CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF 8 NOVEMBER 2011

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:03 pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by ERNIE GUTHRIE
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
No. in attendance – 24

New attendees were:
THOMAS E. VASGAR, originally from Philly, but has been here since 1967.  His mother was from Newport.  Currently lives on the Nine Foot Road in Newport.
JIM AND SUSIE BENDER from Cary, NC.  They are here on vacation and heard about our meeting.  BOB asked it they had a TEA Party in Cary.  Jim said they probably do, but was not aware of one.

BOB said he appreciated everyone’s good wishes and thoughts concerning his absence last week while undergoing a colonoscopy.  He believes it went well, however, he does not remember any of the surgery.

BOB congratulated everyone on the parade.  He thought it went well.  Everyone agreed. (Round of applause)  He felt we were cheered as much or more that any of the other floats.  HOWARD GARNER said except for Ken Humphrey’s wife.  She just stood there and shook her head, refusing a copy of the Constitution or even a piece of candy.  EULA PARKIN wanted to know where the guitar player came from.  HOWARD said he added a whole lot to our float.   He even had those watching the parade join us in singing ‘God Bless America”.  Only thing anyone knew about him was his first name was ‘Jeff’ and he was from Havelock they thought.  HOWARD said he had heard him say something about being a part of some program in the next few weeks in the Havelock City Park, and Howard thought we should try to find out and support him in return.   TOM HARMON said he thought he had attended one of our meetings about 3 or 4 months ago.  (Secretary’s note:  Checked the minutes back to April this year – no Jeff signed in that I could recognize in the signatures.  Possibly, he did not sign in.  Sorry.  No help.)  TOM said he understood someone had invited him, but he didn’t know who.  HOWARD said ‘Jeff” had talked like he might be here tonight.  NANCY BOCK said she understood that ‘Jeff’ was getting married this coming Saturday.

BOB said he was surprised that SCOTT CARPENTER was not in attendance tonight.  He figured he would have a presentation and discussion on what we did right and wrong for the parade.  We missed SCOTT and his presentation.  Maybe he will be here next week to enlighten us.  Several talked about how SCOTT could take charge and keep things moving.  He could still bark orders and everyone jump.  HOWARD said he had not been out of service long enough to get ‘re-civilianized’.  It takes a while to get that military stance completely toned down.  Everyone agreed he was an excellent organizer.  TOM said he still holds staff meetings.  (Sorry, SCOTT, you have to be there to protect yourself).

BOB called on STEVE BEST for a report on his ‘Cave’.  STEVE said, ‘This coming weekend they are having a Prayer Rally in Detroit – a man named Lou Ingals.  He does it (according to STEVE) whenever the LORD tells him to.  It is a fasting and prayer rally and is going to be at the baseball stadium.  The stadium holds around 10,000 people and they are saying it will be full.  There will be various speakers and musicians.  They will fast, pray and worship for 24 hours.  Pray for the nation, the coming elections, and all kinds of stuff.  STEVE will be showing it in the Cave, through the internet service.  He has everything hooked up so he can show it live and everyone attending will be joining in the praying and fasting from Friday at 6:00 pm to Saturday at 6:00 pm.  BOB said he was cool until he got to the fasting part.  He said after that colonoscopy, he had to refill, couldn’t skip that many hours without eating.

JERE GEURIN said he had talked yesterday to a lady from the Morehead City Police Department and she said they will give a guided tour to any group that wants to get together and go through the new police station.  It is 22,000 square feet.  He thinks that ought to be something to see.  Discussion on size of station.  HOWARD said that would be a little over a ½ acre.

BOB called on EULA PARKIN to scare us again about something….  EULA said she was still wondering if we were reading J’Had Watch everyday.  She had a question she wanted to check us out on.  ‘Who was the top US General who was fired for telling the truth about the Afghan president Karside’s (?) regime’.  The answer was in yesterday’s J’had Watch.  Several members offered possible answers.  She read his comment.  “You might just as well poke me in the eye with a needle.  I’m sorry, but we just gave you eleven point six billion and now you are telling me I don’t really care.’  Here we have one official telling the truth about a leader who has openly said he will side with our enemies and has threatened to join the Taliban and the General gets fired.  Major General Peter Fuller, Deputy Commander of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan made the remarks in an interview with Politico that was published Thursday.  Fuller told Politico that major players in the Afghan government are isolated from reality.  Fuller acted angrily on claims from Karside that Afghanistan would side with Pakastan if we (the US) went to war with them.  Fuller called Karside’s statements irrational.  It was announced Friday that Fuller was to be released from his duties effective immediately, saying these comments are indicative of our current relationship with the government of Afghanistan.  The Afghan people are an honorable people and statements like these will prevent a peaceful and solid unity with our country.  The article ended with “Fuller will be proven right and we will be proven foolish – you can teach a man how to fish, or you can give them a fish.  Fuller said we are giving them fish while they are learning and they want more fish; and now they say they like sword fish; how come you are giving me cod?  The point being there will never be peace in Afghanistan.  ERNIE GUTHRIE asked if anyone knew the meaning of Afghanistan – it is the ’land of the unruly’.  ERIC BROYLES said we are never going to solve their problems.    BOB said, well we are pulling out of there this year – TOM said that’s Iraq (December before the first of the year) and Afghanistan is 2014.  MARION MERRILL said the only reason Obama is bringing the boys home from Iraq is to help him get reelected.  TOM said they had already started closing up some of the bases  last month.  ERIC asked how many will be left to act as advisors or some other such name.  TOM said his understanding is the only ones who will be left there is the Black Water Group.  A group of 2000 who will be in charge of maintaining ’peace’.?   JIM BENDER said his son is in the Air Force and he trains people how to fuel aircraft and things of that nature.  He is now with a group in Kobal, Afghanistan training the Afghani how to do the same things.  In addition to that they are trying to train the Afghanis how to run their cities, and ultimately how to run their country.  That is part of the United Nations effort and he thinks they are going to be there for quite a while.  BOB said he really doubts we are really going to pull out.  He thinks they will just change names – they will no longer be combat troops.  Same folks, different title.

BOB asked NANCY BOCK, Treasurer, how we were holding out in funds.  NANCY said we have $1,260.00 and owed $230.00 for parade items we had gotten.  BOB asked HOWARD and PEGGY if they had given NANCY a bill for the candy.  NANCY said she had gotten a bill for a little over $69.00 and the GARNER’s would only accept $50.00.  They had paid the difference.  BOB said CLAYTON and GRACE GILLIKIN had bought some candy also.  NANCY said she had not gotten a bill for that candy yet and they are not with us tonight.  HOWARD said we had collected most of the candy that was left in the basket on the float and brought it home with us.  It is in an air-conditioned room and we plan to take all the chocolates out and put them in the refrigerator (over in the double wide trailer that had belonged to PEGGY’s mother).  It is perfectly safe, since HOWARD is diabetic and can’t eat candy.  BOB said he thought we should take the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Tootsie Rolls and bring them to the meeting next week.  He would help us take care of them.    BOB wanted to know how much candy was left.  HOWARD said that tub, we had put the candy in so we could mix it up, was probably half full.  Discussion on what to do with the remaining candy.  Some suggested using it in the Christmas Parade, while others didn’t think we should get involved in that parade; and others said maybe we should look into selling it to someone who planned to enter the Christmas Parade.  No decision was made.  HOWARD said if we needed to hold the candy for any length of time, we could store it in the refrigerator that was in the double wide and he thought it would be alright.

NANCY had found a metal coffee cup that had been left on the float and wanted to know if anyone recognized it.  No one did, so she took it back with her and asked us to let her know if we found out who it belonged to.  She also had a box of candy that had been left in her vehicle Saturday and would like for HOWARD to take and put it with the rest of the candy we had stored.  BOB wanted to know what kind of candy was it.  RUTH PARKER wanted to know if there were any Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in there – BOB would be glad to help us with them.  NANCY said she thought we had handed out about 800 pocket Constitutions and about 400 flags.  She has a box of Constitutions and labels in her car if anyone would like to take them and put the labels on them.  EULA said she would be glad to put the labels on.  She said ‘old teachers never die, they just cut and paste’.

TOM HARMON wanted to know if we plan to buy our own military flags (for each branch of service).  BOB said he thought we should.  HOWARD said there was a guy at the Flea Mall that sold flags for $5.00 a piece he thought.  TOM said he did not want to buy anything made in China, especially an American flag.  HOWARD said he imagined these were made in China, as cheap as they are.  TOM asked if anyone knew about flag depot.com.  He thinks those flags are made by veterans in the USA.  NANCY said she looked it up but she couldn’t remember how much they cost.  She knows of a site where they are $30.00 each plus $5.00 shipping and handling.  (3×5 – $65.00) She thought that was flagstaff.com.  BOB said maybe we should do a Google on flags, wholesalers.  BOB said the law on ‘Made in America’ is kinda crazy.  He thinks it really ought to be changed.  For example: you can have a shirt made overseas,  bring it back to the states and if you sew the label in the back of the shirt, here in the US, you can declare it ‘made in America’.  LYN BAKER said another example would be cotton fabrics  manufactured here and sent overseas to be cut and sewn – you are still getting American fabric.

EULA said changing the subject; she wanted to brag a little, that she had seen in the paper that the Morehead City Veteran’s Day Parade was the largest in the state, with the highest attendance.

BOB told us about being asked by a teacher to speak to a class at East Carteret on the Beruit bombing in Lebanon.  The 28th of October was the 28th anniversary of the bombing.  He said he put together a power point presentation over the weekend and by the time he got to the school (a little over a week ago), it had expanded into six classes.  Some of the other teachers had found out and he ended up giving six classes; two in the morning and in the afternoon they had combined four classes into two classes.; so they went to the visual center where he gave his talk.  He thought it went really well.  Couple of things that really amazed him was how big high school kids are now days.  They are huge.  The first class were freshmen and they were like ERNIE’s size.  BOB said he would ask questions like ‘who listen to the news every night regularly‘.  No hands went up.  ‘How many know where Beruit is?’  No hands went up.  Anyway the presentation started out with maps of the Mediterranean to show them where Lebanon is and where Beruit is and showed them where the airport is.  He told them, to understand, they needed to go back a little bit and learn about the history of the whole area and find out where they are now.  He went all the way back to the Roman Empire and brought them forward through World War I and everything since then.   About 15% to 20% of the students were really locked up, engaged in, and absorbing the data; but the other 80% to 85%….. some of them, before the presentation ever started were heads on the desks and snoring.  BOB said it may have been the same way when he was in high school.  Several said they doubted it.  BOB said even so, he still enjoyed doing it.  Maybe they’ll invite him back again next year.

HOWARD asked if we had read the letter to the editor criticizing the Chairman of the County Commissioners.  He said he and DENNIS TOMASO had been discussing it before the meeting and they wondered if the person who wrote that letter, who didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to sign their name, was at the same meeting we were; because neither of us had seen or heard it that way.  BOB said he re-watched the meeting when it was re-broadcasted again on Channel 10.  He watched the whole meeting again  and he remembered it the same as the night of the meeting he attended.  It put him to thinking ‘what meeting did these people (C4) go to.  He was kind of appalled that they didn’t put their name to the letter.  MARION said they do sign their names but they ask the editor not to use it.  The editor does know where the letter comes from.  BOB said he realized that but if you are ashamed to admit you wrote a letter then you should not have written it.  HOWARD said most of that letter was untrue; because we were there and heard something different than what they were stating.  He said ‘Ironically, on the way down to the parade Saturday morning, we stopped at Cox’s for breakfast and Doug Harris came in.  HOWARD went over and personally thanked him for the power point presentation and them taking up for the tax payers.  BOB said it was one of the best Commissioners meeting he had ever been to because it was very transparent in the communication between the Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools,  and County Commissioners.  Knowing the background behind it, because KEN LANG had worked a lot with Commissioner Robin Comer trying to get some facts and figures; and then them coming out in the paper about they didn’t have the right numbers.  How many budgets are the schools operating on.  He didn’t like the fact that the Commissioners had released the contingency funds (the $500,000.00).  It was to have been contingent upon the School Board providing them with quarterly financial information (how the money is getting spent).   He was kind of wondering why they released the money since we haven’t even gone through the first quarter of the school year.  He didn’t think the contingency for releasing the funds had been met yet.  HOWARD said Commissioner Holt Faircloth told PEGGY that night, before the meeting started, that they were going to approve it.  They had asked for pertinent information which the school (right or wrong) had provided them.  Thus they had no choice but to release the funds, since it would appear their requests had been met.  BOB said they had had to assume that the figures they had been provided by the Board of Education were the same figures Doug Harris had used in his power point presentation.  Then the school employees and board said they had used the wrong information.  So it goes back to how many dang budgets are they operating under.  Why can’t they get together the “right” numbers and get them to the County Commissioners the first time when they asked for them.  He thought Doug Harris made that front row of school wheels look absolutely stupid.  ERIC said he understood that the Commissioners had not given the school the total amount; that it was prorated throughout the year.  He didn’t think they got it all at once.  BOB said he wasn’t sure about that but according to the paper the $500,000.00 was for paying teacher overtime, sick leave, and school bus drivers‘ overtime.  The state had provided funds for three days of sick leave but the teachers were apparently entitled to 10 days.  His question is ‘surely they (with 700 teachers) have not already gone through 2100 days of sick leave already in the first month of school‘.  He didn’t think they should release the money until the funds already allocated were expended.  He says they got the money and now they will do whatever they want with it, because once the funds are released by the County, they no longer have any control.  The school can spend it anyway they want.  They do not have to stick to the budget, which he thinks is why they are floating around all these budgets, to confuse the issue.  A budget for this group, another for another group, etc.  BOB said Novey says he is trying to get the biggest bang for the buck they can get, but he feels Novey’s modus operandi is just wanting to get as much money as possible, spend all they get, so they can ask for more next time.  He is an empire builder.  We all agreed with that.  BOB said we have new school board elections coming up and we have three members of the board who, the last he heard, were not going to run for reelection, so we need to find some good conservative folks to put on the school board.  Once we can get enough on the board then we can fire Novey.  He said he and KEN were talking to Adele Collins and she said they never had these problems with the previous superintendent (who passed away).  Then they got Novey and since then they have all these problems with the money and where it is going.  Just mass confusion.  The current school board just amens and rubberstamps what Novey wants.  HOWARD said they are violating state law the way they are currently operating.  The Board of Education is supposed to set policy and it is the superintendent’s duty to carry it out.  It is not working that way here in Carteret.  ERIC said this is also being spun by C4.  It’s the same information they have been spinning all along.  BOB said he thought that letter to the editor was dictated and crafted between Al Hill and Novey and given to C4 to send to the editor.  Novey will stand up and make statements and when you go to a C4 meeting they use the same talking points.  HOWARD said he understands that one of the Commissioners is meeting secretly/privately with C4 also.  Others have heard the same thing, so we wonder who’s side he is on.  BOB said he is chairman of one of the parties, also.   HOWARD said he is not a member of that party but he hopes that party will get rid of him next time.  BOB said he thinks he will be un-elected next election.  He told WAYNE WILLIS that since he lost his last election then we might just put him up for Chairman of one of the parties.  WAYNE said ‘you’ll be sorry’.

HOWARD asked BOB if he saw Al Hill riding in the yellow convertible in the VA parade Saturday.  BOB said he didn’t.  HOWARD said he rode by us and shook hands with one of our TEA Party tee shirted Patriots.  PEGGY said she bet it did not register who he had just shook hands with or he would not have done it.

BOB called upon WAYNE to give us an update on the history of his game he had ongoing.  WAYNE said the software is written and he is playing it on his computer now and has been for a couple of weeks.  Why he has been playing it is to make sure that there are no typographical errors, spelling, punctuation or factual errors in it.  Even in the wrong answers he found some things that somehow got changed when they went to put in onto the software.   Somehow some things got changed a little bit and he is trying to make sure that it is 100% correct.  It is a little bit tricky to do because there is a correct answer; there is a almost correct answer, (he has to really check on some of these to make sure that it is not the correct answer – only the near ‘bout); the ridiculous answer and the funny answer.  He’s checking out the pictures (100 images that had to be found that were not copyrighted or have some kind of intellectual property claim to them and the music is another thing.  It had to be cleared to make sure it was all available in the public domain.  The most recent thing he had to do was to come up with a EULA contract.  End User License Agreement.  This is something in that real fine print when you buy software or some kind of product like that.  And when he says ‘fine’ print, he means it.  When you type it out so you can read it, it can be over three foot long.  He called his patent lawyer in Greensboro to ask him would he do the EULA.  He said he was not familiar with that and it will be expensive; which while talking to him, translated into ‘don’t get him to do it because he would have to pay the lawyer to go to night school’.   He charges $350 an hour just to talk to him on the telephone, so when he said it was going to be expensive, he believed him.  So what he did was, he stumbled onto one on a piece of software that happened to be left by Denise, that she had bought in ‘02, that was very similar to what he wanted so he reworded that one and that’s what took up a lot of last week.  He hopes to have something available between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  EULA (PARKIN not the contract) wanted to know how much the game was going to cost.  WAYNE said he did not know yet.  BOB explained about the game that WAYNE had just been talking about to the new attendees.   BOB asked what would entice a teenager to play this game.  Do they get something like a jelly bean every time they get a right answer.  What is the motivation for them to want to get past question number three.  WAYNE said he thought the type of people who would need this game were about like those 80 to 85% BOB referred to in that class he taught.  80% of them would go to sleep.  What WAYNE had done was go to the Board of Education, Matt Bottoms, Asst. Superintendent, about a year ago.  Matt was really enthused with the idea and wanted WAYNE to hurry up and get it ready, because they could use it for a history test.  For those of you who do not know, there are 100 questions and it is multiple choice, with 4 answers to each question.  BOB wanted to know if it was set up for different grade levels.  WAYNE said it was not that sophisticated yet.  BOB asked what period of time was covered.  WAYNE said it started with Plato and came right on up to Obama.  He thinks it will be easy to put other sets of questions in it later.  BOB said, didn’t he say that some nursing outfit was interested in adapting his idea for other purposes other than history.  WAYNE said yes, a nurse he knew was interested in using it to help people understand more about cancer for example.   He had lunch with the guy, that was here at our meeting a couple of weeks ago, that had the patch over his eye because he had had surgery for a brain tumor.  It was his girlfriend that had the connection with Duke University that wanted to use his idea and put cancer questions on it.  It looks like they may be doing that.  WAYNE said for 2 or 3 dollars a piece it won’t break anyone’s budget.  HOWARD said he would need to charge more than that.  At that price they wouldn’t want them.  WAYNE said we will have to talk about that then.  BOB said we are anxious to see this thing so we can start buying them for our kids for Christmas.  WAYNE said, yeah, and making some money for the TEA Party.  That was another thing about the price.  The higher the price the more the TEA Party is going to get, so we were going to have to talk him into charging a higher price.  BOB said he thought WAYNE was going to become a millionaire or billionaire.  WAYNE said no, he didn’t want to be rich.  JIM said with games like that you usually had a measurement on how well you are doing.  WAYNE said there is a scoring system.  You start out with 50 points and you earn 10 points when you answer correctly and you lose 10 when you miss.  The first one to get 100 wins the game.  Then you start all over.  It doesn’t take long to get 5 questions right – but it takes longer to miss 5.  He has left it up to the teachers to provide incentives to encourage participation.

BOB said Herman Cain is probably done with his news conference by now.  Curious as to what the fall out is going to be about that.  WAYNE said seeing as how Herman has been wounded and if mortally wounded from this ‘Anita Hill II accident’ or episode or whatever you want to call it, who do you all think is going to be in line to take his place?  Most in attendance said they hoped it would be Newt Gingrich.  WAYNE said he just wanted to know what we all think.  Discussion followed.  HOWARD said he has found out how he can run in the next election and get free advertising.  He has set up a deal with Christy (a waitress here at the Golden Corral) for her to charge him with sexual harassment.

BOB said our next project was going to be a rally in the spring.  We want to have it before the primary which will be sometime in mid May.  It will be one of those ‘get out the vote’ type things but also gearing up for the November elections also.  So, let’s put our thinking caps on and come back next week and decide when we want to have it, a theme, and all the other things connected.  DENNIS is concerned how we are going to afford a rally when we only have $1200.00 in the kitty.  BOB said that would be part of the discussion also.  We are going to have to have some type of fund raiser….a car wash, sell WAYNE’s games or something to make some money.  He asked NANCY if she had a ball park figure of what it cost for the last rally….insurance, porta johns, speaker system, etc.  We will need to buy insurance again for this rally,  won’t we?  NANCY said yes, she thought it cost us around $700 for the year last year, which was good for up to three rallys.  He asked her to compile all that information together and give a report next week.

JIM said he was kind of new at this and they came tonight to learn more about TEA Party groups.  He wanted to know if there was any place where they could learn more.  BOB said if they will go to TEA Party Patriots.com (or .org) you can order a packet with information on organization and all kinds of materials for getting started.  You can also send an email to them asking for a North Carolina coordinator to get in touch with you.  BOB offered to get in touch with Russ (?) and ask him to get in touch with JIM.   When he contacts you, just tell him you are interested in getting a group started up around the Cary area.  There may already be one up there.  JIM said he had seen our float in Saturday’s parade and thought it was very impressive.  In fact he thought the whole parade was impressive.  BOB said if they wanted to start a TEA Party and wanted a cohesive group, he would recommend they meet every week.  The TEA Parties that he is familiar with that have once a month meetings, unless there is some hot topic/burning item like health care, or something like that that gets everybody riled up, the group kinda drops by the wayside.  If you have weekly meetings…he thinks that is the secret that keeps us going…it sorta becomes like a social thing for us so we can get out of the house once a week and have dinner together and discuss topics of mutual interest.  ERIC said he thinks by meeting each week we become more involved in things going on around us.  BOB informed JIM and SUSIE that we have also started a second group here in the western part of Carteret County.  We refer to it as our Wild West Tea Party.  We are trying to get one started in the down east part of the county, but so far have not been successful.  They will all be under our umbrella.  When we have rallies, it will usually only be one rally, not one in each locale.  Our county is so long, a lot of people do not want to travel so far to attend our meetings here at the Golden Corral.  JIM said from what he has determined we were more inclined in keeping our Country more toward it’s charter, as opposed to a more liberal leaning.  BOB said our core values are Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Promotion of Free Markets Enterprise.   JIM said those were similar to conservative ideals.  The TEA Party is basically trying to bring the Republican Party back to those principles.  BOB thinks we need to deny Democrats public office until they move back to at least center; because they currently are so far left they are totally unable to compromise.  HOWARD told them they could go to our website where our minutes are posted.  They are sort of like a newsletter detailing what goes on at our meetings and you can keep up with what we are trying to do.  BOB advised them to stick to the core values and not tackle subjects like abortion, gay marriage, Muslims, etc.  They are things you can talk about in your meetings, like we could stay here all night and talk about this Occupy Wall Street stuff, but there’d be no sense in it.  Someone pulled out one of our cards and gave it to them for our website address.  ERIC  wanted to know if we didn’t need some more business cards, since it would appear most of us were out.

TOM said, talking about elections, we need to watch out for Elaine Marshall, Secretary of State.  George Soros wants Democrats in the Secretary of State positions and he is paying out big money to get them that position; and then he will have control of them.  If Elaine Marshall gets back in there again Soros will have a big foothold there.  We have to do our best to keep her from getting elected.  BOB said we need to do like we did in 2010 and come up with our voter recommendation guide, articles in the paper, man the polls, and have those handouts.  He feels that was the best thing we came up with last time.  TOM said he had an article that he would send to KEN to get on our website that explains the Secretary of State, George Soros and how he is paying these people to run.  HOWARD said we are going to have some commissioners here in the county that are not going to run next time that we need to be thinking about.  TOM asked who and HOWARD said Holt Faircloth had told him he had no intention of running again.  BOB asked why….burned out or what.  HOWARD said probably, but he is disgusted with the way things have gone.  Rumor mill has it that Renee Coles, with the C4 group, is campaigning for the Board of Education but he has been told that Greg Lewis was trying to get her to challenge Holt.  Holt had told HOWARD he didn’t care because he was not going to run.  We definitely do not want her.  BOB said if Greg is pushing her, then we need to push him out too.  HOWARD said Greg was trying to straddle the fence and play all sides.

STEVE said he needed to set up a date to show the movie “Turning the US into a Socialist Country” about Agenda 21.  Maybe one Saturday evening or something.
The movie runs about an hour to an hour and a half.  With all that is going on now, Thanksgiving, Christmas holidays; maybe we should wait until after the first of the year.

EULA said, as we knew, she was in Charleston, SC a couple of weeks ago to an annual meeting of the Coast Guard Courier.  Her husband had been stationed aboard it.  She was surprised to find out, that as a widow of a service man, she was the only one there that knew about the new ribbon that has come out.   If you serve anywhere on the water (Atlantic/Pacific or anywhere) there is a new ribbon that you can send for and get.  Apparently, most do not read all the letters and papers sent out.  She said they all thanked her for keeping them informed.  She did not know how many of our members were retired military and got quarterlies, but she thought we should know of this new ribbon.  BOB said in his 21 years of military, he had managed to stay off a boat.  BOB asked how many here tonight were retired military, asking them to raise their hands.. A round of applause and thank yous followed.

BOB said he was going to adjourn the meeting and head down to Rib Eyes in Cape Carteret for the celebration (they hope).  KEN and DIANE are going to be there and Dave Fowler, Richard Hunt, Renna,  They are going to have an after the election get together.

WAYNE said he read where a town that an Occupy group was holed up in, the word got out that they had not had to get a permit to be there.  The TEA Party had been charged recently for a permit for them to protest, so they are suing to get their money back.  HOWARD said it was Richmond.  DENNIS said there were two issues on the ballot in Ohio we need to watch… one opting out of Obamacare and the other overturning the Governor’s ruling on the union dues.   Also they are going after Governor Walker for recall in Wisconsin.

BOB said he thought a letter to the editor thanking those who came out and cheered on the TEA Party float would be nice.  It really made us feel great.  It also gives us incentive to keep on keeping on.

TOM asked if anyone found his truck keys Saturday.  He had lost them somewhere during the parade.  HOWARD and PEGGY took him back to Newport so he could get his wife’s keys and then took him back to Morehead.  When we drove up to his truck he found someone had evidently found them and placed them in the door handle of his truck.  He would like to find out who did it so he could thank them.  If anyone hears who it was, please let TOM know.  He plans to write a letter to the Editor thanking them.  He said he had been praying that his truck would still be there when we got back.  He was going to cry if it were gone.  BOB said they must have walked around pushing the button until they found where they belonged or else it was someone who knew him and knew he had lost his keys.

NANCY said just an item of interest….Has anyone heard of the website ’I am the 53%’.  It is a response to the Occupiers who say they are the 99% who represent the people.  This is the 53% that say they pay their taxes.  She said it was very inspiring.  There are a lot of people with hand written notes who post pictures of themselves.  One of the articles …..   “I have lived through most poverty times.  My wife and I decided in ’96 that we were sick of poverty, so we went back to school and earned degrees and got three jobs.  No one handed that to us…we earned it, we did it.  I did not go through all that struggle while raising three children so that I could support lazy people who want nothing but government handouts.  You want to occupy something…occupy a job and start contributing….. There are a lot of comments like that.  You will enjoy this website. Google “I am the 53%”.   It is not just a website in itself but a lot of blogs.

BOB asked if anyone heard Neil Bortz today on the radio.  He had one of his folks down interviewing people at the Occupy group in the city he reports out of.  He had some maniac who could not carry on a complete sentence without throwing the “F” word in  so they had to edit that out in order to broadcast his remarks.  This guy said ‘I don’t care if we have a 9-11 another 9 hundred and 11 more times‘.  RUTH PARKER said she heard on Lockwood’s program on the way to the meeting that they were going to clean out Washington’s Occupy group tonight.  The police are going to make them move out.  BOB said the homeless in Sacremento want the Occupy crowd out because they want their home back.  Lockwood also said the ones in Raleigh were upset because they had no place to plug in their ipods, computers, etc.

PEGGY said everyone here remembers Catie, our great granddaughter, right?  Well, she had to brag a little tonight.  Catie was supposed to be on Lockwood’s program last night for two hours, but Lockwood had forgotten he had already scheduled a special Veterans Program, so he has postponed until next week his two hour session with her starting at 5:00.  It will be just Lockwood, Catie and people calling in.  BOB explained to our new comers that Catie, who is now 16, had been very active with our group until recently when she got her drivers license.  Catie has gotten interested in a subject most of don’t even think about ’human slavery’.  Young girls are held in captivity and made to serve as prostitutes.  If anyone is able to get them free, there is no place readily available for them or able to keep them for any length of time, so as soon as they are allowed to go, they run right back to their pimp, because that is all they know.  Several groups in the state are looking into getting together and building a home to house these young girls and help get them on the right path again.  Catie has been named State Coordinator for this project.  NANCY and BELVA MANNING both said they had seen a magazine in their doctors office in the last day or so with Catie’s picture and an article on her in it.  PEGGY said she knew about the article, but had not seen it.  Catie was supposed to get a copy for her.  PEGGY said she was quite proud of her granddaughter.  The others said she was like their granddaughter also.   HOWARD said he saw on TV last week where two males and a female recruited a woman, telling her they had a good job cleaning homes where she could make good money.  They brought her to Greenville and kept her locked up using her as a prostitute.  The reporter said it was suspected that the female that had helped get her here also operated several brothels just like that.  Catie had told him that from her research, they are all small with just a couple of girls in each brothel.  It is a big operation but done in small doses.

RUTH said Lockwood’s program last night with the high school and community college students (Catie was there for that) was on the ‘death of chivalry‘.  How boys do not open doors for girls anymore.  The girls said they didn’t want the boys to hold the doors…it embarrasses them.  PEGGY said we are training them wrong then.  RUTH said she was thinking ’what is wrong with you girls’.  ’Where is your mother?’  HOWARD said he was at the bank the other day and held the door for a young lady and she refused to walk through the doorway with him holding the door.  RUTH said well you should have promptly turned around and smacked her.  BOB said that would have been sexual harassment.  NANCY said kids today do not know how to date like we used to.  It is more of a hookup culture.  The boys do not know how to go to someone’s house, be introduced to the parents, and take the girl out to a movie, or pay for a meal.  They do not do that anymore.  It is really sad.  RUTH said she raised her boy…open the door, pullout the chair, hold her jacket.  NANCY said yes they do have to be taught.  TOM said he had had a guy come up to his house and honk the horn.  As his daughter was going out the door, he asked her where she was going?  She said her date was…TOM said oh no.  He went outside and asked the boy what he was doing.  He said he was waiting for his daughter.  TOM told him he could do that down on the street where the hookers were, not here.  If you want to date my daughter, then get your butt up to the door and introduce yourself.  PEGGY said something very similar happened to her years ago.  A boy, who was extremely shy and bashful, finally got up nerve enough to ask her for a date.  He drove up to her house and blew the horn.  Her mother like to have torn the front door off the hinges as she flew out of the house and walked up to the boy’s truck, shook her finger in his face and informed him we did not give curb service here.  If he wanted to see her daughter he was to come inside.  Well, he came in and about five minutes later, he got up, said he would see me at school and left.  He never asked me for another date, but I bet he never blew the horn in front of another girls home either.  BOB wanted to know if it was HOWARD.  HOWARD said no that was before his time.  BOB said he wished parents would raise their kids differently today.  They abrogate their responsibility to the school and others.  He doesn’t know how we can change that.  He said years ago (probably 25 or more) he was listening to the radio and Paul Harvey said the biggest problem we have nowadays is the government.  He said in the 1950’s the government took one out of every fifty dollars you made in taxes, on an average.  He said now they take one out of every five dollars you make in taxes.  He said this is causing a lot of problems.  The government has been the biggest drain on the family income overriding the electric bill, rent, etc.  We used to be able to get by with one wage earner households, where the father went out and worked and the mother stayed home and raised the kids.  Now the mothers have to go out and work too.  It is the mothers who pass on culture to the children.  They are the ones that tell the tales, teach the dances, stories, and traditions. BOB said it was like, WOW, I never thought about it in those terms but sure enough, he was right.  The only way he can ever see us getting back to where parents are parenting is somehow set it up so that women don’t have to work.  They can work if they want to but the way it is now many folks have to work to make ends meet and the kids are the ones losing out.  However, it is our own fault.  We have become so spoiled … have to have two cars, a TV in every room, dine out several nights a week, have to have this and that.  Another thing about the government causing us to live beyond our means…back before Jimmy Carter we were able to deduct interest paid on our homes, cars, credit cards, etc. off our taxes.  Jimmy Carter put the stop to that.  By then everyone was up to here in debt and once you got to there you could never recover.  In the meantime all the kids learned ’hey, just get the credit card out’.  THOMAS VASGAR said it was Ronald Reagan that did that, not Jimmy Carter.  BOB said he was going to have to check that out.  It didn’t sound like Reagan.  He was going to have to trust and verify.  ERNIE said those values that people used to hold dear and cherish are not there anymore.  That is part of the plan…Agenda 21…When socialism was first formulated they tried to sit down and figure out why communism did not materialize all over the world.  They found the answer was the values of western society were so deeply engrained that the middle class would never fall for it, so instead of coming at it from an economic angle, they needed to come at it from a cultural angle.   If we can change the culture of America we can rebuild it in a way that we will have the power.  BOB said he thought it didn’t catch on because most countries had a middle class and Russia did not.  ERNIE said they discovered you had to tear down those principles.  Our founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw what was happening today.

STEVE reminded us of the shut down of all communications for a test tomorrow.  BOB said that scared him to death.  He thinks they are testing out a weapons theory because back in the sixtys  they launched two A6 Prowlers, one from Florida and one from Maine and they flipped their jammers on and blacked out the whole east coast for radio and TV transmission.  They were checking to see if they could take out a whole area if they wanted to.  He feels they are testing out another system that covers a broader range.  Either that or it has something to do with the whales’ sonar system off the coast.  Thus ending the meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 7:25pm.
Minutes submitted by Secretary PEGGY GARNER

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF 1 November 2011

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by Vice President ERIC BROYLES
Pledge of Allegiance was led by LOU KUKULINSKI
Invocation by EULA PARKIN
No. in Attendance – 23

ERIC reported that our president BOB CAVANAUGH had a medical procedure done today and was unable to be with us tonight .

No new attendees tonight.

Treasurer NANCY BOCK reported that we have $1,186.00 in the treasury.  She has paid Eula $25.00 for the Islamophobia Books BOB had asked her to order for the group since our last report.

ERIC asked NANCY  about how many of our tee shirts did we have currently in inventory; especially the long sleeve ones since it is starting to get cold.  The cost of the long sleeve is $20.00 each.  SCOTT CARPENTER said he had been looking at the results from our 4th of July parade and we had run out of the Xlarge and 2X sizes.  Did we ever procure anymore of the sizes we were short on?  NANCY said we have plenty of short sleeve with the exception of the mediums and 2XL.  We do not have a lot of the long sleeve shirts.  We do have some XL she believes.  She has them in her car tonight if anyone is interested.  She had emailed BOB wanting to know if he wanted her to order more but had not heard back.  Not knowing if we planned to sell shirts at the Veteran’s Day Memorial Parade, she had not restocked.  She did not want to take it upon herself to place an order without permission and approval.   Since we are planning to change our sponsorship, she figured we probably would not order anymore right now.  ERIC wanted to know if there was a minimum order size; like 25 or 50 an order.  NANCY said we usually order 50 at a time, but she did not think there was any minimum.  ERIC wanted to know if we order 50 how much it would cost us.  NANCY said for short sleeves about 6 or 7 dollars each or $300/$350.00.  ERIC wanted to know cost of long sleeves.  NANCY said it would probably run a couple of dollars per shirt more.  ERIC asked NANCY to take an inventory and report to our next meeting.  NANCY said she currently has all the tee shirts and hats we have in inventory in her car tonight to turn over to whoever is planning to set up a sales table at the parade.  TOM HARMON said he was hoping to sell what we have, so when we have to reorder it will be with the logo(s) of our new charity(s) we decide to sponsor.  Since we are changing from the Wounded Warrior Project to another(s), we really do not want to buy anymore right now.  ERIC asked NANCY and TOM to give us an account after this weekend as to what we have left.  SCOTT wanted to know if the hats came in various sizes or did one size fit all.  ‘One size fits all’, they are adjustable.  NANCY thinks we may have 30 to 35 hats in inventory.  SCOTT wanted to know if we thought that would be enough for this weekend.  ERIC said it would have to be since we do not have time to order now.  NANCY said we did not sell that many hats at the 4th of July parade, so she thought we would be good to go for this weekend on the hats.  TOM wanted to know if we had any bumper stickers to sell and NANCY said yes we do and if he thought we could sell them she would get them to TOM also.
TOM wanted to know if anyone had found out where they were supposed to set up our sales table.  ERIC said all he knew was someone said something about there was going to be a food sales area and they thought we might possibly be allowed to set up near that.  ERIC said he didn’t know whether we had to pay to get in there or what the setup was.  TOM said BOB said last week that he was going to let us know exactly where we were to set up.  ERIC said the best response he had for that was for us to pay close attention to our friendly website, because he thinks there is going to be a “couple” of pieces of information that hopefully will be published in the next day or two, finalizing this event.  SCOTT wanted to know if we had any of those ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ stickers.  NANCY said she had a lot of yellow oval shaped about 4×6.  SCOTT asked her to bring those also to try to sell.  TOM said he would try to sell anything we could get.  NANCY wanted to know if it had been approved by Morehead City that we could sell stuff.  No one was absolutely sure, so SCOTT said “let’s go on the assumption that we do have permission and if not; ask for forgiveness afterward”.  CLAYTON GILLIKIN said the worse thing that could happen would be for them to come and ask us to close up and go home.  Probably by then we could have possibly have made a couple of hundred dollars, so we would still be ahead.  LYN asked if it had been decided where we were going to meet.  FRED DECKER said he had called Barbara over at the VA office, and apparently had called her before the deadline of signing up for the parade had arrived.  He had asked for location information but they had not finalized the lineup yet.  She promised to call him back and give him the information.  She has not returned his call yet.  He would call again tomorrow and call PEGGY and KEN LANG and let them know what he found out.  He thought it might be on Evans Street about a block or two from the St. Egbert Church.    ERIC said for those attending, after finding out where our float is supposed to go in the lineup, we will meet at 9:00 to decorate and set up the float.  SCOTT wanted to know if we had a contact list of names of members and those wanting to be a part of the group, to advise of the latest information.  ERIC said KEN usually sends out an email to all the addresses that have been given to him.  FRED was asked about parking and he said ’that would be the hard part’.  They usually park on the other side of Arendell on the side streets, but it would only be a couple of blocks to walk.  ERIC asked everyone to please watch our website for any new and current information.  He realizes that this is not the best way (and time) to inform people, but a lot of the problem is not anything we can control.  Check your emails and the website and try to keep informed.  FRED will call PEGGY and KEN just as soon as he finds out anything.
ERIC said as far as he knew BOB would be pulling the trailer like he did at the July parade.  Asked HOWARD GARNER about the ball for the trailer hitch.  HOWARD said all taken care of – it is in the back of his truck along with the chairs for the float.  ERIC said he understood BOB had asked HOWARD and PEGGY to get the candy and asked how much they had gotten.  HOWARD said they had gone to WalMart this morning before the sun came up, gotten 30 bags at a cost of $69.00.  The trunk of his car was over ½ full.  FRED said he had been in a store today where they too were marking their Halloween candy down and he had bought himself a couple of bags.  PEGGY said  WalMart had been priced at 50% off and more.  Most of the bags had run $2.65 or less.  ERIC said he thought probably just about everybody had at least a couple of bags left over from Halloween.  ERIC said he didn’t know about anyone else but he only had about 4 or 5 ‘attackers’ at his house, which left him with a few good snacks for himself since he had bought the kind of candy he liked.  HOWARD said if anyone wanted to see what kind of candy we had gotten, he had it in the back of his car and they could look at it and see.  SCOTT said candy was one of the problems we encountered at the 4th of July parade; we had run out before the end of the parade.  PEGGY said the reason for that was there were about 15 or 20 people throwing the candy and they had started off at the beginning of the parade throwing double hands full…which equated to about 30 to 40 hands full of candy being thrown at the same time.  We either need fewer people throwing the candy or ration the amount thrown.  A lot of the first kids had more candy than they could hold in their hands before the second throwing.  ERIC said maybe we need only one person on each side of the trailer throwing candy.  EULA said she had been involved in several parades with the girl scouts and had found that they did not approve of throwing candy.  Kids could run out into the street to get the candy and not look where they were going and run under the wheels of the floats and vehicles.  Others said it appeared that there had been no problem at the 4th parade and the kids really looked forward to getting the candy.  ERIC said he understood that we planned to have 6 walkers, 3 on each side of the float, two passing out pocket constitutions, two the special TEA Party flyers and business cards if we have them, and two carrying our sign.  SCOTT said no the last two were serving as gofers to resupply those handing out the constitutions and flyers.  He was told that we were out of business cards and needed to get another batch made up; that DENNIS TOMASO had made the last ones.  Someone asked about getting a stamp made up with our TEA Party information to use to stamp the next batch of constitutions we get in.  NANCY said there usually was not enough readable space to stamp the information; that a sticker worked better.  TOM HARMON said he would get up with DENNIS and ask him to make up 600 stickers to put on the backs of the constitutions we currently have (estimated about 600).  We will put the stickers on the backs of the constitutions while waiting for the parade to start (after we finish decorating.)  All agreed that we need to have something on the back or inside of the constitutions to remind people later where they came from.  ERIC said we need to have “Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriots, our website address and if room time and dates of our meetings (both here and the Western group)”.  LOU said as long as we had the website on there we didn’t need the rest of the information about our meetings.  They could get that from our website.  TOM stepped out from the meeting and called DENNIS and asked him if he would run us some stickers.  He reported back that DENNIS told him he would have them tomorrow.
ERIC said he had just gotten a stack of the pocket constitutions this week from Sen. Burr he thought.  Knew it wasn’t from Sen. Kagen, since he never got a response from her.  HOWARD said she would respond, but it was always with a ‘canned/form’ letter.   Basically, if you write her a letter about something, she explains what you had written about and that she is looking into it.  That is just about the gist of it.           SCOTT is going to print about 600 of the flyers he made up listing our Core Values and Philosophy for handing out.
LOU said you all realize this is the largest Veteran’s Day parade in the state.  ERIC wanted to know if we thought we would have enough.  (No time to get more at this late date – have to make do with what we have.)
ERIC asked how many here tonight are planning to attend the parade.  Almost everyone there raised their hands.  TOM said he and JERE would not be walking or riding in the parade since they would be setting up and working  the sales table.  PEGGY said she would need at least four to hold the posters she had made.  Only hopes it doesn’t rain, because the posters are on cardboard and she would hate to see them ruined as much work as she has put into them.  ERIC said he thought they made some kind of coating to maybe spray on to protect them.  He thought they may have something at Michaels.  HOWARD said according to the weather report the rain is supposed to be over by parade time.  (Keep your fingers crossed.)
ERIC said he knew the weather had turned cooler and we probably would prefer hot coffee or chocolate, but did anyone plan to bring a cooler and bottled water?  RUTH PARKER said she had one she would bring and a case of water.
CLAYTON said he and GRACE went to WalMart this morning and they got $75.00 worth of candy.  ERIC asked to bring it with him in case we need it.  CLAYTON and several others said we can save it for the Christmas parade in case we decide to enter that
also.  Everyone agreed that was the way to go.  CLAYTON said if we think we may need more, then we wait until they mark it down again and then go buy more.  He thinks all that is not sold in three or four days, will probably be marked down to 75% off.  We could go in and get another $100 or so and always have plenty of candy on hand for whatever we may need it for.
SCOTT said another thing we had talked about after the July parade was having music.  NANCY said she didn’t think we would need music for this parade since most of the county high school bands and the Marine Corps band would be entered and playing.
ERIC said then that covers everything we can do tonight.  We are all square – 9:00 am, Saturday morning, November 5, we are going to meet in the area that FRED is going to find out and notify KEN and PEGGY so they can let everyone else know via the website; hopefully some table information up there too (where we are going to put them); (LOU said maybe we need to do it by lantern, one if by land, two if by sea), and (TOM said he wondered how long before he and Jere get arrested.  HOWARD said not to worry, we have an in with the Clerk of Court.)  STEVEN BEST wanted to know if we were going to show up if it rained.  HOWARD and several others said the weather report doesn’t call for rain on Saturday.  ERIC said if we were concerned then just bring an umbrella.

ERIC said several weeks ago we had mentioned the TEA Party by-laws.  Has everyone had a chance to look at those.  They were supposed to be posted on the website.  He is going to try to get them up again for everyone to read.  In the next few weeks we are going to be making a decision on what part of these bylaws do we want to adopt, because we do have to have elections ever so often for officers and the bylaws do spell that system out clearly….the elections process and what positions will be available.  LYN wanted to know if this was something that came from the TEA Party Patriots.  ERIC said no, this was something he had come up with.  TOM wanted to know if the bylaw information was in the PDF format.  ERIC said he was sure he had sent it out that way.

ERIC said on the 15th of November Frank Palombo will be attending our meeting.  He is running against Walter B. Jones.  Mr. Palombo has spoken to us previously (prior to announcing his candidacy).

Anyone interested the TEA Party Patriot website, (the national website) they will be launching a new website in the near future….TeaPartyPatriots.org.  They have not put out a specific date.  It could be tomorrow or next week. Keep an eye out.  SUSAN RYNAS wanted to know what the relationship was between this organization and the TeaParty.net.  ERIC said there were many various Tea Party organizations, all with pretty much the same principles that we do.  Conservative government, etc.  TOM said there was one on the West Coast he hears a lot about; but they get more involved in political races (backing a lot of candidates).  Some do a lot of fund raising.  RUTH said in fact one group was talking about going to be up there in Ohio about that vote (about the union).  Continued discussion about the various groups.  ERIC said the governor in Wisconsin is looking at having some problems, because after a year they can hold a recall election.  If you recall he also stood up against the union there.  He would not be surprised if they did not attempt a recall.  ERIC said he recently saw where the federal government was taking on even more states (they’ve taken on Arizona, Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia on immigration and now they are suing South Carolina about immigration.) He has never seen the federal government sue so many people before in his life.  HOWARD said there are a lot of lawyers out of work and Obama is just trying to help create more jobs.  TOM said what they have come up with is the state governments are hindering the federal government from doing their job.  The federal government is saying they are only going after felons, and if the state government arrests all kinds of illegal aliens, then they are hindering the DOJ from going after the felons.  That is their whole case.  They are saying if he is a felon, then we are going to kick him out, but if you keep sending us all these DUI’s that are here illegally, then you are hindering our efforts to get rid of the felons.  That is their justification for the case.  SUSAN said what scares her is Obama using his executive orders to go around Congress.  And even if we are unfortunate enough to not be able to get Obama out of the White House, we do need to get more Conservatives in the Senate, so we can override Obama’s vetos.  FRED said there are 33 Senators running in the next election and 23 of them are Democrats, so that is going to be our chance to pick up some.  ERIC said he hopes we can pick up enough to control the Senate anyway.  CHARLES TARPLEY said Obama is totally and completely out of control.  He insists on getting what he wants, when he wants and anything he wants.  He thinks Obama is doing all this on purpose, because he knows he is going to lose and be a one term president…even some of the Democrats are shying away from him.  He is going to do as much damage as he can before he gets kicked out.
LOU said he emailed Walter B. Jones today and wanted to know when he was going to start impeachment procedures.  He does that once a month.  When are some of the rest of you going to start doing that?  Discussion about who should be involved in getting this started…Senate or Congress.  LOU said he sends the same message to Burr and Burr
says it starts in Congress (House) to impeach.  If passed it goes to the Senate and gets tabled so it goes no where.  LOU said he doesn’t give up, he continues to send his emails to Jones and Burr monthly.  ERIC said from what he can come up with, Jones does believe Obama can be impeached for some of the things he has done.  Jones says he has tried to push it to the other representatives but they are of the feeling that Obama is going to be thrown out anyway.  ERIC said just like Bill Clinton, he got impeached by the House but not by the Senate, so it went nowhere.  Obama is, right now, involved with the Occupiers of Wall Street and playing right into their hands by saying OK we are going to come out with a way to get loan forgiveness on your education loans.  We will come up with a way that you can get your loans forgiven; we are going to find a way to wipe out the debt; etc.  LOU said he is doing all that by executive order and all that can be rescinded.  ERIC said but the thing is he is getting all these young people jumping on the bandwagon because they are thinking they are going to get a free ride.  LYN said she bets less than half of those people sitting out there Occupying Wall Street will actually vote.  ERIC said the sad part is that the other half might.  Remember, Obama only won by a small number last time.  TOM said Obama does not have the support on campus like he did last time.  Much vocal discussion followed as to whether Obama will have that young support again or not; the outrageous voter fraud in the last primary, and other topics.  ERIC interrupted the mass conversation to encourage all of us to call our congressmen and senators and ask them to come up with a game plan and make public as to how they are going to deal with these mortgages and student loans.  The way he looks at it is Obama is out there giving them a quick sale.  LYN said as far as the student loans go, if Republicans take over they can put it back into practice.  That is what they are going to do although it may be too late to completely undo it.  LOU asked if anyone saw where Fannie and Freddie wheels got pay raises today.  LYN said they are getting Christmas bonuses also.
ERIC said someone had just given him a paper on the Occupy Wall Street backers   and listed several, ie International Socialistic Org., Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, (he was surprised to not see Harry Reid’s name listed).  ERIC asked SUSAN where she got the list and she told him “The Tattler”.  If anyone is interested in checking this out go to http://pjmedia.com.
ERIC asked if anyone had anything else they would like to bring up before adjourning the meeting.  SUSAN said she knew Solis back in California before coming to Washington and on Obama‘s handpicked/non-Congressional approval).   Acorn was putting up posters that read “If you pay any kind of tax, you should be eligible to vote”.  One of the bilingual kids she taught came to school and said he had voted.  She said she didn’t know he was a citizen and could vote.  He said he didn’t have to be a citizen.  He paid sales taxes and therefore was eligible to vote.  She had complained about the signs misleading and they would not take them down.  Next thing she knew she was pretty much booted out of there. Solis was only on the school board then and now look where she is.  It has probably been 8 or 9 years since that happened.  ERIC said at that rate, they could bring half of Europe over here and as long as they paid one penny of sales tax, then they could vote.  Actually there are some bills (immigration for example) just about as ridiculous that he has been looking at recently. The Democrats want to grant them all amnesty so they will be able to vote in the next election.  (Buying votes again)  FRED said one of our biggest problems is the Union.  They do not want to take a cut regardless of the problems we are encountering.  Someone said, just like the teachers, they don’t want to take a cut either not even to prevent job layoffs.  That is a selfish mentality but it prevails.  ERIC talked about the problems in Europe and especially Greece.  He understands they are going to take the problems to the people and let them vote.  We all know how that is going to go.  Don’t take my bennies away.  Take more from the rich.  He is afraid it will only get worse and those people over there don’t play, they kill people.  The leaders are going the voting route because they know how the vote will go, and then they can say, don’t blame us, the people got exactly what they wanted.  ERNIE GUTHRIE said we are fortunate here in the US because over there if they would do as we do and speak out against their socialist policies or whatever, they might be killed.  LOU said they’ll want to do that here if we don’t get those sitting up there in Washington right now – out.  ERNIE said that is the path we are on right now.  ERIC said they disarmed their populace in most of those countries.  They are trying to do that here in the US also.  ERIC said the Second Amendment was the most important amendment we had – even more than the freedom of speech.

LOU said can you believe the United States is giving foreign aid to China!!  We are probably borrowing the money from them to give back and then have to pay interest on the money we borrowed.  Something just doesn’t sit right here.  We have to be brain dead.

ERIC said ’one final thing, next Tuesday, don’t forget to vote.’  He wanted to know if we wanted to cancel our meeting here next Tuesday since it was election day.  HOWARD said we could have our meeting and then go home and listen to the returns.  Decision was made to meet as usual.

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

 Click on the link to read the CCTPP Newsletter

CCTPP Newsletter-11-11

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OCTOBER 25,2011

Meeting was held at the Golden Corral Restaurant, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order by President BOB CAVANAUGH at 6:00 pm
Pledge of Allegiance was led by PEGGY GARNER
Invocation by HARRY THOMPSON
Attendance – 26

BOB introduced the new attendees:
JOAN COOGAN and BUCK DAVIDS who according to Buck live across the road in the tower.  He said he got here because the cops, in the town he lived in before, threw him out, thereby reducing the crime rate in that town by 72% when he moved out.  He is currently establishing a repartee with the Morehead City police.  He is allowed to attend one meeting per month but is required to have at least two guards with him.  Amid all the laughter, BOB asked if Ms. Coogan was one of his assigned guards; said he was glad that Buck had chosen our TEA Party meeting as one of his monthly meetings and hoped he would come back.
BRIAN KRAMER, representative of the ‘Hope for Warriors’ Kayak Race in Pine Knoll Shores.  He thanked DENNIS TOMASO for inviting him to our meeting.  He said he really respected what the TEA Party stands for.  About four years ago, the decision was made that they needed to do something to help wounded Marines at Camp LeJeune.  They decided to hold an annual kayak race to raise funds .  All the funds go to the ‘Hope for Warriors’ foundation.  They do similar things as the ‘Wounded Warriors’ group.  (We had been told their logo was the same as the Wounded Warriors but this is not true; they have a totally different design/trademark.)   The way the Hope for Warriors was formed in 2003, a group of guys were coming back wounded from Iran and Iraq, and their units were no longer here, but were still deployed overseas.  General Amos, who was in charge of Camp Lejeune at the time (and is now the Commandant of the Marine Corps), put them all in one barracks so they could be looked after in a group.  That morphed into the Wounded Warrior battalion which is now the Wounded Warrior Regimental Flag Unit of the Marine Corps.  The Hope for the Warriors Foundation spun out of that and is now one of the best organizations in the country (he believes) in taking care of the guys and gals coming back banged up.  It is headquartered out of Camp Lejeune.  There are two or three buildings where they have their headquarters, with about two young ladies and several volunteers who do most of the work.  They do have satellite offices in cities all over the country.  For those of you who are real careful in tracking what kind of charities you work with, as all should do, their admin rate is like 5%; which is really good for an organization and can be verified, by the way, on web site charitynavigator.org.  Go there and check these guys out.  They have a four star rating, so they get audited and checked.  They do some great things.  They have different programs, like transitioning the wounded with prosthetic legs, (he and DENNIS have met some of them) out into jobs and such.  A lady, Peggy, was supposed to have attended tonight’s meeting, but was unable since she is over at a TVI injury household, helping out the couple (wounded marine and wife) get through some financial issues right now – financial integration program, one of the many programs to help out the wounded warriors.  They also have ‘Warrior Wish’, which is
similar to ‘Make a Wish’; helping guys/gals (help both sexes) who come back injured (all branches, not just Marines).  This last year’s kayak race he kayaked with a blind marine, who had lost his sight while fighting overseas, and he had his dog with him.  They kayaked three point two miles.  It was pretty motivating.  He said when you weigh all different organizations, the good thing about this organization is you can touch this organization.  He can take us to Camp Lejeune and introduce us to some of the people overseeing the area program, as well as meet some of the wounded marines; so we can actually see where our money is going.  BOB asked ’What do you actually do for the wounded warriors that say the Navy Relief Society wouldn’t do, such as for planned assistance and beyond what the military medical aid provides?’  Brian said they were familiar with the relief societies aid.  That is small change (like giving them $400.00 to fly home for Christmas).   ’Hope for Warriors’ helps pay for education for families of fallen servicemen.  BOB asked ’Wasn’t that available for them now?’  Brian said he was not sure how much is offered, but this organization has been able to help such that it dwarfs any other help available from the relief societies.  Part of the reason for this, as well, is negotiating the relief society way (guys wait years for the VA to get them what they need)  and Hope for Warriors’s has a little faster response.  BOB said “Do you get them better medical treatment?”  Brian said, “No, they don’t do any medical programs with doctors and services such as that. But for example, last year they put in a swimming pool for a marine’s use in rehabilitation.  He doesn’t think the VA would have ever done that.  The pool was put in at the warrior’s home in Richlands.  DENNIS  said Brian had neglected to say the kayak race four years ago had raised $700.00 and this year they raised $39,000.00.  You can tell by that the support in the community for this program.

ROMA WADE said he would like to remind us all that there are five branches of service:  Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard.  The Coast Guard is the oldest sea going outfit and has served in every war and they have lost a lot of people also.

FRED DECKER wanted to know didn’t they get their medical help from the Camp Lejeune Hospital.  Brian said ‘When they come back and they are still on active duty they do get treatment at Camp Lejeune but ‘Hope for the Warriors’ helps after they get out/ beyond discharge.  FRED said ‘But they still have assistance through the VA.’ Brian said ‘yes they do’.  This is not meant to take the place of their VA benefits.  FRED said he was a member of the Retired Enlisted Association in Cherry Point and they give money to the Wounded Warrior League Program.  Brian said he had just gotten a good example ‘a Marine is injured, and his unit comes back.  You have seen all the signs, and they have a big event welcoming them home.  When a Marine is injured and is returned home, they will pay to have the injured Marine’s family fly up for the memorial services usually held for the fallen guys and the welcome home to their injured family member.  That is something you would not find funded by the VA or military.  If you go on the web site you will find they have seven programs now, that definitely fills the gap.  BOB said it was his understanding that the Wounded Warrior barracks in Camp Lejeune are also a holding barracks for a lot folks who are just being processed out and discharged (for like drug abuse or other mental non-combat reasons).  Do you help everybody or do you specifically target those wounded in combat?  Brian said he was not certain that that was the case of the barracks holding non-combat persons.  He would check into that.  What they did was build right next to the naval hospital a wounded warriors’ barracks and the Fisher House (which is like a Ronald McDonald House for visiting family members).  He has not heard of them putting admin discharge people there.  Now a lot of the wounded guys are in various admin discharge procedures/medical separations.  That is part of the reason why they are assigned there, since they can not be included in their normal units; however, disciplinary issues; he doubts, but will find out.  BOB said another example would be a marine wounded in a car accident (not in combat); would those be placed in with the wounded in combat?  Brian said he would check all these questions out and get back with us as soon as he found out.  He said he would be real surprised to find out they were putting disciplinary/accidental injuries in the Wounded Warrior barracks that they had spent several million dollars to build for them.  FRED wanted to know didn’t they have a Wounded Warriors’ barracks on the West Coast also.  Brian said yes they do.  What they did was General Amos set that up here at Camp Lejeune and Secretary Rumsfelt thought this was a good thing and directed the Army to do it in Bragg and several other locations.   We now have a battalion on the east coast and Camp Pendleton on the west coast.  Both are Marine Corps Units, Wounded Warrior East, here at Camp Lejeune, and Wounded Warrior West there and a regiment in Quantico.  BOB thanked Brian for his presentation and invited him to come back to see us.  He told him that once our group voted on which charity we wanted to support, we would let him know.  It might not just be one but may split our donations among several.

On November 5th we have the Veteran’s Day Parade coming up in Morehead City.  BOB had received an email from NANCY BOCK.  NANCY is missing tonight.  Her daughter is playing soccer (BOB thinks this may be the last game of the season unless they win and then there may be playoffs, and I guess to get NANCY back with us maybe we should hope they lose.  (Just kidding Nancy).  BOB said he assumes we still have about $1,200.00 in the Treasury.  He had asked her when and where they were going to get together and decorate the float.  She had emailed back “We should decorate the float near the starting point of the parade the Saturday morning of the parade.  It probably won’t take an hour, so say meet at 9:00am just to be safe (parade starts at 11:00).”  NANCY did not know where the parade starts or exits so had not scoped the place out yet.  “She will get the flags from LYN BAKER on Tuesday prior and have them attached to the poles.  Then we will only have to attach the fringe, banners and PEGGY’s posters, and put the chairs on the float.”  LYN had told us she could get the military flags from her church (I think she said).  Apparently she came through and had let NANCY know.  BOB asked FRED if he knew where we were supposed to be in line and where we needed to have the float.  FRED said he would call and find out the exact location we need to meet, but he thought it would be somewhere near Saint Egberts Church on Evans Street (?).  He would call, get the information in the morning and call PEGGY so she could include it in tonight’s minutes.  (Called, but the Parade Organizers have not made up a lineup yet.  Are waiting until the deadline for requesting permission to have a float in the parade.  He will let us know as soon as he can.  KEN LANG will probably send out an email letting us all know.)
BOB said those interested in helping and/or being in the parade (after we hear from KEN) will meet and 9:00 or 9:30 to decorate.  He said he would need to get the ball from HOWARD and HOWARD said we would be there with the chairs and he always had the ball in the back of his truck, so that was covered.  BOB called on SCOTT CARPENTER to continue our discussion and plans for the parade.  SCOTT had his flip charts set up for keeping a record of what/who/where/lessons learned from previous parades, etc.  He had forgotten to bring a copy of his typed notes from our July 4th Parade so he didn’t have a list of our mistakes and should-have-done’s with him tonight.  Asked how many planned to be there on Saturday morning to get set up.  Verified that KEN would be sending out an email with everything we will need to know.  BOB said he thought the parade would be about 10 blocks long.  This information is for those who do not think they will be able to walk that far and will need to ride on the float.  (Need to have a count on number of chairs to bring).  SCOTT  wanted to know if the flag posts will already be pre-positioned on the float.  Last time we clamped them on.  Since there are still so many unknown variables, we’ll just cover what we can tonight.
HOWARD – bring ball (trailer hitch) for pulling trailer, any tools he thinks we may need (ie electric screwdrivers), and the chairs.
NANCY –  trailer, fringe, flags from LYN,
Will need at least 6 walkers to pass out … a lot of joking about passing out … pocket Constitutions and flyers.  Did not have enough handing out materials at the 4th
Parade.  BOB wanted to know what kind of flyers we are going to pass out.  SCOTT thinks we should pass out a list of the three core values of the TEA Party.  Feels like everyone should know what our mission is and what we stand for.  Wanted to know who had a copy of the flyer so we could make copies.  No one was aware of any flyer already prepared.  Some felt that this parade was for the veterans and that we should not be pushing the TEA Party.  Our red shirts would do that for us.  (Everyone in the parade, both walking and riding should be wearing our TEA Party Tee Shirts.) Questioned if we had enough pocket Constitutions to pass out.  Think we have somewhere around 1000.  Hope that will be enough.  BOB thought three people on each side of the float passing out the Constitutions was an overkill; we would run out before the end of the parade.  SCOTT said no, only one on each side would be passing out Constitutions, another would be passing out the flyers and the third would be a gofer to restock those passing the information out.  DIANE LANG brought up that we had a table set up at the July 4th parade where we sold hats, tee shirts, etc. (BOB said maybe we could recycle our old McCain bumper stickers by cutting the Mc off.)  He said ROMA and EDITH WADE had set that up with a friend in Beaufort to utilize space in front of their store.  Don’t know if we can have that privilege in Morehead.  Much discussion on table.  Question was raised if we might have to have a permit for the table.  BOB said he thinks that might be one of those times when you say “Sorry, didn’t realize that – and ask for forgiveness afterwards”.  Think the decision was made to try to set up down by the food booths and it will be manned and operated by TOM HARMON  and JERE GEURIN.  (We’re in trouble now with Tom and Jere in charge.)  TOM said he had a table they could use.
Someone asked if we still had any of those real small flags we passed out last time.  TOM H. said he thought he still had a few in the back of his truck.  He would check.  BOB said he would email NANCY to see where we stand on getting the small flags.
SCOTT wanted to know if we had anyone set up to procure the candy we wanted to toss to the kids.  BOB said since PEGGY had done such a good job for the July 4th candy toss, he understood that PEGGY and HOWARD were working feverishly to procure the candy for this parade.  (Thanks BOB – just love being volunteered, but we will give it our best).   HOWARD asked how much they wanted us to spend.  BOB said whatever it takes.  He is assuming we are going to hit the stores right after Halloween for the sales.  He wanted to know how much we had gotten for the July 4th parade and what it cost.  (LOU said we had run out and caught the devil from kids who lost out.  Problem was at the start of the parade the candy was thrown out by the double handsful, so we need to remember that when we start off for this parade.)  PEGGY said she had gotten two big boxes of candy (Ruth had helped by donating some money); but she had no idea exactly how many pounds there were.  HOWARD said last time we donated the candy, but felt we needed help for this parade, it does get rather expensive.  SCOTT said well, the candy is covered – Thanks HOWARD and PEGGY for volunteering!!!
BOB asked PEGGY what her posters/signs depicted.  She said she hoped to have at least four ready – one was the liberty bell that says Let Freedom Ring; another was raising the flag over Iwo Jima with Freedom is Not Free; another was saluting the flag with the Pledge written out and the last was six military personnel in dress uniform carrying a  coffin through a cemetery with the statement ‘Some Gave All‘.
BOB said well we seem to have just about everything covered.  SCOTT wanted to know if we were encouraging those who have motorcycles to ride them in the parade.  No one knew of anyone off hand that was interested.  Last time ROY MUSSER had shown up to ride with us but we haven’t seen ROY is several weeks.
SCOTT said we need to ensure enough members stick around after the parade for break down of the float and returning items used.
BOB said for the 4th parade NANCY, her husband and CATIE MCCABE wore colonial dress and carried the banner.  He did not think the costumes would apply for this parade but we will still need at least two people in TEA Party tee shirts to carry the banner.  BOB said he thought there would be no problem in breaking down, since he was pretty sure we would wind up at least near where we started.  Then it would just a matter of taking the fringe off, flags down, and the chairs and posters back in HOWARD’s truck.  Please be sure we have your email address so we will be able to contact you.  BOB jokingly told Buck David, if he was worried about the cops finding him, then he could always give someone else’s email address.  Buck said that was a great idea.
SCOTT asked if there were any further comments, ideas or suggestions.  Discussion on parade concluded.  BOB asked SCOTT to access our performance again at this parade and we will discuss it at the meeting after the parade.

ERIC was asked how his wife was doing and he said she was still having problems with her medications, which is keeping him pretty much tied to the house right now.  That does not mean that he has quit working for the TEA Party, as we can tell by the number of handouts he had passed around tonight.   He wanted to discuss two subjects tonight.  The first is about the candidate he thinks we should support in the Morehead City Mayoral Race.  He didn’t know if we had chance to see or read about the debate that occurred a couple of week’s ago.  It convinced him that David Horton’s ideas reflect the ideas of the TEA Party…fiscal responsibility, limited government….MARION MERRILL spoke in opposition that Jerry Jones had been mayor for 16 years and had more experience than Horton would ever have.  ERIC said he realized that we had various opinions and he appreciated the fact that we were able to voice them; but economical times are bad and getting worse.  In his opinion, a lot of money has been wasted in recent years, the police station, the JIB property, the ball field, etc. and the tax payers have not been allowed to have a say so in any of it.  He thinks the current mayor and city manager have spent money on things we could have done without and used at least a part of that money to give the town employees a raise.  MARION said she did not believe that either.  ERIC told her then she needed to read the minutes.  David Horton has asked ERIC if some of the TEA party would be willing to help with phone calls, maybe a little assistance at the polls, etc.  ERIC had brought a sign up sheet, for anyone wishing to help Horton, to please sign before they left tonight.  He had distributed a letter from Horton on the Town Council Meeting Minutes of Tuesday, June 14, 2011 in with the pack of data he had passed out earlier for us to look at, which explains why he did not support the budget this past year, nor in 2010.  Bottom line is ERIC thinks Horton is the best candidate that supports the TEA Party.
On another subject, he had distributed some other information that he had obtained from the White House.  He thought it was kinda interesting and wanted to share it with us.  One of the charts he had given us was about the individual income taxes.  Who pays what, broken down by top 1%, 5%, 10%, etc and bottom 1%, 5%,10% etc.  To give you an idea, the top 10% pays almost 70% of all federal income taxes.  The top 25% pays 87%.  The bottom 50% only paid 2.7%.  So you can see the burden is being carried by the top 25% of this country.  The other thing he thought interesting is the report that shows receipts from individual, corporate, and excise taxes and other.  In 2010 $898,549 billion dollars came from tax payers like you and I.  The estimate for 2016 is $1,785,970 trillion dollars; literally doubled.  We have all heard about these tax hikes President Obama has been talking about; well these are his estimates; so we clearly know what his agenda is.  He has no intention on cutting spending.  If anyone is interested in more information, please contact ERIC and he will try to get it for you.  PAT NALITZ wanted to know if ERIC had any figures on the percentage of those in poverty of that bottom 50%.  Surely we are not 50% in poverty.  ERIC said he would think if you were not paying any taxes, then you couldn’t afford to pay taxes.  According to the way he reads the chart it would appear that the bottom 50% earn 33 thousand dollars or less (adjusted gross income).  BOB said we have to remember that a number of people end up in the lower tax bracket due to number of kids/dependents they have, high mortgage, and things like that.   Just because they are not paying taxes does not mean that they are unemployed or as TOM said they could be like Timothy Geitner, making gobs of money and just not paying anything.  HOWARD said a lot are getting income off the record.

KEN LANG spoke on Moore TEA’s billboard project.  He said about a month or so ago he mentioned that a group from Moore County’s TEA Party were looking into putting up billboards prior to the Democratic Convention in 2012 (between July and election).  They did four billboards in 2010 around the Moore County area.  This time they have been going all around the state trying to find “good” locations for renting to put up billboards.  He and DIANE met with some of them this past weekend in Swansboro.   They were looking at billboards in this area along Hwy 24 and 17.  They currently have logged in 2400 miles in researching locations.  They have collected somewhere around $1,200.00 but have just got the ball rolling.  A lot of these billboards cost around $400.00 per month, sometimes more and sometimes less; depending on the location.  So they are now looking for donations.  We have had several members from this group (Morehead) and the Western group who have sent in suggestions for slogans to be used.  The slogan that the Moore group used two years ago has been taken by the AFL-CIO and it will now be used on their billboards, so we need to find another really catchy slogan to use.  If you go on our website, there is a link to the Moore TEA website, ncteabillboards or something like that, where you can get further information, suggestions received so far, and inform as to some of the locations they are looking at and have pretty much decided on as soon as they get enough money to do it with.  KEN said he really would like to see this group commit to providing some funds to this project.  Individuals are encouraged to participate also.  DEBBIE RUCKER told KEN that she had already sent them some money.  Several thought it was a good idea and thought we should consider making a donation.  KEN thinks they may end up with possibly 20 or so locations and then narrow them down to whatever they have money for.  They would like to put up all 20 but are hoping to put at least 8 to 10 up.  They do want to put some billboards down in this part of NC, because they know there is a lot of support here.  DIANE said she felt we should donate to the cause.  We can pass out all kinds and amounts of flyers, but a billboard will cover a whole lot more ground and attention. BOB told KEN that the next time he talked to them, that maybe they should decide on how many they want to put up and then state this is how much money we need to raise.  In other words,  set a target.  KEN said he thought that was their ultimate goal, but they had just started this project recently (about 4 or 5 weeks ago) and they are putting a lot of personal time now in just getting prepared.  They are also looking at different companies trying to get the best prices they can.  ’Course prices are based on how much traffic goes by the signs, how visible they are, and those kind of things.  At this point they are shooting for 10 signs at $400 (at the least) per month for that period of time.  That big billboard they were looking at down around Swansboro, has great visibility, and it is around $400. He feels sure that there are some in the western part of the state that will run a whole lot higher.  HOWARD said there is a potential that if you can tie in with some business, that agrees with the program, and has a long term contract, (sort of like sublease) of renting billboards; we may be able to get them to let us use their billboards at a reduced rate.  BOB said we would certainly like to be able to contribute to that project.  We currently have roughly around $1,200.00 in the kitty, but he doesn’t know what expenses we have coming up, and if we want to hold a rally in the spring, prior to the primaries, that is going to cost us some money.  We might do a pass the hat type thing and maybe raise at least $400.00 to pay for one month for one sign.  TOM recommended we come up with a fund raiser.

STEVEN BEST reported on “The Cave” theater.  It is almost finished (needs to set up the projector and speakers) and Friday night will be the grand opening.  The movie they will be showing is Matthew 10.28 and he hopes everyone here tonight will show up for the premier.  He has gotten popcorn and hotdog machines.  Social from 6:00 (with free hotdogs) until 7:00 when the movie will start.  Would like to know how many plan to attend so they will know how much food to get.  Please join us Friday night.

JERE GEURIN informed us that all the packages (105) they had packed to send to the troops overseas; sponsors to mail them were found, and all got mailed this past weekend.
This “We care” program (headed up by Sam Sanford) will again be packing boxes tomorrow morning (Wednesday) hopefully another 100.  Anyone interested in helping please come to Hwy 70, across from the Trucker’s Toy Store and behind Furniture Distributors.  Plan to start about 9:00 and we should be through by 11:00.  He and Sam will again be at the Post Office in Morehead City next week looking for sponsors to pay the postage ($12.95) for mailing the boxes.  ERIC said since we are looking for charities to sponsor, this might be one that we could help out by paying the postage on 5 or 10 boxes at each mailing.  BOB said if it would fall into our budget, it would be nice.  BOB said he would like to have Sam come in and pitch the ’We Care’ program to the group, because “We Care” is certainly in the running for getting proceeds from our tee shirt sales.

BOB said there is going to be a training session on Agenda 21 Saturday, 3:00pm November 12  at St. David’s School in their newly renovated Performing Arts Center which is located ¼ mile from North Hills at 3400 White Oak Road in Raleigh.  Admission is free and ample parking is available.  Guest speaker is Mr. Thomas DeWeese, President, American Policy Center of Warrenton, Virginia and will be speaking on the UN’s Agenda 21/Sustainable Development Program.  Mr. DeWeese is a nationally known expert on Agenda 21 and will present an in-depth analysis of how each and every one of us is being affected at the local, state and national levels by this insidious threat to our liberties.  Sustainable Development calls for changing the very infrastructure of the nation, away from private ownership and private control of property to the central planning of our entire economy.  This is being done through Cap and Trade, population control, open borders, social justice, farming reform, environmental protection, smart growth, open spaces and economic justice to just name a few of the ways this threat is being presented to the unsuspecting American people.  Sponsors of this event are Feet to the Fire (FTTF), Conservative Women’s Forum, Southern Wake Republican Club, Chapel Hill Republican Women and Triangle Conservatives United, have joined together to establish an education fund that will be used for this and future educational events.  There is a growing need in our community to keep ourselves informed of vitally important issues that we are currently facing.  This fund will be used to bring experts on various controversial subjects into our area to speak on a variety of important issues.  BOB asked if anyone would be interested in going to this event besides Steve.  BOB said he was seriously thinking about going.  Agenda 21 took up a large part of last night’s TEA Party Patriots conference call.  They had a big meeting in Chattanooga (he thinks it was).  They had folks from three states.  There is a Karen Bracken who stays on top of Agenda 21 and she has a weekly program that you can dial in and get involved.  You can contact her at karenbracken5@gmail.com or you can go to www.agenda21today.com for more information.  Agenda 21 is something we need to be smart about and keep ourselves informed.  They are pushing this stuff at us a lot faster than we are aware of all around the country and all around the world.  There is some legislation in Wisconsin that the folks up there were fighting to have eliminated (essentially trying to defeat some initiatives being pushed there)  TOM asked if the TEA Party Patriots were asking any questions to the candidates.  BOB said no, but they were talking about another TEA Party debate in South Carolina.  That is not set up yet.  Instead of having it like the normal debate, (question is asked and every candidate gets 60 seconds to answer).  What they want to do is isolate the candidates in sound proof booths so they can not hear the other candidates response.  It will be like a 3 hour event.  That way you will be able to hear what each candidate thinks without his/her knowing the other responses.  It would also stop this quibbling back and forth.  TOM said he thinks we should find out how/what these people think about Agenda 21 before we go putting them in the White House.  TOM said he understands that Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain are going to have a debate that will be held by the TEA Party on November 5.  LOU and TOM said Newt was on a couple of programs today and only had nice things to say about Cain.  When it was mentioned about the two debating, it caught on like crazy.  You know how Newt is talking about the three hour linkage debate with President Obama,   Well, Newt and Cain are going to knock it around.  BOB said he couldn’t see a debate between Gingrich and Cain, they agree on just about everything.   TOM said they were going to discuss Tom Ryan’s medicare plan.

FRED reported that Friday night at Newport Elementary School they had their fall festival.  Security was provided by the TEA Party Patriots…FRED, SCOTT, and LOU.  BOB wanted to know if they had on their TEA Party shirts.  Fred said no, he had on a red one but not our official shirt.

Meeting adjourned at 7:45.
Minutes submitted by Secretary PEGGY GARNER

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OCTOBER 18, 2011

Meeting was held at the Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order by President BOB CAVANAUGH at 6:00 pm
Pledge of Allegiance was led by LOU KUKULINSKI
Invocation by CHRIS McCAFFITY
Attendance – 19

BOB introduced WILLIAM ‘BILL’ HARRISON from New Bern.  Bill has been with us before and said he enjoyed coming to our meetings.

BOB asked CHRIS to give us an update on the fisheries situation.  He said the last time he spoke to us was on the closed  areas they had placed on the commercial fishermen and about some of the restrictions.  He informed us he had brought some postcards that he hoped we would sign and mail in support of the fishermen.
Postcard (1) “The freefish7 plan“: a. Set reasonable annual quotas on all targeted species b. Remove all size limits.  They are a waste of our resources c. Manage the quotas with split seasons and possession limits to keep the fisheries open all year.  This would limit waste and provide a dependable supply of local seafood  d. Set aside 10% of the annual quotas for soup kitchens.  Fishermen could donate fish they did not want to eat or exceeded the commercial limits to that quota to avoid waste.  – Comment: The removal of size limits and properly managed quotas would allow fishermen to responsibly harvest our seafood with very little waste.  I support the freefish7 plan as an alternative to HB-353, catch shares and derby fisheries.  (Please sign your name and any other comments you would like to make).  Send to Senator Berger, NC Senate, 16W. Jones Street, Room 2008, Raleigh, NC 17601-2808.
Postcard (2) – “HB-353”:  HB-353 violates the Fisheries Reform Act.  It will strike down many of North Carolina’s commercial fishing jobs while restricting our freedom to eat local seafood.  Please oppose HB-353’s attack on our jobs, food, and heritage.  Speckled Trout, Striped Bass, and Red Drum are public resources.  The Fisheries Reform Act requires them to be managed for the benefit of ALL N.C. citizens.
(Please sign your name and any other comments you would like to make.)  Send to Speaker Tillis, NC House of Representatives, 16 W. Jones Street, Room 2304, Raleigh, NC 27601-1096
Postcard (3) – “Request to Neal Boortz Show”:  Mr. Boortz, please give Chris a chance to inform your listeners about how a few unelected bureaucrats are striking down our freedom to fish and access a dependable supply of delicious American seafood.  We should all have a common goal of healthy fisheries that can be responsibly harvested forever with no waste.  Please interview Chris about how we can achieve those goals by using sound science, common sense and following the Golden Rule. (Please sign your name and any other comments you would like to make.)  Send to The Neal Boortz Show, 1601 W. Peachtree St., Atlanta, GA 30309
Postcard (4) – “Co-op Fish House on Radio Island”:  Please support a co-op fish house on Radio Island as an alternative to a Sulfuric Acid melting plant or holding tanks.  The co-op could derail any other toxic ideas that would threaten our coast.  I could support a co-op fish house on Radio Island as a way to preserve our commercial fishing  jobs and heritage as well as our access to safe local seafood.  The co-op would promote tourism and benefit all NC Citizens. (Please sign your name and any other comments you wish to make.)  Send to Governor Perdue, Office of the Governor, Constituent Services, 116 W. Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27603.
Chris said your support in forwarding the above correspondence will be greatly appreciated.  This correspondence will continue to ensure our voices are heard and help keep our freedoms in the fishing industry.  While we have been successful in stopping or delaying many of the restrictions they want to place on us, they continue to come up with additional ones or rehash the old ones.  Chris spoke on many of the problems being encountered by commercial fishermen, not just here in North Carolina but all along the east coast, from Virginia to Key West.  If we stand together we can keep our freedoms, but he guarantees us when we lose one freedom, they will come after another.  He asked the TEA Party to come together and support this issue, that it is something we can and should believe in.
WAYNE WILLIS said 20 years ago there was a public meeting on the same issue that CHRIS is trying to fight and the issue at that time was “who is going to do what about the argument between the recreational and commercial fishermen.  When the meeting was just about over a man got the floor and said he represented an organization, the Raleigh Support Fishing Association (something like that, can’t remember the exact title).  He addressed the commercial fishermen and said “There is no need of you fighting us, (the recreational fishermen) because you can not win, and the reason you can’t is because there is more of us; we have more money; and we will prevail.”  You see what has happened in the last 20 years.  You just about can’t catch a speckled trout and if you do, you can’t sell it.  WAYNE went on to discuss the effort to dredge the end of Taylor’s Creek in Beaufort.  At one time it would draw 10 to 15 feet of water, but now if your boat draws as much as 16 inches of water, don’t even try to get through.  They have taken the buoys and channel markers up because there is no traffic through there anymore.  The reason for the lost of the channel is because commercial fishing is a thing of the past and the trawlers, just as well be, because they are now tied to the dock.  He said it was sort of like Yogi Berra said about the restaurant in New York when asked if he wanted to go to it.  Yogi said ‘no, the crowd is too big, nobody goes there anymore’.
CHRIS said true, there were now more recreational than commercial fishermen but there was more people who eat seafood than both, put together.  97% of North Carolinians get their seafood through commercial fishermen, seafood markets and restaurants.  And if the restaurants had a more dependable supply, then they could/would be selling local seafood and not seafood imported from some other country.  This is what encouraged him to push for the co-op fish house on Radio Island that got shot down.  The governor issued an order asking for suggestions on what would be compatible on Radio Island.  He went to the meeting and offered the co-op idea and the commission liked it; the public liked it; it could double as a museum to preserve our heritage; and be a working waterfront property that would be there forever.  With just him saying it, like anything else, it didn’t matter.  It just falls on deaf ears for the most part.
How does the Marine Fisheries have the authority to enforce rules?  By violating our Constitutional rights!   They should not be allowed to do the things they do (like coming on board your boat and checking your catch, and throwing back anything they decide is not legal).  When asked ‘By whose authority do you have the right to do these things’; they have no answer.  So, if no authority has been given, then they need to get a warrant to search the fishermen’s coolers, or anything other than safety equipment.  The Supreme Court gave them the right to do that, but nothing else.  Until CHRIS started the postcard campaign, they refused to even listen.  Now they are starting to hold hearings; whether it is directly because of the cards, he doesn’t know.  But they still are just doing what they want.  The head man of the committee is from Washington State and they are just a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, drawing salaries from our taxes.  They get a billion dollar budget to rule us with an iron fist, with the full weight of the federal government behind them.  They are supposed to answer to Congress, but they really don’t have to answer to anybody.  They told CHRIS to go talk to his congressman, if he didn’t like what they are doing.  He gets to talk to Walter B. Jones, Kay Hagan, and Senator Burr.  They rest of the Congressmen from other states tell him, since he can’t vote for them, they don’t have to listen to anything he has to say.  CHRIS said he had tried to talk to Pat McElraft and Jean Preston, but they had brushed him off, since he had not gotten any response from them.  Norman Sanderson had been very open and had listened to him when CHRIS had gone and spoke at the TEA Party rally in New Bern back in the spring but he had not gone any further with CHRIS’s suggestions, also.
CHRIS  proposes the fishermen donate 10% of their catch to the poor; sell what they are allowed; and keep what they need for their own use;  in lieu of throwing back overages or those too small.  This is a waste of GOD’s own harvest, because once the fish are thrown back into the water, they have been weakened and usually die.
BILL HARRISON told of his son going fishing, and as he was coming in he realized that he had several pounds over the limit.  He informed the authorities, and normally they are supposed to throw them overboard, but his son recommended they not waste the fish but give them to the homeless, or people hungry who have lost their jobs and have no money.  Anybody can fix fish to eat.  Nope, they fined him several thousand dollars and threw the fish away.  CHRIS said this is exactly what he is talking about – the waste of GOD’s gift to us, (use them as GOD intended), and taxpayers money. Even 2000 years ago, Jesus fed the masses with fish caught by fishermen with nets.  LOU said it is not just fish that are wasted.   A few years ago Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and others had food left over or on shelves not being used and wanted to give it to the poor, but were told NO, they had to throw it away. BILL said he asked Norman Sanderson about it, and he said, the way it is up in Raleigh, they figure fishing is just for the coast.  Norman had said fishing is all over NC, not just the coast, but he can’t find anyone to pay him any attention or back him.  They tell him if it doesn’t pertain to the western part of the state, mountains, ski resorts, etc., they don’t want to even discuss it or talk to him.  BILL said that is kind of ridiculous, our state runs from the mountains to the sea, not just Raleigh west.  ERNIE said the big money comes to Raleigh from big companies like Cisco, Southern Foods, etc. who purchase their seafood from overseas because they can get it cheaper.  The overseas fishermen don’t have all the rules and regulations to abide by.  They can throw their nets overboard, catch whatever is there, sort it, pay their help a small amount of money and sell cheap.  That way the big businesses here can make more money and are able to donate larger sums to the politicians and their campaigns.   If these large companies could no longer buy from overseas and had to buy locally, there would go their profits, as long as our fishermen had so many regulations to abide by.   HOWARD GARNER asked if anyone had seen where that fish house in Beaufort was going out of business and they are going to put a marina there.  They are getting a grant to build…just what we need…another marina.  ERNIE thinks we need to stop letting them put marinas here, it has gotten out of hand.  They are a part of the commercial fishermen’s problem.
BOB reported on our attendance at the County Commissioner’s meeting last night.  BOB, KEN and DIANE LANG, HOWARD and PEGGY GARNER, DENNIS TOMASO and ERIC BROYLES attended.  Discussion was on whether the county commissioners should release the $500,000.00 budget funds that had been held in reserve.  BOB spoke on why he felt the funds should not be released. Ie. School had only been in session a couple of months and if they were already needing those funds, (supposedly for overtime for teachers assistants/bus drivers; funding for additional teacher sick day funding, having only been funded for 3 days out of the 10 allowed; may have to hire additional teachers for the western part of the county because of oversized/crowded class rooms) what was going to happen a couple of more months from now.   He felt that if they had funded 3 days per teacher for sick days, (which he had figured amounted to about 2100 sick days), and if they had already used up all those funded days by mid October….HOWARD interrupted and asked if BOB had caught that you could use sick days to stay home with a sick member of your family.  The teacher does not have to be sick to take sick leave.  BOB said there was a provision where they are allowed time off for pregnancy, caring for family members that are ill, and some other things, but he thought that was separate from the 10 days allowed for their own personal illness.  BILL said he had been married to two school teachers…North Carolina let only 500 and some go this year; up to this year 1800 had been let go each year.  Actually three years in a row they have been funded, the money has been spent and no teachers have been fillings those slots.  If nobody is there filling those slots, but money has been authorized, they are taking our money and blowing it on something.  What are they blowing it on?  Who is advising the superintendent?  When he was growing up you had one principal, one teacher per classroom (above about the 3rd grade, where any helpers were volunteers, non-taxpayer funded.)  He feels he got a pretty good education without all these “have to have” aids, and more, more money.  According to his research, for many years they have been funding for X amount of school teachers, with only a portion actually being filled with teachers, but the full amount of money goes every year.  That is not right.  FRED DECKER said when he went to school the assistant principal was a teacher also.  Croatan High School has not one but two assistant principals.  HOWARD said he thought West Carteret had three.  FRED said they all have three or four counselors.  Newport  Elementary has 5 reading teachers, 2 counselors, and 2 nurses.  Used to be the nurses went around from school to school.  Money could be saved by contracting out food services, janitorial, and bus services, putting them out for completive bids.  BOB said what surprised him was Commissioner Robinson asked about the overtime (these teacher assistants who also double as bus drivers wind up going into overtime) and wanted to know if for the overtime they were paid as teachers assistants or bus drivers (at the bus driver rate or teacher assistant rate).
Comes out if; for example: Once they reach their 40 hours for the week, the overtime was determined by: example: if 75% of the day was spent as teacher’s assistant and 25% as bus driver, then 75% of the overtime came out of the teacher’s assistant budget and 25% from the bus driver budget.  LOU asked what was the difference.  Someone said one thing probably was in addition to the salary; the benefits for each position.  HOWARD said it was obvious at the meeting that they did not want to hire outsiders to drive buses.  Onslow has been running ads in the paper for school bus drivers, offering he thought he read, $10.00 an hour.  Apparently Onslow has determined it to be cheaper hiring non-teacher assistants to drive the school buses.  BOB said his gut feeling was the Superintendent of the School Board is using this whole teacher’s assistants and overtime bus drivers and playing games with manpower management to inflate the budget to get more money.  Once they get the money, then they do ’proper’ manpower management so they are not using that money for all that overtime, making it a slush fund for other purposes.  To prove that, is a whole different matter.  LOU said they have had this teacher/bus driver routine forever; his ex-wife used to do that and she was here in 1972. Part of last night’s meeting was; after the school board got through pleading how much they needed the funds and how many project loses they were facing; Commissioner Harris had the screen drop down , had some power point slides and showed a couple of charts (Howard had gotten a copy of those slides and he passed them out to the attendees).  HOWARD discussed the handouts.  He said if you will look at the first page, you will see there have been no cuts.  The schools have received an increase every year.  The school board attendees, when shown these figures, were upset and said those figures were wrong.  Mr. Harris told them, ’tell you what, you show us we are wrong and we will change them, but we got these figures from you’.  In HOWARD’s opinion the County Finance Manager is pretty smart.  She is apparently the one that put this presentation together, which threw the school board for a loop.  Commissioner Harris showed the school board that by using their own numbers that they had submitted (in order to justify release of the $500,000.00) they actually were getting about 2 ½ million dollars increase more this year than they got last year.  They were not being cut the 3.1 million dollars they were saying, because when you add their own numbers which they had supplied, based on federal, state, and local monies received,  they actually wound up with 2 and ½ million dollars more.  Of course the Superintendent and County Board of Education Chairman disagreed….that was all wrong.  DENNIS TOMASO  said Mr. Hill (BoE chairman) said those figures were wrong that they got 78 million last year and only 75 million this year, so they actually lost 3 and ½ million dollars. DENNIS said, regardless what the figures showed, the school board continued to moan about that 3 ½ million dollars they think they lost.  BOB said we left the meeting last night all wondering ’what in the ’h’ were they doing – releasing this money, when the commissioners had shown them that they got more money than they requested originally, so it would seem they really did not need that ½ million dollars. The commissioners had voted to release the funds (not all at once, but doled out as needed).  DENNIS said the biggest problem is in about three months they are going to come back and need more money.  All agreed. HOWARD pointed out a few more figures he thought were worthy of note.  On page 1 of the handout under Appropriation $1,372,000.  This is monies found by the auditors that had apparently been hidden.  On page labeled 2 of 50, under Other Fringe Benefits – (Workers Comp, Unemployment for RIF and Medical Ins. Payments for RIF) – those figures highlighted are figures they put in the budget asking for money, but is not actually what they spent.  They did not have to spend that much for these items, since it was based on the  possibility of RIFing 92 staff members.  On page labeled 5 of 50, under Board of Ed – Claims Reserve – Workman’s Compensation – the $350,000.00 was not spent either.  So it looks like the school board puffed their figures for the budget to get more money.  It appears there is no integrity on the Board of Education or the staff.

BOB recognized STEVEN BEST to tell us about his latest endeavor “The Cave” Movie Theater.  His pastor came up with the name, because a cave is a place of refuge, hiding place as mentioned in the Bible.  About 3 months ago STEVE said the Lord gave him this idea in a dream about putting a movie theater in his garage to show family based movies, Christian movies, entertainment for the kids and teenagers since all the movie theaters in Carteret County have closed.  He discussed his dream with the pastor.  He told STEVEN that he had a projector they could use.  All he would need was a sound system.  So STEVEN went to the Thrift Store and found a  Movie System Surround System for $65.00.  On base they were giving away free furniture and he got 50 free chairs.  Then he was looking for a movie screen (they are very expensive – like $900.00) so he went to Best Buy and asked if they had one and they told him they had one in the back that they had been unable to sell and they would take $200.00 for.  160 inches long.  So he got the screen.
For the last 3 to 3 ½ weeks he, the pastor and another guy have been getting the cave ready for operation.  They have put up walls, ceiling, insulation, has a fire place in there, and all they have to do is paint it.  LOU asked why they were doing it at STEVEN’s house and not the church.  STEVEN said if you do it at the church you had to have a $500.00 permit.  To have it at your house and have less than 500 people you need no permit.  (It appears STEVEN was meant to follow through on his dream and received assistance in fulfillment thereof.)  The Grand Opening is Friday, October 28, 2011 at 6:00pm, at 103 Washington Ave., Newport.  They are going to have free hotdogs, popcorn, candy for the kids, and a good movie (Matthew 10.28 which is about a teenager who is supposed to go to a church meeting on Halloween night and instead goes to a Halloween party, gets killed, and goes to hell, showing graphically what hell is like) in the cave for adults and teenagers.  The kids will enjoy a big screen TV in the house, (movie Prince of Egypt or an animated Jesus story).  Currently STEVEN has about 30 movies in his inventory.  He hopes to have movies twice a month probably on Saturdays.  BOB said this might be an excellent place for us to show some of  the TEA Party movies we have or have heard about or maybe we could use it for social get togethers like picnics where we can invite friends; maybe a good way to help increase our numbers.  STEVEN said he would be glad for us to use his facility.   For further information, please call STEVEN and Susie Best at 723-0493.

MARIAN MERRILLE asked if anyone there knew who was teaching Spanish at the Senior Citizens Center…Ken Humphrey!   She said she went one time, found out who was teaching the class and didn’t go back.

BOB  said he heard someone had stolen Obama’s teleprompter and other equipment; but what was even worse, someone in California had broken into a SWAT Team’s building and stole all their weapons.  HOWARD said Harry Truman came to the North Carolina state fair and someone picked the pocket of one of his secret service men.  The Occupy group is still being pushed as the TEA Party of the left, but they have no organization, no core values, other than tear down capitalism.  TOM HARMON said they have the unions behind them and they are getting money and organized.  They are talking about tomorrow night surrounding the stadium when the world series is being played. They plan to harass families coming in to watch the game.  I’m sure they will get a lot of backing for doing that.  There is a lot of support, and a lot of money being funneled into their cause (mostly by those big bad CEO’s and rich people from Hollywood, who are being punished by Obama, Ha!)  SUSAN RYNAS said she understood Van Jones was heading up a group also.  He had predicted this ‘uprising’ several years ago.  It was preplanned, not like the TEA Party, and advertised on the internet prior to beginning.  BOB said Beck predicts this is going to grow and spread and result in violent rioting.  LOU said he understands that the owners of the park in New York had received phone calls and ‘advice’ not to make the protestors leave so they could clean up the mess they had made, since it was so unsanitary that it was unhealthy to be there.  BOB said he thought backing off of cleaning the park was a good idea.  These people are looking for confrontation, as an excuse to begin the riots.  Maybe with the weather forecast predicting cold weather and rain, it will clear out on its own.  TOM said he heard today they are stealing from one another.  They even have stolen the money used to buy food for the kitchen they had set up to feed the crowd.  They have stolen lap tops, iPods, etc. from each other.  CHRIS said he thought some of these Occupy people have pretty good ideas, individually some even think like TEA Party people, just from the left.  He would like to see the TEA Party try to make contact with these people and say we agree with you.   We don’t think we should be bailing out these banks and corporations.  That is not what capitalism is about.  If they are going to fail because they did not have a good business model then let them fail.  The government is not doing their job by doing the anti-trust laws that keep these businesses too big to fail.  They are going to collapse our economy if they continue.  We have common ground with some of the Occupiers and should be working together on these common ground ideas.  We should not be calling them names and bad mouthing them.  That is what we complain happening to the TEA Party.  Maybe we can convince them to at least move to the middle ground, away from the union influence and socialism.  BOB said he heard a reporter today basically say the TEA Party and some of the Occupy group are saying about the same thing but from different ends of the spectrum.  The TEA Party is against ’big government’ and the Occupy Wall Street folks are against ’big business’.
CHRIS said he talks to homeless every week, and they are against the bureaucracy – they do not have a ’d’ or an ’r’ next to their name but are opposed to the bureaucracy ruling us.  That is one place we do have common ground.  Just because we do not think exactly alike, and agree and disagree on issues; we do have common ground and should be looking to work together on those.

JUDY BALL spoke up and said she was new to the TEA Party and wanted to know how the TEA Party felt about Herman Cain.  Most of the attendees spoke up and said they liked him.  She wanted to know how he stands with the TEA Party.  BOB explained that the TEA Party was made up of small independent groups and were not controlled by any one group.  We were a grass roots type of organization.  We do not have a ’stance’ on any politician.  The TEA PARTY does not back any candidate.  We can only recommend (after vetting) a politician, not endorse, support, or even request that you vote for.  North Carolina is very specific about the use of the words, endorse and support.  At the last election we (this TEA Party group) vetted the candidates and as a group, made up handouts recommending (since recommend was not on that list) certain candidates (we had found to be conservative) that we passed out at the polling places. He thinks for the next election we will change that to ’the Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriots believes these candidates support the TEA Party principles’.  JUDY said she heard Herman Cain say on TV today that he believed in the TEA Party principles and  she said he came across as being very sincere and truthful.  She said she voted for Obama last time, but was very disappointed in the changes he had talked about during his campaign then, but Cain’s 999 program sounded workable. She thinks Obama still endorses too much spending.  BOB said he was for Cain, and LOU said he still liked Gingrich.  BOB said he would like to see a Cain/Gingrich ticket.  Cain to take care of the economy and Gingrich the political end of the spectrum.  BOB said from what he can determine in talking with other TEA Party groups, they favor Cain 2 to 1 over Romney.  Romney has about a 30% approval rating in the TEA Party.  Someone said they heard that the debate this week will make or break Perry.  BOB said Perry still has plenty of money behind him and if he can take one or two of the upcoming early caucuses it could turn things around.  TOM said that is Cain’s biggest problem, money, whereas Romney has piles of money and Wall Street.  BOB said none of them have any money compared to what Obama has (and he is not having to spend it on primaries).  TOM said that is true, but those big spenders he had behind him last time are not showing up at the big fund raiser dinners now being held for Obama.  HOWARD said these big Wall Street people don’t really care about government, all they care about is control.  They are going to invest in who they think can win, and who they can get their biggest return from.  If the country goes down the drain, to them, so be it, as long as we get what we want to “H” with the rest.  BOB said that was one of his concerns about Herman Cain’s 999 program.  That cuts out all the lobbyists, all the big business with their loopholes and stuff, and throws the old tax code out the window.  He worries about lobbyists and big business working to defeat Cain so they can keep their footholds.  PEGGY said she felt that Cain’s 999 program was the first step toward a Flat Tax.  Everyone agreed.

Marian Merrill said she understood we were getting a raise in our social security.  She thinks this is another Obama gimmic he has come up with.  It is supposed to be a 3% increase, but Medicare is going up again so whatever increase in social security will be eaten up by Medicare.  FRED said before Obama came up with his Obamacare, Romney had gone to the White House and discussed his Romneycare and that was what Obamacare was based on.  That is why his ratings are not any higher than they are right now.  BOB said he sees Romneycare as the albatross around Romney’s neck and immigration and college subsidy for illegals is Perry’s. DENNIS said Romneycare is creating a lot of problems and they are going to have to revamp it.  It is costing the doctors a lot of money and they are talking about pulling out of the program.  BOB said does anyone know what that CLASS Act is.  DENNIS said it was a type of insurance for the elderly that they would pay into for five years and no one would collect for five years, so they would have all this money. Problem is no one is joining the long term thing so they can’t sustain it.  Sebilus feels this part of Obamacare should be removed since one of the provisions of the law is ’if it is not self sustaining it has to be removed; however Obama says they are not going to take it out.  That was one of the things they were banking on having all this income offsetting the Obamacare costs.  You can not sustain something that is not sustaining itself.  DENNIS thinks they are just dancing around now until they can come up with something else.  BOB thinks the field is wide open for Cain unless he falls flat on his sword in the next few weeks.  LOU wanted to know why people got upset when Cain said he would build a 6’ fence all around the county with high voltage on top with a sign that says ‘This will kill you’.  BOB said “Liberals just can’t take a joke”.  Just like when Sarah Palin was asked about her foreign policy and she said she could see Russia from her back yard.  PEGGY said, sorry BOB, Sarah did not say that.  Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live was the one that put that forth and the media twisted it to be Sarah’s words.

Someone said it appears to him that Obama and the liberal media is trying to preselect our candidate for us.  Romney is the pick of the establishment.  He thinks that is one of the reasons for this change in the primaries.  The sooner that starts the better chance Romney has to hold his lead. However TOM thinks they are wanting Romney because as soon as the primaries are over they will shoot Romney down over his Romneycare, and other so called liberal agendas he has.  They can use this to turn off the Republican conservatives and hope they will just not vote.   While several like Michelle Bachmann, they feel she has no chance.  Her support is drying up.  Someone said they tried to go on one of her web sites last night but could not get it to come up.  BILL said Cain was the only one that did not have a big satchel pulling behind him.  All his money has come from his speaking engagements and the middle class and that is probably why he is short on funding.  BILL said he used to like Rick Perry until he found out how much money he had accumulated, he lost interest in him, because nothing is free and he is going to have to pay back all those debts sooner or later.  That is what Obama is having to do now – satisfy GE, the unions, – and there is no way he wants to put someone else in there having to do the same thing.  FRED said he saw a bumper sticker coming down to the meeting tonight that said ‘Where is Richard Nixon now when you need him?’

SUSAN asked if anyone had any idea of what we were going to do in Africa?  All of a sudden Obama is going to send 100 troops there and for what.  PEGGY said ‘to get them killed’.  They are going to come home in boxes.  BOB said he wondered if the Nobel Peace Committee would like to get their prize back from Obama, with all the wars now going on.  LOU said maybe they would like to give him an award for Economics.  Our best bet is to get out of the UN.  BOB asked, didn’t the UN want to build another building near the one they currently have and it got shot down by congress.  They would not say what it was for, so did not get the support needed.  They were told funding would be held off until they explained what it was needed for.  LOU said maybe Obama could use it to hold all his czars.

JUDY wanted to know if anyone had heard what Cain has to say about our troops overseas.  BOB said he didn’t think he had been asked about that.  Foreign policy is not his forte.  It is his weak point.  He is going to have to surround himself with experts to advise him but feels he has the intelligence to pick the most knowledgeable for advice unlike Obama.

BOB advised those who were not at the last meeting, that we now have a TEA Party library and STEVEN is the librarian.  If anyone has any books they would like to share, pertaining to the TEA Party, or views you found interesting, even expose’s on the other side,  please get them to STEVEN to put into our collection.

HOWARD said before we close he wanted to remind us about Judge McCullough’s book signing on Saturday at 1:00pm.  He was the author of ’Sea of Greed’ about drug dealing in this area and Noriaga’s downfall.  He promises to discuss more events than were covered in the book.  It will be held at either the Community College or Civic Center.  He had heard both mentioned.

TOM said he had sent a suggestion in for those Moore County billboards and he had sent a copy of the email he had received back to the officers.  They are supposed either this week or next be looking at locations on Hwy 24.  They are looking for suggestions of the best locations for viewers.  This is for existing billboards that they want to rent to display their TEA Party signs.  They are looking around Camp Lejeune, but are curious about other places further down our way.

Meeting adjourned at 7:15 pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
October 11, 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by ERIC BROYLES
Invocation by STEVEN BEST
Attendance – 20

New Attendee – Steve Miller – Moved to Carteret County in 2005 and into their new home in 2006 for retirement.  They had been coming down here since the 70’s.  He worked for IBM for 33 years.  He was a business executive for software.  When IBM decided to sell a company or buy a company, or software,  he was the executive that went out and negotiated the deal.  BOB said, “so that means you gotta lot of money then.”  Mr. Miller said, ‘used to; until he bought a boat.’

BOB said he presumed we all had heard about “Occupy Wall Street” and what was going on up there.  The TEA Party Patriots issued a press release today, which he paraphrased in lieu of reading the complete article.  ‘We good – Them bad’.  What instituted the release was someone had said the OWS group were like the TEA Party for the left.  This was the Patriots rebuttal.  Someone on the Webenar last night said we should have some type of ‘outreach program’ for these people and bring them into the fold.  LYN BAKER said Rush Limbaugh said pretty much the same thing today.  That there were a lot of people up there that have lost their jobs, their homes, and whatever, and they are just seeing this as a place to protest.  They don’t realize they should be protesting Obama instead of Wall Street and they need someone down there to educate them.  ERIC said the bad thing is Obama, Pelosi, and Biden, and some of the left politicians are throwing their support towards these guys.  If you look at their eleven (?) point agenda, he considers it pretty socialistic.  KEN LANG said there were thirteen points listed on the web site.  KEN said someone had mentioned the $650.00 they were getting paid, ACORN is actually paying these people to go down there.  That was in the paper (Wall Street Journal, he thinks).  He said he has not heard of anyone in the TEA Parties getting $650.00 to attend a rally.  (Actually, never heard of anyone getting paid to attend, period, from the amount in our Treasury, we might be able to get $3.50 each…no where near $650.00, right?.)  TOM HARMON said Nancy Pelosi had said ‘God bless them, they are frustrated’.  BOB said his biggest concern with this whole Wall Street crowd, in his gut of guts think this whole thing is going to evolve into riots, flipping cars over, busting out windows, destroying property, etc, like they are having in England and Greece.  TOM H.  said he thought the best thing conservatives could do would be to keep quiet; don’t get involved; and let the Democrats keep building them up, until all hell breaks loose.  Reminiscent of Chicago in the 60’s.  It is motivated by the same things.

BOB said he wasn’t sure we all got the late breaking news this afternoon that HOWARD GARNER had mentioned to him prior to the meeting.  HOWARD said that it was announced that an Iranian had been arrested for planning to assassinate the Ambassador of  Saudi Arabia and blow up the Embassy and the Israeli Embassy on American grounds.  He was wondering if this was just a ruse to get our minds and efforts off of Holder getting subpoenaed for ’Fast and Furious’.  Senator Issa was supposed to issue the subpoenas today.  Apparently this ‘act of proposed violence’ had been discovered a couple of months ago (knew about it in June and arrested the guy in September according to TOM H.)and it was just now coming out. Looks kinda fishy.

BOB said talking about late breaking news, I guess you all heard that Governor Christy of New Jersey came out this afternoon and endorsed Mitt Romney.  Kinda sorry to see that but RUTH PARKER thinks Sarah Palin will now come out and support Caine.  Several think she will but others think she will not until Michelle Bachman withdraws from the race.  Since her place in the polls keeps dropping, then she might in the near future. They do not think Sarah will stab Michelle in the back.

BOB said he wanted to start something new – a TEA Party library.  He has several good books just lying around the house (he has already read) and would like to share them with the members.  Anyone else with books they have read and would like to get out of the way at home and share, please bring them in.  He appointed STEVEN as our librarian (has to bring the books to each meeting and keep up with whoever (name and phone number) checks them out and when).  He read the names of the books he was submitting to get our library started.  (One of the books, ‘Why I am a TEA Partier’, he had an article in.)

BOB recognized EULA PARKIN who asked ‘who would be willing to put a wooden cross in your hand and walk down the streets of  Cairo, Egypt?’  Several were not aware of what she was getting at.  She said many Christians have been murdered there recently.  The military used to protect them but now are siding with the Muslin Brotherhood and allowing the killings to go on as well as getting involved with the killins.  Forty Christians have been reportedly been massacred.  EULA asked if we liked the book Islamophobia then she had developed a list of some really good books that, upon twenty five people requesting a particular book, she could get them for $1.00 just like she did the Islamophobia book.  She asked us to look the list over and any that we were interested in to please sign next to that book’s listing.  BOB asked us to take a look at the list on our way out from the meeting and see if there is any books we might be interested in.

BOB reported on the Republican Men’s Reverse Raffle held this past weekend at Cannonsgate.  He got to talk to the State Republican Chairman, Robin Hayes; Speaker of the House; Leader of the Senate, Harry Brown; and they all said for the TEA Party to keep on doing what we are doing – we are doing a good job and really helping out the conservative movement in the State.  They all contend that North Carolina is going to be a real battle-ground in the upcoming elections of 2012.  The National Democrat committee will be dumping millions of dollars into the state to try to pull it solidly into the blue state group.  The Democrats are still looking at the last election as an anomaly.  They are confident of winning the state back, so we are going to have to really get out there and do what we can to make sure that everybody we know – that can vote, does vote (in the right way of course).  Someone jokingly said “Vote early, vote often”, and EULA said ‘don’t vote early, they lose those votes.’  BOB said don’t vote ‘absentee’ either, especially if you are military, they don’t count those votes.  KEN said he had checked for the voting dates for 2012, but they were not listed yet.  BOB said we had upcoming (November) local elections. HOWARD said Atlantic Beach had held their elections today, but it was too early to know how it had turned out.  DAVID COX was not at the meeting tonight due to working the polls.

JERE GEURIN asked us not to forget the marriage amendment that we would be voting on in May – one man, one woman.  We need to pass this amendment, since what we currently have on the books can easily be overturned by a liberal judge.

BOB said we are going to have to start deciding if we are going to have a rally this coming spring to try to get folks riled up for the campaign season.  We will talk about that later on but be thinking about what you think we should do.

BOB reported that on Friday, some of us went to the League of Women Voter’s debate at Joslyn Hall at the College.  He was disappointed in the TEA Party turnout.  Only he, ERIC BROYLES, EULA PARKIN, HOWARD GARNER and PEGGY GARNER attended.  He thought the debates were very interesting.  He felt David Horton just really won the battle there.  Jerry Jones came out in his opening statement with personal attacks and he felt that kinda soured at lot of people right from the start.  The City Council folks – some had ideas and some had none.  FRED DECKER asked how Harvey Walker did.  BOB said he thought he did well.  He liked Harvey, Bill Taylor, and Lennie Griffin.  PEGGY gave the list of candidates who were there.  In addition to the above,  Diane Warrender and Craig Weber.  Ernest Yeager was absent.  BOB said Craig Weber used the same campaign speeches he used when running for House of Representatives.  He gets carried away with himself and turns people off.  BOB said he talked to Harvey Walker at the Reverse Drawing Saturday afternoon and he came across a whole lot better than he did on the stage at the debate.  Seemed like every time they asked him a question on the stage, he would go – that is a very important question and is certainly something we are going to have to take a look at and weigh all the options and come up with the best decision.  HOWARD said he also believed in planning.  BOB said when he got him one on one at the Drawing, and he asked him again some of the same questions asked at the debate, that he was very on top of each subject and his answers were very smart and BOB was impressed with his knowledge.  He felt he was a whole different guy than the one on the stage.  Someone asked how Bill Taylor did.   BOB said he thought he did excellent.  He was very level headed, calm, sorta looked at the big picture and focused.  STEVE MILLER said he had worked with him.  STEVE is chairman of the boat show, which is the biggest fund raiser they have for the DMCR (Downtown Morehead City Revitalization).  It is a charity and Bill is executive director and STEVE feels he has good business sense money wise.  He is fiscally responsible.  He doesn’t mind spending money if it is the right thing to do but he certainly won’t frivolously throw it away.  STEVE let us know that he was not campaigning for Bill, because he couldn’t vote for him, since he did not live in town, but wanted us to know what kind of person Bill was.  Election will be held the first Tuesday in November, after the first of the month.  (Not sure of date)

This coming Thursday, at Cape Carteret, Rib Eye Steak House, the Carteret County  Republican Men’s monthly meeting will be held.  Starts at 7:00.  They are having Frank Palombo, who is challenging Walter Jones in the Republican primary for the US House, as guest speaker.  Richard Hunt had told BOB that it was an open meeting (ladies invited) and requested that members of the TEA Party please attend and let’s fill the place up.  He would like to have a big crowd from the TEA Party to show our support for Frank.  Since the meeting starts at 7:00, if you want to eat, you need to come a little bit earlier.  BOB will introduce Frank and he will start to speak about 10 minutes after 7:00.

BOB said at the Reverse Drawing, he was talking to Robin Hayes, head of the Republican Party of North Carolina, and he asked him if he had met Frank Palombo, who was challenging Walter Jones, and Robin said no, but he had been wanting to.  He wanted to know why Frank was running against Walter anyway.  HOWARD said Robin had served in Congress with Walter.  BOB told Robin that he couldn’t speak for Frank but personally, he thought it was time that the 3rd Congressional District Republicans quit pretending that Walter was a Republican.  Why should we stick with Jones, when Jones only votes with Republicans occasionally, when we can have a 100% lifelong Republican.  He could understand the party may have wanted to support him last time because it was a chance that the GOP would win the House, which governs chairmenship and such and to stay with Walter was a slam dunk victory for the Republicans and therefore not taking a chance on losing an “r” in Congress.  He feels we are going to be picking up a lot more seats this time, if you believe the media, and it is time to unload these liberal RHINOs.  Robin apparently did not agree with BOB since he attempted to defend Walter
BOB asked who was that Democrat up there in NC District 1 – he got voted out and got replaced by a Republican (HOWARD asked if he was referring to Bob Etheridge) so now he is changing parties and is going to run as a Republican and Walter Jones is going up there and stand by him.  It is all on Lisa Marley’s Truth or Dare blog.  If you don’t read her blog, she is up in Dare County, on the executive committee, precinct chairman, and runs the TEA Party up there.  She has started a conservative blog, (you should Google on it), BOB recommends you sign up for it because she writes articles about what is going on in Eastern North Carolina about various house members, different goings on, and probably about a third of what she writes pertains to Dare County and what is going on up there, but her blog is worth reading.  If you sign up for it, whenever she writes you will get an automatic notice in your email inbox.  You can read the title and if it interests you then you can open it up and go right to her blog and read the whole article, plus you can read the comments as well as make them.  It is one of the few blogs he reads regularly.  Lisa has volunteered to be Palombo’s secretary.  Don’t forget Palombo this Thursday at Rib Eyes Steak House in Cape Carteret at 7:00 pm.

ERIC brought up that Ron Paul was supporting Walter Jones.  BOB said he did last time also and Jones backed Paul.  Big disappointment today was when Gov. Christy of New Jersey came out in support of Mitt Romney.  Most in attendance did not like Obamacare which is patterned after Romneycare, nor Perry’s stand on immigration.  Only two real candidates that most like are Caine and Gingrich; but Gingrich, while probably the most intelligent and knowledgeable, and probably the smartest one up there; he can not get elected.  BOB said in his heart of hearts he really believes Herman Caine is going to pull this one out.  If you look at his biography, he has excelled to the top of everything he has put his mind to.  FRED said Christy also appointed a Muslim judge and TOM H. said he was a true believer in Al Gores’ green world.  He believes in all that stuff.  All these people ranting and raving about Christy for President….you don’t know what you are getting.  ERIC…same thing about Perry, until he opened his mouth.  Christy is not a conservative, but instead is a liberal.

KEN stood to give us a report on the “Out West TEA Party”.   But first..…At the Reverse Raffle, he again met Judge Newby, conservative Judge running for the North Carolina Supreme Court.  KEN brought some donation forms to our meeting tonight, letting us know that Newby was running a little behind in his donors (while still doing well, he had hoped to meet his goal by the end of September).  If you can help with a small donation it will be greatly appreciated.  He needs people as well as funds, so if you and your wife wish to donate, please write two checks, one signed with your name and one with your wife’s.  We need CONSERVATIVE judges and we need to maintain our majority.  Make sure when you vote, you vote for Scooby, Dooby, Newby.  While he, at present, does not have an opponent, you can rest assured that a liberal judge will appear from nowhere to give him competition.  They are not about to let a conservative just walk right in.
Last week at Rucker John’s the ’Out West TEA Party’ had 28 people come to the meeting.  BOB showed up late for their meeting, having left our meeting to attend theirs, so they ended up with 29 in attendance.  BOB said that was dedication. KEN said he had put a link on the web on an article on Agenda 21 to the Moore TEA Party, who has a really good website with a lot of good information on Agenda 21.  Rather that duplicating their information on our website, he has provided a link and you can go there for the information.  Moore TEA is the force behind the billboards.  KEN talked to a couple of their people on the phone Friday.  They have been driving around looking for good billboard locations.  Actually looking at the areas to see how visible they are to the traveling public.  As of last Friday, they have logged in 2,000 miles of driving around North Carolina looking at locations.  They have already collected about $1,000.00 which is way short of what it will take to put up 8 to 10 billboards, but they have just announced this project and word has not gotten out that much yet.   Haven’t started pushing the fund raiser just yet.
Last thing he has is – he met with Adele Collins, member of the Board of Education, on Saturday.  There has been some speculation as to why she was not going to run again for the Board of Education, so that was one of the things he wanted to ask her. It was his understanding that she was not really up for reelection until 2014.  That is still a ways off, not that we shouldn’t be looking for somebody to run.  She did confirm that she is not going to re-run.  The reason is she works full time as a teacher; she just took custody of her grandson, so she has a four year old now at home, and a few other things.  He told her that one of the rumors was she was upset over the friction between the Board of County Commissioners and the Board of Education.  She said ’well, yeah, there is; but that is not the real reason.  However, it has added a tremendous amount of time that the BOE has had to do to work on the budget.  KEN gave an account of how he felt about the BOE, C4, Superintendent Novey, etc., and Mrs. Collins said he may be right that she had seen some of the things he mentioned, but had not put them together until KEN had expounded on them.  She said the previous Superintendent (who passed away) had worked real good with the Commissioners and the BOE and she did not recall ever having problems like were being encountered today.  KEN told her they still had the Board of Commissioners, Board of Education but different Superintendent – that should tell them something.  They should fire him.  She told KEN that Novey still has a year and a half to go on his contract, so they were not going to do anything as long as his contract was in force.  KEN said he felt sure there were provisions where they would have to pay him (buy off his contract) and that could be rather costly.  KEN recommended since Novey only had about 14 months or so, then the Board should start looking right now, because it will take a while to find someone who is good and can work with others.  He recommended that they not make a secret out of looking for a replacement for Novey, and not be underhanded about it.  Maybe he will get the message and try to improve his relationship with the BOE and commissioners.  There is a feeling (or understanding) from the members of the BOE, that they are just there to amen what the Superintendent wants.   He understands that Cathy Nagel has said that they had hired him (the superintendent) to take the reins and run everything and they are just there to support him.  HOWARD said that is not how the State Law reads…the board sets the directions and the superintendent follows.
KEN said he understands there might be problems in the Finance Department also.  The man in charge does not understand the system apparently.  There are three members on the BOE that have formed their finance oversight/review the budget group.  Mrs. Collins said they were having as much trouble getting data that makes sense, as the Board of Commissioners are having.  Mrs. Collins said that the BOE puts in excessive numbers of hours just trying to figure out what the numbers are.  They bring some numbers in, explain some things, are asked more questions; and they go back and get more data, bring it back and it is different than what they showed before.  KEN said this was the exact same thing he was hearing from the County Commissioners.  He asked Mrs. Collins what kind of accounting system do they use.  It is an accounting system that the state requires, but you have to know what you are doing to run the system.  Apparently, the man now in charge doesn’t, whereas the previous financial manager knew the system quite well.  KEN reminded us that there is a Board of Commissioners meeting next Monday, and we should get together and attend.  KEN said DENNIS TOMASO had read in the Jacksonville paper that the commissioners had already approved giving the BOE the $500,000.00 that had been held back…that C4 was actually congratulating them.  Several disagreed…the commissioners had told the BOE they had to justify use of those funds before they would release them and they thought this was what the BOE was attempting to do (justifying use of the funds) in the article so the Commissioners would approve their use…that C4 was actually wanting more funds besides the $500,000.00.  Question was asked ‘why so soon after receiving their budget funds are they needing more.  KEN said in March they were talking about being $3 million short, but then after the state gave them additional funds, they still came up and said they were $3 million short, but they could meet all their legal obligations.  In May they came back and more money was allocated, and Novey still wants that money and the $3 million but he could still meet his legal obligations.  In June they came out with the final budget and more money had been appropriated and they still wanted the $3 million.  It looks like Novey just keeps moving the ball.  Dennis said he did not understand the article anyway.  It said they paid the assistant teachers for driving the bus and then paid overtime for serving as teacher assistants.  KEN said he had looked at the numbers, and they have an adequate number of teacher assistants to teach and drive the buses with what they have without using overtime.  On top of that they have another 30 or more people who are certified to drive buses.  KEN thinks we need a good explanation for this situation.   Maybe they have one; but he feels we need to know their rationale.  But they won’t tell you, they just say they need overtime for bus drivers.  They are playing games with all the numbers.  If the BOE is aware of all this, apparently they don’t know how to fix it either.  As he reads the article, it would appear the fight is between the BOE and County Commissioners.  The real fight is with the school superintendent.   (Dennis reported later, he had misread the article – the funds are to be discussed at Monday night’s Commissioners’ meeting.)

DENNIS TOMASO reported that he had to change the date for the two speakers he had contacted (for us making a decision on which charity to sponsor) to speak with us; to both on the same night, due to scheduling difficulty.  They will be at our October 25th meeting.  Speakers are:  Peggy Rochon, SE Regional Director for “Hope for the Warriors’ and Brian Kramer, Town Manager of Pine Knoll Shores, who is a retired Marine Colonel and the originator of the yearly ’Kayak for the Warriors’ event in Pine Knoll Shores.

BOB  asked ERIC to give a brief synopsis on the By Laws he had come up with.  We will not be voting on them tonight.  ERIC said he would get them posted on our web site, but basically are an update on the By Laws we were working on last year.  They were several pages long then, but he has consolidated them down to about 3 or 4 pages.  JERE GEURIN said he was told last year, when he had supported By Laws, that they were not necessary for this group.  Have they suddenly become necessary?  ERIC said any organization has to have some general guidelines to follow.  JERE said that is what he thought but had decided it was a dead issue.  ERIC said we needed guidelines for holding elections each year to establish our executive committee (Chairman or President, whichever we wish to call him or her; Vice Chairman/President, Treasurer, and Secretary); how to fill an office that has become vacant, etc.  So basically, the operational functions, and the outlining of some general duties of each position.  Once everyone has had an opportunity to read them over and raise questions over the next couple of meetings, then we can vote on them.  He feels we need to post ‘em, look ‘em over, make any modifications, clean them up, make sure they are as simplified as possible, and vote; but he feels we do need some general guidelines.  BOB said these By Laws, ERIC has proposed will be sent as an attachment to the minutes of tonight’s meeting.  BOB said he or ERIC, one, would send a copy to PEGGY to attach to the minutes.

BOB opened the floor and recognized LYN BAKER who said she had been asked about the ‘recommendation of candidates’ that we had at the last election, were we planned to do it again.  There were so many issues between Democrats and Republicans, so she was wondering if we could print the Democrat’s position and what is the truth on the various issues; kinda backing them up with facts.  These people feel that when they discuss politics with their neighbors they need to come with some kind of ammunition.  Not everybody feels adequate to discuss the issues.  BOB said he was all in favor of that but it was going to take people, time and energy to sit down and either drag the candidates down in here and ask specific questions, or do a whole lot of research.  She said she was not talking about individual candidates; just the difference in Democrat and Republican stances on the various issues.  Like we know, right now Obama wants to use the fact that his job bill isn’t going to pass because of the Republicans.  But we know that some Democrats will vote with the Republicans (otherwise, the bill would  pass in the Senate).  We could list those Democrats.  Things like this that the Democrats are twisting and using as ammunition against the Republicans.  (No further discussion.)

BOB recognized JERE who spoke on the defense of the Marriage Amendment which will be on the ballot in May.  We need to get behind it.  Two lesbians went to the courthouse in Asheville and asked for an application for a marriage license.  They were denied under General Statute 51.1.2 which says they can not do that.  So the lesbians vowed to return later and do it again.  Now what they are doing is gathering evidence for a law suit.  Their lawyer will probably get a liberal judge assigned to the case and that judge will declare that statute unconstitutional.  If it is in the Constitution of the State they can not do that.  He has contacted the Christian Action League in Raleigh, a lady named Susan Bowen (?).  She has replied and asked him if there are people down here that are willing to help them promote this amendment to the Constitution.  So he gave her a few names (BOB is one of them that he gave along with BOB’s telephone number).  They might want to send a representative down here to speak to the TEA Party group.  Second item…Tomorrow morning at 10:00 Sam Sanford goes to bat again for his project, “We Care”, where we package care boxes going to our troops in Afghanistan.  If you want to help, be down to his warehouse behind the new Furniture Distributor business across the street from Truckers’ Toy Store.  There is a little road that goes back into the woods when you go  behind that building of shops.  There is a small building with like a garage door which they will have open.  They plan to package 100 boxes tomorrow and Thursday or Friday, he and Sam will take those boxes to Morehead City Post Office to find people who will take those boxes, which have the paperwork – including customs form – already filled out, into the post office and mail them ($12.95 per box).  If you can’t come and help pack, then please come to the post office (not sure of date which will depend on the weather), and help by mailing the boxes.

HOWARD said he was not sure how many of those in attendance had ever read the book “Sea of Greed” on drug dealing that was written by Judge McCullough.  On the 22nd, at the Community College at 1:30 pm he will be holding a book signing.  He told PEGGY and I Saturday afternoon at the Republican Men’s Reverse Drawing that in the discussion they will bring out a whole lot more than was in the book.  HOWARD thinks this might be interesting if you have the time to attend.  There had been an ad in Sunday’s paper and he should have cut it out, but failed to do so.  BOB asked him to find out more on the event and bring it up at next weeks meeting.

LOU KUKULINSKI asked ’how many members do we have now?’  Someone told him they understood Crystal Coast TEA Party had 2500 members and he couldn’t believe it.  BOB said KEN LANG would know how many had signed up on the email list.  He was sure it was at least 1,000 or more.  TOM H. said it was 1,800 a year ago.  LOU wanted to know where they all were?  (Not everyone who thinks of himself as a part of the TEA Party movement goes to meetings.  HOWARD said a lot of them, that we never see, are reading our minutes, because many of them in writing letters to the editor are referring to our minutes, and are discussing what is going on at the meetings.  We are definitely getting attention there.)  STEVE  MILLER said he had had a few letters published as well, but he had a question…does the TEA Party have a financial structure…have any funds?  NANCY BOCK said she was the Treasurer and we sell Tshirts and hats, various items, and accept donations.  We use those funds (after the portion sent to the Wounded Warriors is removed) to pay for our rallies…liability insurance, porta potties, etc.  The Flea Mall does not charge us for the use of the field.  We currently have $1,200.00 in the bank.  STEVE wanted to know if we had thought about packaging some of the liability insurance with other non-profits.  You can put riders on other liability policies and save a lot of money.  NANCY said the last time we bought insurance, we bought it for a year, which allowed us to hold 3 rallies that year, which was much cheaper per rally.  She said she was not aware of what STEVE was talking about.  He said for example, for the Boat Show, he requires all dealers to carry their own liability insurance before they can participate; but they can take out a rider on the city policy and it saves them a lot of money.  If we knew anyone we could put a rider on, it could save us some money.  It could be a government agency, the Flea Mall may have a general liability or many other possibilities.  BOB said they Flea Mall wanted us to have our own insurance.  STEVE said we would still have our own insurance; it was kinda like subleasing.  He offered to look into the situation with the lady he does business with and see what he can find out for us.  BOB said that would be great…we have between now and April before our next rally to come up with something.

TOM H asked about the Veteran’s Day Parade and our participation.  BOB said it was confirmed we had a spot.  TOM H. wanted to know what we were going to have for a float and what we planned to do.  NANCY said her trailer was still available, and BOB said he guessed we’d be throwing candy to the kids.  We will be right behind the Republican float.  HOWARD told them that PEGGY was painting some posters depicting Veterans‘ Day ideas.  (Discussion on date of parade – will determine later).  BOB checked on the number of pocket Constitutions we had available.  ERIC said he had a few he had gotten from our representatives (which was fewer than he had hoped) and NANCY said she still had two boxes, so BOB thinks we may be OK.  NANCY said for the 4th of July parade we had the historical flags, but she thinks for the Veteran’s Day Parade we will need the military flags…Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, Coast Guard.  She had looked at the prices today and for a set of 5 military flags 3×5 of outdoor nylon $150.00 ($30.00 each)  plus $5.00 shipping and handling.  The 4×6 is $50.00 ea.  She also thinks we should have MIA and POW flags also.  (Agreed).  LYN said her church had a set of the military flags and she would ask if we could borrow them.  BOB said the IGA Grocery on Hwy 24 used to have 3×5 flags and he thought they were about $4.00 a flag.  LOU said the Flea Mall had them all over the mall, he thought.  BOB thought we could possibly find flags a lot cheaper than $30.00 a piece.

EULA said the “Achievement Walk” for anyone who has ever had a knee or hip replaced will be held this Saturday.  Anyone wishing to participate please see her for information.

ERIC  wanted to know if we were going to do any recommendation forms for pass out at the local elections.  BOB said no, not for the local in November.  There is too much danger in creating dissention among our members and people in the local area, as we discovered recently with the Atlantic Beach election.  We are so spread out in the county, and many are unable to vote in the town’s elections that it would not be feasible for us to back candidates for this election.  To do so, we would have to call in all the candidates from the various towns for vetting and we do not have the time, anyway.  Plus there are so many issues in the various towns (which apply to that town only) that it would be almost impossible to ask the appropriate questions.  He prefers we hold off until the big election next November.  We do need to come up with some better way of vetting candidates, though.  We are not likely to get Congressman Jones down here to talk with us, or Governor Beverly Perdue, etc.  We probably can get those running for Carteret County Commissioners to come it an speak to us.  ERIC  wanted to know if maybe we could come up with a list of questions to send out for their response.  BOB said the problem with that is the issues keep moving.  If you ask any politician if they believe in ‘fiscal responsibility’, you can rest assured they all will all say “Oh, yeah”.  If we are going to ask questions then we need questions that will really nail their feet to the floor.  Example: the question to Jerry Jones on the phosphate issue … how in the hell did you let that one get by you?  We all agree that the TEA Party Voter Recommendation list (made up originally by TOM AUSTIN and FRED DECKER) was a great idea. (Discussion on vetting Bill Smith and Wade Nelms last election.   HOWARD said he had had some apprehension about Bill Smith in that election, although  he had known him for years, back when they were in the Jaycees together, but he has been extremely pleased with Bill‘s action as commissioner and his voting.  He feels he goes out and tries to find out what the constituents want before he makes a decision.  He is pleased with him as commissioner and that is not normal for him, since he (Howard) is normally critical of anyone in office.  Bill stops by  Howard‘s home every now and then and they discuss the politics of the day.  HOWARD feels Bill is getting TEA Party input through him.  ERIC said he had talked with Bill several times and he thought that Bill‘s philosophy was right in line with the TEA Party.  He thought it was Bill and Robin Comer that pushed for the Board of Education to report quarterly their numbers.  However, like BOB said the numbers they are getting do not make any sense.  They can not understand them.  Comer and KEN had gotten together one day and laid out the paperwork they had received from the BOE and tried to make sense of where the money in the budget was going and they just got lost….and both of them are good with numbers.)  BOB said he felt the list we passed out at the polls truly helped to get conservatives elected.  This is what he has in mind for next year. He was wondering though if we had recommendations for the primary, because Richard Hunt, who he plans to have come and speak with us soon, was ousted in the primary by Comer.  While we all appear to like Comer, it would have been nice to have vetted Richard Hunt.  He is a real numbers cruncher also.  He has been really tearing apart the Cape Carteret budget and the ILA (which HOWARD feels is comparable to the Carteret County budgets, since he is familiar with the ILA.)

Meeting adjourned at 7:15 pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
FOR
October 4, 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by LOU KUKULINSKI
Invocation by NANCY BOCK
Attendance – 21

There were no new attendees at tonight’s meeting.

BOB said first subject for the evening is who we want to sponsor on our Tee Shirts. (and donate a portion of the proceeds from their sale.)  This is something we have discussed in the past but never made a final decision on. We had the Carolina K9 folks up here to explain their program.  [Andrew, who attended some of our meetings with his dog, was thought to be a wounded warrior; but BOB discovered that he was wounded while doing karate and was placed in the wounded warrior division until he could be processed out.  How he ended up with a special dog, BOB did not know.]  The dog program is a very worthwhile cause.  The one BOB is currently leaning for is  “Hope for Warriors” down in Jacksonville.  He asked DENNIS TOMASO if he knew any more about them.  DENNIS said he had it set up with them to come speak to us on the 18th.  The woman that runs it is very low key.  Every dollar received goes into “Hope for Warriors”.  BOB said the other good thing is they have the same logo as Wounded Warriors so we will not have to change our shirts emblem very much.  The Town Manager of Pine Knoll Shores runs a kayak race every year and this year they raised about $36,000.00 or $39,000.00.  The people who run the organization make peanuts, so we can be assured our money is going for a good cause.  The lady, who will be coming to speak to us, name is Peggy (but he cannot remember her last name).  He feels we will be impressed with her.  BOB said, ‘Let’s hold off making a decision until we hear from her”.  The other organization was Sam Sanford’s group “We Care”.  They make up boxes of goodies and mail them to our troops overseas.  We need to get Sam in here and give us a better understanding of what they do.  LOU KUKULINSKI said he thought they would be making up the boxes again tomorrow morning, down behind the old strip mall, across from Trucker’s Toy Store.

Up Coming Things….Today is Tuesday the 4th, and on Thursday, the 6th, we have Frank Palombo speaking at the Republican Men’s Club meeting at the Rib Steak House in Cape Carteret.  FRED asked “Are you sure it is the 6th”, he thought they met the second Thursday of the month, and the 6th is the first Thursday.  BOB said he needed to check on that.  LOU and FRED may be right.  He’d better call Frank and find out for sure. RUTH asked BOB to shoot an email out to the group as soon as he found out the correct date.
On the 7th, at the Community Center Joslyn Hall, at 6:00 pm, the League of Women Voters will be holding their candidate’s, for local elections, debate.  If you come to this meeting please wear your TEA Party shirts and hats so we can make a statement with our presence.   Bob said he imagines they will probably have a blank form, to fill out when you get there, to ask a question of particular candidates.  Then they will probably have like a vetting committee to sort them out.  Time is 6 until 9 pm.  He thinks we should get there around 5:30 to make sure you have a parking space and seating.  Question as to who will be on the platform.   BOB said local candidates, mayor, councilmen, etc.  Question as to which local (Morehead, Beaufort, Newport, Cape Carteret, etc. Carteret is a big county)  BOB said probably just Morehead, Beaufort and maybe Newport,  since there will be another forum in Cape Carteret on the 26th.  There really isn’t that many contested races.  He, personally, is interested in the Morehead City races.  HOWARD GARNER said David Horton had a real good ad in last week’s paper.  This is the second ad he has had and they both were very informative.  BOB asked if it was just a political ad announcing his candidacy and HOWARD said no it was a rather lengthy ad explained why he was running.  Both articles covered pretty much what he told us the night he spoke at our meeting.  CLAYTON GILLIKIN wanted to know if it would be appropriate for us to hand every candidate a copy of our pocket Constitution before the forum starts.  BOB said that may not be a bad idea.  CLAYTON said he wasn’t sure but he thought the League of Women Voters did not use the Pledge of Allegiance or Invocation prior to their meetings.  This is very important to the TEA Party.  BOB said he would check prior to the event and find out their procedure, and if not, would ask if they would please say the pledge and give an invocation prior to that night‘s meeting.
BOB said Walter Jones would be holding a get together at Parker’s Barbecue in Greenville at 5:00 pm on October 7.  Ron Paul, candidate for President, will be there.  Jones will again, this year, declare his support of Paul.  LOU said it looked to him that Paul was starting a lot of trash on the elimination of Awalocki (?).  Paul had said it was against the Constitution to assassinate an American citizen.  Most in attendance feel that it is wrong to say that we had assassinated an American citizen.  When Awalocki began his association with the terrorists and became one of their leaders, as far as we were concerned, he had given up his right as a citizen of the US.  BOB said he did not know for sure if there was an admission fee to the barbecue but if so, would probably be only about $5.00.  FRED said they had a big one recently and it was for a whole lot more, something like $2,500.00.  HOWARD said yes, but that one was held at the Country Club.  It started at $150.00 up.
BOB said the Republican Men’s Club would be hosting a reverse drawing at 4:00pm Saturday, at Cannonsgate on Hwy 24.  300 raffle tickets were being offered and he did not know if there were any left unsold.  SCOTT said he had one he would like to sell.  LOU said he thought there were a few left.  They are $150.00 a piece, and if you win, it is $5,000.00.  HOWARD said there would be heavy hors d’oeuvres and drinks served.  BOB asked if anyone knew who was going to be the keynote speaker at the event.  FRED said there would be a lot of them….McCrory, Pat McElraft, Jean Preston, and they were trying to get Sen. Burr, but he wasn’t sure if they had heard back from him.  Judge Newby, was a maybe and FRED said he thought Frank Palombo was coming.  BOB said he understood Jones would be there and a lot of the state’s Republican party bigwigs up in Raleigh would be there….Speaker, Senate Leader, Harry Brown, Tillis, etc.  Anyway, if you want to be there it is $150.00 for two people.  HOWARD wanted to know if the main gate at Cannonsgate will be open.  BOB said it would probably be opened for this occasion.  FRED said they were having the event catered this year by the Ice House.

BOB said FRED had handed him something that he thought was pretty interesting called the State Department Watch.  He couldn’t see an email or website on the paper but apparently something is going on about the islands off the coast of Alaska, the Aleutians, close to Siberia.  Apparently the Obama administration is trying to give or sell seven of these islands to Russia and along with that would be the 200 mile radius around them for commercial exploration (oil fields, fishing etc).  There is a request form to sign and return to the Speaker of the House John Boehner in opposition.  Boehner may be our last hope to save these islands from being lost forever to the Russians.  As you are aware, it is the unelected bureaucrats of the Obama administration; with no public hearings, no public scrutiny and without anyone noticing; are working on a land giveaway.  They are negotiating right now with representatives of the leaders of Russia….the same kind of thugs that ran the Communist Soviet Union…to give away thousands of square miles of Alaska.  [There were several “Unbelievable” comments from the audience.]  Thousands of square miles that contain billions of barrels of oil, tons of fish and other seafood, and millions of tons of valuable ore.  We are already sending millions of dollars to Russia right now to buy oil and unless we stop this giveaway immediately we will be sending them millions more to buy back our own oil.  The Russians are making out like bandits.
BOB listed the islands being proposed (Rangel Island, Bennett Island, Genet Island, Henrietta Island, Cooper Island, Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rock, along with thousands of square miles of ocean sea bed that surrounds them…not sure of the spellings).  BOB asked FRED how he got on their mailing list.  FRED said it came in the mail today, and he didn’t know why he had gotten it.  BOB said he had never heard of this organization and he didn’t know if this was true or not.  It might be just a ploy.  He did see an address to write to on the paper to send donations.  BOB asked for someone to check this out and determine how true it is.  NANCY said she was checking right then on her hand held computer and had not been able to find anything recent about what BOB was reading about.  BOB said he would like for us to find out more about it.  .

BOB said we had all probably seen Herman Cain really winning a lot of these straw polls, by extremely wide margins.  HOWARD asked if anyone saw today (he thought) where Cain was debating Bill Clinton about the Hillarycare program, back when Clinton was president, in ‘94 he thought.  BOB said Hannity had a clip on it on his program last night.  HOWARD felt Cain did real well even back then.  He stood his ground with facts.  He holds his own.  BOB asked if anyone had read Cain’s biography.  Several said yes and it was very impressive.  BOB said when he read his credentials, he was blown away.  All he had heard anyone comment on Cain was the chicken/pizza man.  He read the email that had been sent out recently on Cain’s background – from his mother being a maid and his father working 3 jobs (chauffeur, barber and janitor) to make ends meet – to Cain’s turning around several businesses who were on the verge of failure and also his becoming owner of Godfather‘s Pizza, which he had made profitable in 14 months.  Every company he was asked to help, he had turned around to their making a profit.  (I will not give the writeup as read by BOB but would recommend everyone not knowing of Cain’s experience to please get a copy of it.  You will be carried away with this man’s background.  While he may not have political experience, {other than his involvement with the Federal Reserve in which he achieved second in command chairmanship, where he was able to observe how the monetary system affected the country} he truly has the experience to get this country back on it’s feet, job wise.)  He has written several books and hosted a radio show in Atlanta.  When you read this impressive bio, you may come to the conclusion he has probably the most varied experience of anyone running today or in the past several years.  HOWARD said Cain had said this morning on Fox and Friends “that we were PO folks and that was one step below being poor.”  Comments were made about who would be their choice for President and Vice President.  It was apparent that like everyone else, the group has not totally decided on who would serve us best, but a lot were leaning toward Cain, either as president or vice president.  Gingrich was selected to be the best one to work with the senate, that he could get things done there. LOU said he had one heck of a resume, ‘course not as impressive as Obama’s but’ (laughter) couldn’t hear the rest of his statement.  BOB said he would not be surprised if it did not end up a Cain/Gingrich ticket, who would be on top or bottom he didn’t know.  HOWARD said they both were from Georgia and it was unlikely they would pick two from the same state.

BOB said he had heard where Walter Jones had been in favor of a third party candidate, supporting Ron Paul if Paul does not receive the Republican nomination.  HOWARD said he hoped not, because that would give the election to Obama.  All agreed.  BOB said it is time the Republican Party quit considering Jones a Republican; he is a conservative Democrat, is and always has been.  He could understand why they had stayed with him last time because that was a guaranteed Republican seat and they did not want to take any chances because they wanted a Republican majority.  Well, they have a Republican majority in the house now, and it looks like we may have the opportunity to increase that majority; so now is the time to dump Jones.  He admits he is on board with Frank Palombo.  He feels it is time for some new blood up there.  While Palombo has never run for a political office before, he still feels he is very capable.  HOWARD said for Police Chief to survive as many years (14) as Palombo did in a city the size of New Bern, you have to have to know your politics. He also retired from the police force in Dade County, Florida and then put in 14 years here for a total of 32 years experience.  BOB said he knows the law and he assumes he knows the Constitution.

BOB said we are missing some people tonight that are attending the Western TEA Party meeting at Rucker Johns.  He hopes they have more attendees this week than they did the last meeting…only something like 15 people were there; however it was a nasty, rainy, night so they had an excuse.  Gus Wilgus has been sending out emails inviting everyone to come to the meeting.

BOB brought up the Morehead City parade in November commemorating Veterans Day.  FRED said he had talked to the lady in charge and had reserved a slot for us.  She told him she had sent out the information but had not received anything back from the TEA Party, but would put us down along with the Republican Party, Retirement Association, and another group (could not understand what he said).  He had told her if she put them all together, then he could be involved and ride in all of them.  But seriously, we do have a slot.  We will need more information before the day of the parade.  BOB asked NANCY if her trailer was still available and NANCY said yes.  Discussion on trailer hitch, who he had gotten it from last time and the size.  Wanted to know who planned to ride on the float.  RUTH  PARKER said to not drive so fast this time and BOB said he had to drive to keep up with the float ahead.  LOU said he didn’t remember him driving so fast.  RUTH said ’you weren’t walking either’. LOU said he wouldn’t be this time either.  PEGGY GARNER told BOB she was working on some posters for us to use.  SCOTT CARPENTER wanted to know if BOB wanted him to bring the data to the next meeting that we had compiled on pros and cons on the last parade, the flip charts.  BOB said yes sometime between now and Saturday, November 5th, it might be nice to look them over.  We need to be thinking about getting candy to throw also.  After Halloween there should be some good sales on candy.  BOB asked who wanted to buy all the candy and make it their job to assure we had it available for the parade.  The TEA Party will reimburse whoever volunteers to pick it up.  CLAYTON said he would help out by going out and trick or treating.  Jokes were made about shaking people up with the economy being really bad when Santa has to go out trick or treating for his Christmas candy.

EULA PARKIN informed us that the booklet ‘Islamophobia’, that we had asked her to buy had arrived, and the copies were on the table by BOB.  Please pick one up. In order for us to know her a little better, she gave us a brief description of an event in her life (which she asked me not to include in the minutes).  She then gave us a brief synopsis on the book.

BOB asked if anyone watched the video on line about the County Commissioners meeting where Greg Lewis told Nelson Paul to shut up and go home.  Paul was addressing the County Commissioners on rescinding the Scenic Byway and he started talking about Agenda 21 and Barbara Garrity Blake, who ran against Jean Preston in the last election.  She is somehow associated with the Core Water Fowl Museum.  They are getting funds to promote the Scenic Byway.  Nelson Paul started off talking about Agenda 21 and then went off into this great ‘one world government’.  Commissioner Lewis called a halt to his rambling, they didn’t have time for this, and told Paul to just go home.  BOB thinks where Paul lost support was when he started talking about one world government.  Actually there is nothing in Agenda 21 that addresses having a one world government.  That is another conspiracy theory type thing.  If we talk about Agenda 21 we should avoid any theories, like secrecy plots, undermining the government and stuff like that.  They have this green thing up in Dare County and one in Greensboro, the Scenic Byway here.  Remember several months ago we had a fellow, a geologist here in the county who came and talked to us about the sea level rising in North Carolina and how that was going to impact the land here in Carteret County.  North Carolina wants the county to take action ahead of  time trying to make sure certain areas do not get developed because they anticipate these areas are going to be flooded.  There are 3 scenarios under the current level of sea rise along with the sinking of the eastern seaboard of eastern America that if all things remain the same, the sea rise will remain about one foot.  A second proposed idea was a two foot rise, if global warming happened faster than what they planned, based on some models.  And then there was a worse case scenario of a three foot rise.  The one that was adopted to be acted on was the worse case.  That affects a heck of a lot more land, so under that program chunks of Carteret County are being removed from future development.  And then we have all these different projects going on for beautification or esthetic green zones, or whatever, he sees the whole thing as a long term program to where we slowly build our own prison.  Every new thing that comes along that we approve (well that sounds good, we gotta save the horses, do this or what ever), then you reserve more and more land away from human use toward these other things; so you slowly over time compress into a smaller area where humans can participate; which is the whole purpose of Agenda 21.  Limit development to allow the wild life and the eco zones to spread and proliferate.  Not that he opposed to saving the wildlife.  It breaks his heart every time he sees a dead fox, raccoon, possum, etc. run over on the highway.  They are being forced out of the woods by development but at the same time, right now there is no shortage of foxes or possums.  He was just really appalled at the way Commissioner Lewis handled the situation and felt he could have been a little more tactful in addressing Nelson Paul’s concerns…and more specifically addressed the Scenic Byway as opposed to addressing Mr. Paul’s ranting.  Discussion followed on Commissioner Lewis’ attitude now.

BOB asked FRED hadn’t he offered to talk to Adele Collins about returning to speak with us.  He said he hadn’t realized BOB wanted him to ask her, but he would.  BOB said we just wanted to know why it was so difficult to get information.  HOWARD asked BOB if he had read Al Hill’s letter to the editor this past Sunday.  BOB said no he hadn’t.  Mr. Hill said in his letter that they had been very open in their discussions with the commissioners and he does not understand why the commissioners are acting like they are.  Since KEN LANG does not get the Carteret News Times, HOWARD is going to get PEGGY to scan the article on schools by Novey and Al’s letter to the editor and email them to him.  This is directly in opposition to what KEN has been getting.  More discussion followed on who would make good candidates to run for the Board of Education.  BOB asked if that was the article where they were still wanting more money and HOWARD said yes, it was on the front page of Sunday’s paper.  The $500,000.00 that the County Commissioners had put aside, was being demanded now to pay for teachers and assistants/bus drivers.

BOB asked DAVID COX what was going on at Atlantic Beach.  DAVIS said contrary to previous comments, there was no plan to build a town hall.  They like the town hall right where it currently is.  HOWARD said it was obvious that people were reading our minutes on the internet from the letters to the editor that referenced them.  BOB asked what was it that the current board wanted?  A waste water treatment facility or a new town hall.  DAVID said they didn’t want either one.  What they had been talking about was having something for the kids; since all the amusement areas had left.  That was why they were talking about a park, because the previous regime had done away with all the bumper cars, Jungle Land, etc.  There was nothing left for the kids to enjoy.  BOB asked who the Ocean 6 was.  When the current board ran previously that is what they called themselves.  They are trying to keep a group of 6 people who want to keep Atlantic Beach a small community, not another Myrtle Beach.  They are replacing one this year.  John Rivers, who came to one of their meetings a few months ago and they do have a vacancy in the group right now.

PEGGY GARNER said if those who read our minutes will take notice, then they can not say we are one sided.  If they notice in last week’s minutes we had a gentleman who spoke in favor of the two ladies who had come to our meeting a few weeks ago that were running to unseat some of the Ocean 6…and another gentleman who spoke in favor of the current board.  AND we did not come out in favor of either one.  We just listened to what they had to say.  She hopes when they read those minutes, they will see it that way; that the TEA Party tries to stay informed.  DAVID said he wasn’t sure but he thought the gentleman who spoke in favor of the two ladies was on the Atlantic Beach planning board.  He did not catch his name last week.  PEGGY looked it up in last weeks minutes and told DAVID the gentleman’s name was JOHN HOPKINS and he had said he was on the Planning Board.

WAYNE WILLIS said we have another problem with the game.  It seems to be jinxed.  Now Matt, the boy who was helping WAYNE complete the final inputs into the game, had a wreck last Saturday night and tore up his truck, so that has put a screeching halt to finishing up that project once again.

BOB told everyone who had not already picked up a copy of the Islamophobia booklet, to please pick one up on the way out.

BOB adjourned the meeting at 7:05pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary