusiasm out there among our TEA Party areas about having these rallies of protest.  The time for protesting is over with.  Now is the time for boots on the ground….doing exactly what we did back during the primary when we kicked Randy Ramsey’s butt and getting Norm Sanderson elected in the general election.  HOWARD said he feels that it helps when we show up at the County Commissioner’s meetings.  It lets them know we are watching them.  He thinks we should get a group together and go to Raleigh and not be protesting anything….just being seen.  Let them know that we are out here.

BOB said he also heard today that the NC Insurance Commissioner Goodwin, has recommended an average of 7 % increase in home insurance.  That is the average.  Winston Salem, Greensboro; they got a 1% increase in their insurance and homes in Carteret County and the coast got a 20% increase.  Discussion followed.  BOB said we had tried our best to get Causey elected as Insurance Commissioner, but had failed in the state.  It is hard to beat the larger populated counties….it takes 22 counties on the coast to make up for one in the center part of the state.  DAVID COX asked wasn’t it true that the most expensive hurricanes we had had in recent years had hit the center of the state, and not the coast, but we are still the ones being penalized.  HOWARD said Goodwin was counting votes, so he is taking care of where the votes are.  HOWARD said, what he is not taking into account is…these large homes here on the coast do not belong to us, but to those Democrats in the center of the state.

Other old business…ERIC was trying to get organized the youth into a young TEA Party group.  ERIC said they met with Lockwood Phillips last Wednesday and had a good in depth discussion and listened to some ideas he had.  He is very supportive of our efforts of raising the interest of young adults into today’s politics.  They really do not have an outlet other than Face Book.  He is looking at a couple of Town Hall type meetings just for the possible age group of 16 to 24.  A couple of topics we threw around was Education and Job Skills.  We are planning to meet again tonight to decided the direction we are going on this.  The purpose of the Town Hall would indicate the interests of this age group in this community.  If they are not interested in this effort, then I don’t know how successful we will be.  The TEA Party will be the sponsor of these Town Hall Meetings and we can hold them in a couple of different locations over the next 3 or 4 months.  Hopefully, from that we can draw some usage in our membership and even have them set up their own youth party.  BOB said you set up the Town Hall for the youth, but how will you get the message out to them.  ERIC said that is where Lockwood helps – says –  put out posters and signs in the high schools, community colleges, and the various areas that attract youth already.   We also will be publishing some stuff free of charge because Lockwood is supporting us in this, so we will have some announcements maybe 2 or 3 weeks ahead of time of the Town Hall meeting.  The thing is we probably will need to develop a sign up page.  We will be limited to only so many people.  We don’t know what this will draw.  We would like a group of maybe 50 to 100 in the meeting itself.  (Would be nice)  We could have 2 or 3 speakers to speak on the main topics and then have a meeting afterwards with the youth discussing those topics.  Their feedback and view points as to what would be good for them…because one of the biggest complaints we are hearing today is students’ loans.  The student loans are now the second largest debt in the US.  First comes mortgages…it used to be credit card debt…now it is student loan debt.  The other thing is about job skills.  So many of the students don’t have anything but a high school degree or less.  That means 30% of our population is going on to higher learning.  BOB said let’s get back to the youth group (and not get into education and job skills).  ERIC said the thing is we need to have speakers talk about these subjects so we have come up with a couple of good topics.  Based on what will occur at these town hall meetings is can we build a young TEA Party.  If they are not willing to participate in this, then they are not willing to participate in what we are doing now.  LYN said you will need to have speakers that the kids look up to, and not just someone from the Board of Education for example.  We have a lot of athletes, young entrepreneurs  and other people that could attract their attention.  They could get up and tell how they started.  ERIC said he also thinks this would be a good image thing for the TEA Party because we say we are worried about fiscal responsibility and limited government.  He thinks we have to get involved with our youth.  We really do not have a choice.  BOB said it does have the potential of making the TEA Party look good but it could blow up in our faces if you throw a party and nobody comes.  BOB asked if anyone else had any ideas about how to get the youth out there interested.  HOWARD said that is a chance you always take when you are trying to get organized.  GLADYS said Lockwood has a lot of pull.  He has a program on Monday nights where he does view points with kids and she thinks through that he could very easily get a bunch of people.  BOB said yeah, but all those kids are liberal.  Catie, HOWARD and PEGGY’S great granddaughter is the only conservative there.  Those kids are so far to the left it is crazy.  He went and talked to the debate class at East Carteret High School several months back.  Julia, the debate coach wanted to have a liberal, a conservative and a TEA Party representative come and speak to her class.  He, BOB, told her he would be more than happy.  She had to sell this to the principle and was having a problem getting a Democrat or a Republican to come and speak.  He told her to let him see what he could do.  So he called around to a couple of the key members of the Republican party and was met with ‘oooh, noooo, I don’t want to do any controversial stuff like that.  So the long and short of it, BOB wound up being the sole speaker for about 2 hours.  He told them that they were not politically aware, which he understood, nor would they be until many years from now, because they will be going through the same things that we did at their ages….first worrying about getting through high school, then getting through college, or service, then you get into building your career, raising your family, running the kids to Tball, Boy Scouts, and you do not have time for politics.  Finally, once your kids are grown and the grandkids are out of diapers, you finally have the time and look around and say ‘holy Moses, what happened to the country!!!’.  He told them he was not trying to embarrass anybody but he asked how many knew who the president of the US was….every body please raise you hand.  All hands were raised.  Then he asked who the Vice President was and pretty much everyone raised their hand.  And they all knew the Governor.  But when he started coming back down … who was the House Member that represented us in the US Congress.  Only one kid knew.  Then he asked who could name both of our Senators in the US Congress.  Nobody knew.  He asked if they knew just one of the Senators.  Nobody knew.  So he said let’s come closer to home…..who is our representative in the NC Legislature.  Nobody knew.  None knew who our State Senator was.  So he said well let’s come on even closer…who can name a County Commissioner.  One kid could name one commissioner who BOB thinks was the kid’s neighbor.  BOB said that was not done to embarrass you or make you feel stupid, it was just to emphasize what he had said earlier that you all are just not politically aware.  So ERIC, this is what you are going to run into.  A debate class is a pretty savvy group of kids.  They debate a whole lot of issues.  BOB said he is all for anything that will work to try to get the next generation coming along – not just the high school kids but also the college kids.  In fact, anybody under 40 to come into the group.  ERIC said he was just testing the waters to see if there was any interest in the youth in this community that wants to be involved.  BOB said the first shot was the most important.  You have to make it count.  So, you really have to do some skull work on this and not look at it just from an adult perspective.  ERIC said he planned to run everything by the TEA Party, because they want the TEA Party sponsoring this event.

WAYNE WILLIS said he had 2 questions he wanted to ask BOB…… if he asked those students what kind of subjects they debate in their debate exercises and 2 could he now have any input into that after going there and talking to them and them hearing you demonstrate to them their own ignorance about who’s what in politics.  Don’t you thing that would be something worth while to follow up on.  BOB said Julia said she planned to have him back.  She also wants BOB to be a judge at their debate events.  When these debates are set up, they do not find out what they are going to be debating about until X number of weeks prior to the event.  Then they jump into the computer and probe the subject.  WAYNE said but given the kind of mentality the Education Department’s got they are probably having debates about ’What do you believe about how bad global warming is’ or something like that.  That is what he is talking about.  BOB said he would say this about Julia, she is very conservative…he has been to a couple of her classes and he had given a lecture sometime last year about the Beirut memorials on the anniversary and he had a two hour block for a power point on that.  She always starts her classes, (someone is designated to come up before the thing starts and reads off a quotable quote from some historical figure in American politics.) and also with a moment of silence, prayer, contemplation.  No one verbally prays out loud but she gives them a moment of reflection.  She exerts strong influence on the subject matter being debated locally.  Once they go out into competition he is sure she has very little input on that.

HOWARD said Catie says she has noticed when she is on Lockwood’s program the kids from East Carteret are more liberal than any other school.  BOB said all the Democrats live down east anyway.  (laughter)

BOB said we are all so old school we think of debating over facts…you present your facts and I’ll present mine.  But we have seen from presidential debates that you can get up there and just bald face lie and as long as the people listening to the debate don’t challenge…..if you can sell your lie you win the debate.  He is not sure how they do the debates…if it is one team member against another team member or a team against a team, however, team against team looks like it could become unwieldy.  Discussion on debating followed.  BOB said he looked forward to getting on the debate judging to see how it is all set up and what influence he might be able to exert on the direction of the subject matter.  He told ERIC he had brought up the debate students to just show him the mountain he was facing.  You can’t assume that all the kids are out there just waiting for somebody to come out and teach them.  ERIC said he had talked to a lot of the young people and a lot of them just don’t want to get involved.  It’s not that they don’t want to be involved, but they just feel it is useless to be involved.  BOB said a lot of them do not have a vote yet, and don’t see the relevance at this point in their life because Mon and Dad are paying the bills and they don’t have to worry about that for years to come.

ERIC said that is the reason why he is going through this process.  BOB has made a valid point.  For a youth group or young TEA Party group to survive and exist, if it doesn’t have a certain number of participants, which will be the big sell behind the thing.  This is your TEA Party standing up and giving you a forum to speak your consciences and your mind on this topic.  Because we feel the topic is important to you and we want to hear what you have to say.  Just because we gave them a platform might draw them into us, saying here is a party that does care about me.  BOB said, ‘what if it is a whole big liberal group that shows up and wants to talk about liberalism.’  ERIC said when they sign up to attend, the form will show whether they are liberal or conservative and we will break it up accordingly.  BOB said, anyway, ERIC, go slowly on this and keep us informed.

HOWARD said it is not just the teenagers that feel that they can’t accomplish anything.  People his age think the same thing.  He has had people tell him before and during the election he was wasting his time….come on and go fishing with me……He would tell them, no he was not going, he wanted to make a change.  They would come back, ‘oh you are just wasting your time.’  A lot of adults feel like it is a hopeless situation.   HOWARD said he couldn’t tell how big a percentage of the population it was, but it is a big one.  BOB said he asked people on election day, ‘did you go out and vote?’  ‘Nope’  ‘So why not?’ ‘It doesn’t matter’.  As long as you feel that way, you are right, it doesn‘t matter.

BOB told ERIC that he was talking too much structure.  One thing that kids do not want is structure.  You start putting in rules and regulations….I don’t have any solutions for you, but I do know they do not like structure.  They get all that that they can handle at the house and what they get there is too much in their eyes.  Most of them are concerned with ’just hurry up and let’s get out of school so I can start my own life.’  It is a mind set there.

ERIC said let’s throw this idea up and if we can’t reach them then we can’t fault ourselves for at least not trying.  BOB asked PEGGY if Catie didn’t try to enlist like minded kids a couple of years back.  PEGGY said, yes, she and the young man who passed away (Michael) tried to get those who were of age or almost registered to vote.  The interest just was not there.  It went no where.  You have only a very small percentage of teens or youth who, at that age, even care about our country and how they can affect their own future.

ERIC said right now we have an idea, and we have the support of the local newspaper and radio.  That is going to be a key to this.  This is a plus.  BOB said one thing he thinks may be more successful rather than starting a new organization is just get a core group of conservative minded teens that would show up on Mondays at Lockwood’s youth points program to act as a counter balance to the left.  That way you get back and forth discussion between two groups.  So if you can just find two or three conservative oriented teens that are politically aware, that read the news and pay attention to what is going on, and have opinions.  A lot of these kids that show up on Lockwood’s show they really don’t know much of anything.  Lockwood pretty much tells them what the issues are.  A lady in the audience said they listen to the show and they do not get that they are ultra liberal.  BOB said he got that from Lockwood, he controls the subjects discussed.  PEGGY said Catie says the same thing because she is on that show.  Catie is a senior in high school this year, has been taking some courses at the Community College, and works at Chic Fillet.  If the other kids are like her they don’t have the time to get involved in another time consuming project.  That is why she is no longer attending our meetings.  Not because she is no longer interested, but that she doesn’t have the time.  LUKE said there are not many like her.  They are few and far between.  BOB asked ERIC if he knew of just one conservative teen and start talking to that one and grow from there.  BILL GRIFFITH said the VFW had a contest each year on writing an essay on Americanism.  They have had local winners go on to become state and national winners.  This is another good group to look into.  Several other organizations also hold essay contests that lean toward conservatism.  These are some good suggestions for places to look for the group ERIC is wanting to get together.

ERIC told about two bills that were submitted in the senate in the last couple of days.  One is ‘An act to repeal the requirement that motor vehicles registered in the state have an annual safety inspection.  They are trying to reduce the requirement of annual safety inspections.  BOB said that is just for safety issues.  It doesn’t eliminate the smog etc emissions.  HOWARD said Harry Brown stopped it last year when it came up.  A lot of service stations make a good income from these inspections.

The other one is an act to prohibit state agencies and local governments from adopting and implementing or enforcing any ordinance that regulates green house, gas emissions, or elements, human activity for the purpose of reducing green house emissions if not required by a federal law.  So in short, it looks like it stops the local agencies from establishing their own rules and guidelines.  HOWARD said there is an organization here in Carteret County (Coastal Federation) that is trying to stop all that.  They are raising a ruckus about all these appointed boards being cut.

Discussion on getting your license for your car and what it currently entails and the problems that are arising with illegals.  Since you have to have insurance to get your car license, they are now finding that an illegal will purchase insurance for 30 days and then after getting their license, drop or let their insurance lapse.  HOWARD said one of the things they are contemplating to offset this problem is when you go to buy your license plate, you will have to pay your property tax on that vehicle right then.

BOB said NC House Bill 141 which is the drivers’ license moratorium bill.  DACA beneficiaries/drivers license board moratorium.  This bill is currently sitting in the rules committee of the NC House.  This bill will give the general assembly the time to study all the ramifications on issuing licenses to DACA eligible illegal aliens in NC.  Appeal the decision of the DMV of issuing licenses to the DACA individuals on March 25 was made in haste and below the level of government necessary to make such decisions.  It is strongly urged to slow the process down by supporting House Bill 141 and give our elected officials to thoroughly study the effects of granting driver privileges to DACA illegal aliens of NC.  It is requested that anyone interested in this program to please get the email addresses for Lt Gov., Chief of Staff, NC House Speaker, Speaker Protem, and Senate Protem to get this thing out of committee that is slowing everything down.  ERIC said Pat McElraft just signed off on that bill/sponsored it.  These are the licenses with the pink strip.  BOB said if they are on the road driving, he would just as soon they have taken a road, eye exam and be physically and mentally qualified to drive on the road.  He does not like the fact that they are there and he doesn’t support illegal aliens driving but since they are driving and since there is so many of them, I would just as soon make sure they have a legal license….they took a written test and passed the eye and sign exams, plus we now have a valid identification of who that driver is.

HOWARD said he wanted to let everyone know that PEGGY is scheduled to have heart surgery on the 25 of March.  She keeps insisting that she will be able to make all the meetings including the one on the 26th but he doesn’t think she’s going to make it.  PEGGY said, no, she didn’t think she would make that meeting, so she was looking to find someone to volunteer to take the minutes, type them up and email them to KEN LANG.  (Request that someone do this for me this one time anyway.  I think I’ll be back for the next week’s meeting..  Really would appreciate your help here.  Peggy)

BOB said Harry Brown had sent him an update on what is going on in the Senate in Raleigh.  On
Wednesday, three pieces of legislation resulting in the workers compensation insurance coverage
study committee being passed in the Senate and headed over to the House.  Senate Bill 43 which
is a study savings for administration for claims (how to reduce the paperwork and reduce the
claims and expedite the process).  Senate Bill 44 is the workman comp/coverage/public records.
This will permit the NC Industrial Commission to disclose additional data relating to
workman comp insurance policies.  Senate Bill 51 is workman comp/program integrity.  This
will enhance the collection and analysis of data from state agencies related to workers
compensation covering claims for the purpose of fraud prevention and detection.  Senate Bill 76
is the Domestic Energy Jobs Act.  This was also passed down from the Senate headed to the
House.  Comprehensive energy bill allows our state to take advantage of our abundant energy
Resources.  This will help generate thousands of jobs and millions of dollars allowing our
energy independence.  The bill encourages energy exploration.  McCrory has already joined the
Outer Continental Shelf Governors’ Coalition.  Early this month he sent a letter to the governor
of Virginia, South Carolina, asking the Obama administration to partner off-shore energy
exploration.  The Senate has passed House Bill 9 ‘with respect for our fallen heroes bill‘ which
strengthens the law prohibiting disorderly conduct at a funeral by expanding the buffer zone
making the penalties more severe.   Senate Bill 58 which relates to dredging.  Increased funding
for dredging (an increased fee for boat owners that will provide continuing stream of revenue to
keep the smaller channels open.)  Currently all boats, inland and coastal, are required to be
numbered and pay numbering fees.  These fees bring in about $6 million dollars a year.  These
fees are used around the state for enforcement, water safety education, and boating taxes,
acquisition development and maintenance.  The staff from the Water Resources estimates that
the amount of recurring needed to dredge shallow inlets on a continuing basis is about $12
million.  This figure does not include the dredging of deep water inlets like Oregon Inlet.  Other
states such as Florida are benchmarked and rate structures based on boat size appear to be the
standard process since larger vessels are likely to be affected by shallow inlets.  This schedule is
expected to bring in another 6 million dollars per year and will go directly into the shallow draft
dredging fund dedicated toward shallow draft inlets.  To offset any further fee increases across
the state projects from the special fund will be cost shared with non-state money from local
communities on a one to one basis.  Senator Brown has also introduced Senate Bill 127,
Customer Service Economic Development and Transportation.  This piece of legislation which
has been referred to Senate Congress Committee establishes uniform geographical
administrative divisions for the state and creates a commission on regionalization conformity to
develop recommendations.  Over the past week, Senator Brown has been meeting with key
members of the Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce, to solicit their
feedback on this pending legislation.  As Senate Appropriations Chair he has been carefully
watching the development of sequestration process since many state agencies rely on federal
grants.  This is not how to run a government budget.  We have been deliberately preparing our
budget while reviewing and prioritizing on a line by line basis.  This is why appropriations
subcommittee members have invested significant amount of time in meetings the past several
weeks to mitigate some of these  cuts of legislation to help preserve and grant more military jobs
to our state.

BOB said he heard on the radio tonight on the way to the meeting that the White House has
discontinued the White House tours as part of the sequestration.  He said he would be willing to
bet a month’s pay that whoever is in charge of the White House tours did not get fired.  I bet no
one lost their jobs.  The only ones who are going to get hurt are the people who want to go tour
the White House while they are in Washington.  Gladys said Rush was talking about how many
more people have been hired.  DAVID said he was wondering if Obama was going to cut back
on his travel.  RUTH said John Kerry just arranged to give Egypt $250 million dollars.

Discussion on Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and Welfare.  Resentment of lumping
Medicaid and Welfare in with Medicare and Social Security.  All have paid into Medicare and
Social Security and feel it is an entitlement.  If the money had been taken care of and invested as
was promised, we would not be worried about Medicare and Social Security today.

Discussion on the stock market and savings in banks and credit unions.

Discussion on guns and ammunition….and all the waste that has occurred in the past….and a lot
of war stories.

Meeting adjourned at 7:40pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.