MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
9 AUGUST 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by WAYNE WILLIS
Invocation by EULA PARKIN
Attendance – 31

New Attendees or Former/Previous Attendees – STEVE and DONNA BIBB from Emerald Isle (been six months or so since last attended), BILL HARRISON from New Bern (dropped in to see how we were doing) and two other attendees that arrived late, but we didn’t get chance to talk with – GLADYS and ED SUESSLE.  Glad to have you with us.  Hope to see you all more often.

BOB asked how we liked all those ‘nice’ names we were being called.  When we first came on the scene, according to Pelosi, we were just ‘astroturf’ (no grass roots).  Then we were racists, radicals, thugs, and the latest ‘it’s the TEA Party Downgrade’ (according to Sen. John Kerry).  We should not let it get us down.  We have come a long way in just two years.  We have to remain true to our core values (fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets) and continue to support those who are in tune with us.  We should not get involved in emotional causes like ‘gay marriages’, ‘abortion’, ‘illegal immigration’, etc.  Yes, we should be able to voice our opinion, but not get into the fight.  It can only divide us and hurt our effort to restore our constitution and country.

ERIC BROYLES feels that since some of us paying the taxes have to undergo drug testing, it should be mandatory that anyone receiving a welfare check have to also.

BOB brought up healthcare and the cost.  He told of a friend who had been in the hospital and the hospital had charged him $117.00 for 2 nitro pills.  When he got out of the hospital and carried his prescription to the pharmacy to have filled, it cost him something like $12.00 for 3 months.
CLAYTON GILLIKIN said he took insulin which cost $104.00.  Then he saw the actual cost of it was .04 cents a vial.  Someone is getting rich on our backs.
GRACE GILLIKIN said when she worked with the penal system and ordered meds, there was a huge difference in cost and payment.  For example: a $2.00 bottle cost at the drug store $20.00.
FRED DECKER said he had served on the hospital board a few years back.  The uncollectable debts were written off as charity work.  Back then it ran around $6 million a year.
KEN LANG said he had heard part of a discussion about Obamacare and a new paragraph just unveiled.  Did anyone else hear and know what that was all about.  Someone said they thought it had something to do with property but they weren’t sure.
LOU KUKULINSKI said his father-in-law needed a very expensive medication for an ailment he had.  Medicare refused to pay, so he volunteered to pay for it himself; but was not allowed.  ‘He was told everyone should have the same opportunity’.  His paying for it himself made it unfair to those who could not afford to pay.
HOWARD GARNER said he knew of a baby who was extremely ill, and the doctor his parents took him to, refused to provide care because Medicare would not pay enough for his time.  He advised them to carry the baby to Greenville.  This is going to happen more and more.  In fact a lot of doctors are already talking about retiring due to the reduction in payments to them by Medicare.  HOWARD said for his last visit to the doctor for a routine check up; Medicare paid the doctor $20.00 for the visit.  He understood why doctors are discouraged.  They can not maintain an office and personnel with payments like that.
WAYNE WILLIS said the bad part is we will continue finding ‘hiccups’ in Obama-care.

EULA PARKIN gave a very interesting talk on the United Nations.  She is in favor of cutting our annual contributions to this organization.  She brought with her several articles on various informative data.  RUTH PARKER said when she and her daughter went to the United Nations building on her daughter’s field trip; she was told by their guide that if any nation could not pay their dues, the United States paid the dues for them.  No wonder our money is gone; when it is being thrown away like that.

HOWARD asked if everyone read the article in the paper about teachers’ layoffs and Dr. Novey. BOB said he hadn’t forgotten Dr. Novey; when asked if he had to decide whether to lay off teachers or complete the restoration of an East Carteret School building, he chose the building.  HOWARD said Dr. Novey is still up to his old tricks, trying to make the county commissioners look bad for not giving him all the monies he wanted.  It was all their fault that teachers had to be let go.  HOWARD said according to what he understood from Pat McElraft the state had ensured the schools had enough budgeted so they did not have to let any teachers go.  So why was Dr. Novey still whining?

BOB reminded us that there will be not meeting next week (the 16th) here at the Golden Corral.  Those who are interested will be going to Cape Carteret to assist in establishing another group in that end of the county.  It will be held in the Community Center.  Coming from Morehead City, go through the stop light on Hwys 24 and 58, to the next stop light at the bank on the right.  Turn onto the road next to the bank and continue until reach the Center on the left.  The meeting will start at 7:00pm.  Eat before you come, since it does not have a place to dine.  BOB said they were trying to get David Fowler to come and speak with us.

BOB asked us to continue writing letters letting everyone know about us and our ideals.
He also said he had heard from Willie Montague.  His ministry is raising funds and would appreciate us helping with $100.00 if we could.  We will discuss this further at our next meeting (here at the Corral).
BOB had a Republican meeting he had to attend so he had to leave early.  He closed the meeting encouraging us to start thinking about the upcoming elections, and to what extent are we going to get involved and how?  Also we are going to need poll workers.  We need to let everyone know we are still a force to be reckoned with.

Meeting adjourned at 6:55pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary

MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
26 JULY 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by ERIC BROYLES, Vice President
Pledge of Allegiance led by ERIC BROYLES
Invocation was given by RON MANNING
Number of Attendees – 23

ERIC reported that President BOB CAVANAUGH had called him to report he was under the weather and unable to attend tonight’s meeting.

NANCY BOCK, Treasurer, reported that we have $1,247.00 in the treasury.

OLD BUSINESS –
ERIC reported that he had attended the Carteret County Board of Commissioners meeting last night.  The school budget that they approved was a little higher than what they had initially proposed – $18,257,000.00 and they went ahead and increased it to $19,257,000.00.  This was partly due to the gas costs for the buses.  They did do one other thing on this – allow a contingency fund of $500,000.00 which will be managed by the county commissioners and if the school board needs additional money they will have to put in an application for that money and it will be reviewed on a case by case basis.  The board also asked the school to submit quarterly financial reports to them.  It appears that some additional money has been found ($5.5 million) surplus from somewhere.  ERIC said he did not know if this was a result from some stimulus money they had sitting somewhere, but that was the amount that came out in the meeting.  More information will probably come out later.  KEN said “Maybe that is what he (Novey) had left after he fired all those teachers.”  (laughter)  ERIC said you could not ask any questions.  It was very brief.  The other good news is they did not increase the county budget from last year.  (applause)  ERIC feels that all our letters to the editor, phone calls, etc. helped.  The Board of Commissioners held their ground.  HOWARD GARNER said “Now we need to thank them!”  (agreement)  ERIC said maybe we should have a letter written from the TEA Party thanking them for being fiscally responsible for their role in this.  Someone asked about the C4 group and ERIC said we were not through with the C4 group yet; the head of C4 is now head of the group fighting the proposed sulfur plant.  Someone asked, “What was the deal on the surplus money discovered from the schools?” ERIC said he really could not elaborate on that, since he did not understand the situation himself.  He understands that the schools (school board) carry money over from year to year; however, he was unable to ask any questions there.  The board presented their information and went immediately into closed session.  Question was raised, “How can we find out more information about this?”  ERIC said he thought we could call the school system or call the county commissioners, and say, “Look I heard something about a $5.5 million school surplus and I am just trying to understand what it is”.  ERIC perceives it to be just money left over.  The school board kept telling the commissioners that there was going to be an $8 million shortfall.  Question was raised, “How was this surplus discovered?”  ERIC said “They did not say.”  All he heard was a little tidbit about it, so yes he thinks we should look into it; maybe even call the newspaper to find out what they know about it.  KEN asked “Did the commissioners bring it up in the meeting or did the schools?”  ERIC said the commissioners brought it up.  He thinks the county’s accounting department some how got a hold of this budget and just tore it to shreds.
HOWARD asked if he meant the school systems budget.  ERIC said “yes”.  ERIC said he didn’t know how they found it; maybe it was money in this bank and that bank, here and there.
The reason everyone was so interested was some members had read in the paper that in Greensboro they also had found a surplus of $6 million.  ERIC said it was more than that they had said they were $30 million in the hole, and ended up with a $10 million in surplus.  It is the consensus that this is going on all over the state.  ERIC said this is true but you always have to have some monies in reserve for emergencies.  While part of the money may be that, he couldn’t swear to it, since they did not specify where it was from or what it had been for.  Member said about 15 or 20 years ago Wake County was complaining about how they never had enough money in the coffers to even fuel the school buses, etc.   Come to find out about a month or two before the dead line came and they had to do something about that deadline deficit, they found a $6 million surplus that they had set back for rainy days.  So he is thinking this stuff goes on all the time, they just don’t want people to know about it.  ERIC said the good news is our commissioners looked into it, said OK, maybe some expenses have gone up, like gas, so therefore the increase.  And they did instill the emergency contingency fund, so that if the schools need additional funds, they have to come to the commissioners, which is good.  Maybe we can have a better handle on school funds.
WAYNE WILLIS said someone was here at one of our meetings six months or so ago talking about the state budget and same problems with shortfalls, in the hole $3 billion.  The guy (can’t remember who it was) said that out of some piece of money that Governor Bev Perdue had that wasn’t on the table, (in a drawer somewhere), several millions of dollars, and she could dip into that money and do whatever was wanted and didn’t have to go through all the legislature, etc.  ERIC said ‘on top of that Robin Comer said Novey has been talking about laying off teachers.  That was their argument.  If you don’t give us the money, we lay off people.  Commissioner Comer said if you review your budget, you’ll find you have more than enough money to pay these teachers; you will not have to lay even one off.  ERIC said from what he had seen the schools have not been very responsible in handling their money.  HOWARD said they haven’t for years; this is nothing new.

PCS –
ERIC said if you haven’t read the newspaper in the last 2 or 3 weeks, you have missed out on a lot of good articles about the PCS situation.  EULA PARKIN said how did we like PCS’s nice insert in Sunday’s paper.  That must have cost a bundle.  ERIC said the General Manager of PCS  (the one that runs the plant and oversees all operations) called him and he had a nice little conversation with him.   ERIC told him, ‘What he was telling him was a lot different from what the local scientists, doctors, etc., had been saying’.  The Manager said he would be willing to come and talk to our group; so, if we have an interest, we can do that.  He did not accept the invitation, because he (the Manager) will be speaking to the crowd Friday.  KEN said he had heard from Pat McElraft about the meeting, and that PCS did not have to have this meeting.  They really should have already had the meeting  early-on while they were doing the environmental assessment, but they didn’t.  A public meeting is not required under an environmental assessment.  Somebody in the state had to make the decision and say, ‘well all you got to do is an environmental assessment, you don’t need to do a whole environmental impact statement’, which would have required a public hearing.  Question was raised ‘did anyone know why the decision was made to bring this to Morehead City rather than keep it in Aurora.  It would appear that it would be more costly to ship the phosphate to Morehead, process it and then return it to Aurora.’  ERIC said he had asked the Manager that question, but he had not really answered it.  ERIC said he had flat out asked him why they wanted to build here, why not in Aurora right near their facility already in operation.  With no actual response, ERIC concluded that they were having a lot of problems in Aurora, and the reason they don’t want to do it there, is because they are coming close to wearing out their welcome there.  The meeting, previously referred to, is this Friday, July 29, 6:00 pm, in the West Carteret school auditorium.  But ERIC thinks the turnout might be so great that they may have to have it in the gym and move the bleachers, which will then accommodate about 2,000 people.  Someone asked why not the Civic Center?  ERIC said the Civic Center is not available and that is why they are doing it at West Carteret High.  Remember 6:00 pm, Friday, July 29, if anyone is interested in attending.

SCHOOL STANDARDS –
ERIC said for several weeks he has been investigating and writing articles to the newspaper about the quality of education our children is getting.   Since 2005 seven schools have dropped in their ratings.  In an article published in the last ten days in the Carteret Times, they also pointed out that only six of our eighteen schools made the AYP (annual year performance) ratings set by the federal government.  The year before, they made them all.   Something to be said here folks, I don’t think we are getting the bang for our bucks.  I don’t know if you noticed but we are the number 12 county in the state, in how much citizens pay per child.  We are paying almost a $1,000 bucks more than most counties per child.  The state is still something like 47 out of 50.  I don’t think we are getting our monies worth, I’m sorry.  I think our educational standards are slipping.  I think teachers are more interested in passing the kids on the tests than really teaching the fundamentals of math, reading and writing.  Someone at a recent meeting said that the schools were now letting the children take the tests several times until he or she passes.  After one of the meetings he, ERIC, had spoken to, the principal of a county school came up to talk with him; since he had mentioned that that school was substandard, and she didn’t like that too much.  She asked ‘where are you getting your numbers from?’  So I pulled out a stack of printouts, handed them to her and told her that her school web site says so.  When she started looking at it, she said well you know they changed the test in 2007.  ERIC said ‘Welllll’, if you had been teaching the basics of principles of reading, writing and arithmetic, the kid should have been prepared, it shouldn’t make any difference in which test you use as long as you teach the principles.  So tell the truth, you are teaching the test, right; you are teaching the test aren’t you?  She finally admitted he was right.’ (Where- upon someone in the TEA Party group spoke up about the scandal in Georgia where the teachers have even changed the students’answers.  Others said ‘don’t bet on it not happening here in Carteret.  ERIC said he had demanded they post the overall scores per teacher.  So, if you were a first grade teacher they post your scores on reading, writing, and arithmetic.  ABC’s as they are called.  Not each student’s performance but the overall class performance.  The response he got back was they could not do that, because it violates the confidentiality of the teacher.  Question?  How are we supposed to find out what the kids are doing if we can not find out what the teacher is doing.  How can we evaluate each teacher as to the job he/she is doing.  We can’t do it.  If they are just teaching the test and every kid taking the test makes a good grade, the teacher could still be the lousiest teacher in the world and still we wouldn’t know.  That is the reason ERIC wants the grades posted.  If you are doing your job, you should have nothing to hide.  EULA, said as a former teacher, she finds it depends on the students and their parents.  The best year she ever had, the majority of the kids had a mother and a father who had higher than a grade school or middle school education.  The kids would come in with reports that would boggle her mind because they had the support of their parents.  Without the parents behind the students, the teacher can only do so much.   ERIC said true, the parents are somewhat to blame.  ERNIE GUTHRIE said the primary, elementary and middle school students are falling behind and by the time they get into high school they just get pushed on.  And that is what is happening.  He’s not blaming it on the teachers in the lower grades, but in a way he is.  ERIC said the only way he could come up with anything is to test the kids.  He has been before the county commissioners and asked that they do independent testing on kids in the 4th in reading and writing.  Those are the two most important (math is important, don’t get him wrong) but if they can’t read and they can’t write, they’re ruined.  A member recommended that when a kid comes into school they be tested on their reading, writing and math skills, and then you can judge what they have learned at the end of the year.  Then you know if Susie over here and Johnny over there are slow or have a learning problem, and you know where to place the emphasis.  PAT said she understands they do have this type of testing in the schools.  They do it at the beginning of the year to determine where they are.  And then they take the test again in the middle of the year.  If you have a slow student, it shows up, then you can pull teachers in and you can have certain classes just for those students.  PAT said they already do that.  They have teachers who work with those type of students.  When we went to school, we did not have a music teacher, art, PE, guidance counselors, or any other specialized teachers.   Our home room teacher was it.  Look at the school day today.  It is totally interrupted and broken up.  A teacher told her that just as you get started with something, the students have to go leave for another subject.  It is all about making kids feel better about themselves, and we don’t want them to feel different.  It’s all this PC (political correctness) out there, so what they do is put these kids, with all kinds of problems, into a class together and the teacher has to deal with it.  Instead of taking these kids with problems (including students who have English for a second language), put them into another classroom.  ERIC said he understands that all kids are different; some really excel, others are average, and some just get by.  PAT said they are afraid to “tag ‘em”.  KEN said PAT is right, it is the PC stuff that comes from the top down, (federal, state, etc).  You have requirements being passed down from the federal government to the state government to the local schools.  They should let the local schools run their local schools, because as you start getting further and further up they start worrying about all this ‘touchy/feely’ that screws the whole system up.  PAT said if you have a day that is not interrupted, a teacher can teach a lot more in a shorter amount of time.  They currently have so many interruptions in a day, it is hard to maintain consistency of subjects.  EULA said she knew of a student that graduated from West Carteret High School that could not read.  ERIC said this was his fear.  I see the slope going down like this – It’s been going down for years, but the merging of slow students with higher level of learning students has really destroyed the class.  The smarter students get bored and lose interest, while the teacher is forced to spend more time with the slower student.  PEGGY said “we are dumbing them down”.  ERNIE said one of the reasons for the PC is called the Columbine Scare.  Because if we stigmatize students with being slow or a problem, then they may turn around and one day bring a gun to school and shoot everyone in sight.  PC was another reason for integration.  It was thought that the whites had better teachers and so therefore the schools became integrated giving all students access to the ‘better’ teachers.  PAT said even Thomas Sole felt this was a bad idea.  It put more pressure on the black children to have to try to at least keep up.  Today, we find more and more the blacks are moving back to wanting their own schools, communities, etc.  They are more comfortable that way.  You put a bunch of people with different cultures, different ways, etc., they do not understand each others differences and therefore are uncomfortable and desire to return to their own.  ERNIE said ‘the ruling class’s’ idea is if they can get everyone; all races, ethnicity, etc., crammed together and make them all alike, then we come closer to their idea of one world.  ERIC said the thing we need to remember is to keep the pressure on our schools, and make sure our kids
get a good education.  If we are going to have to pay for it, we should demand it.  It had been mentioned about someone going to the school board and get an agenda of what the schools were teaching.  You will have a hard time doing that.  ERIC said they have a lot of pressure on them now and know that people are watching their every move.  KEN said the curriculum is made out and given to the kids.  Unless you have a kid in school, you can not just automatically get a copy.  KEN said the school has a very extensive web site and maybe it is posted there.  The web site is hard to navigate, which has been one of his objections to it.  PAT said the agendas are posted there.  KEN said he thought we could find a lot of the stuff we were looking for there.  He said he does know if you pick up the phone and call Tabbie Nance’; that she will send you whatever you want.  Everything he has asked for from her she has complied except on one occasion.  Why she couldn’t that one time, he did not know.  Doesn’t even remember what the topic was now.  ERIC said one time when he had called for information (not Tabbie) he had been informed that the system they had was very archaic and hard to get the info from.  The system might be at least 15 years old, at least.  ERIC said the responses he had gotten would be posted on our web site, so take a look at it.  Personally he thinks we should get more involved in our school system.
WAYNE WILLIS said when he was working on the beginnings of the history game he has designed, one of his biggest questions was “what is going on now?” in the school system; so he went and talked to the Asst. Superintendent Matt Bottoms.  Mr. Bottoms asked him to hurry and get that thing on DVD so they can use it for history testing in the class rooms.  WAYNE asked him what was in the book that they were teaching history from now.  Mr. Bottoms called the Principal at East Carteret and told them to give Wayne anything he wanted/needed to help with developing the program.  WAYNE didn’t want them to give him the books, just loan them to him.  They gave him three books that were essentially what he thought of as Atlas type books, and the Encyclopedia Britannica; which is basically what they were.  There was very little of the most important things that should be taught to be found in the thousand or so pages in each.  No wonder they are not teaching history if this is what they are using to teach.  It was boring and not worth even having.  The books probably cost fifty or seventy-five dollars apiece and it was obvious none of the kids were going to read 3000 pages of that.  They only take the subject once a semester during their junior year of high school.  Bottom line is if you want to know what is being taught in the schools, then go to the school and request to borrow a copy of the text books they are using.  If you talk nice to them and just say you want to see what is going on they might loan you a copy or say they don’t have them, but they do.  They always have a few extras of the books they are using whether it is a math, science, or whatever.  He thinks it is a good idea for anyone who has the time to do it.  Then we can see what is supposedly being taught and the quality of information available.   ERNIE said when he went to school, they did not go through the whole book, usually only about a third of the information and material.  Just the basic stuff.  In doing further study after he graduated he found a statement by Thomas Jefferson that he definitely had not heard in school…’That two equal races can not live under the same government and that government last for any length of time.’ You will not see this in any text book being used.  It has been left out.

VETTING THE CANDIDATES –
ERIC said on August 2, 2011, Mayor Jerry Jones will be speaking to us, presenting his platform as to why he should be re-elected at Mayor of Morehead City.
On August 16, 2011, Councilman David Horton will be presenting his platform as to why he should be elected Mayor of Morehead City.

CONSTITUTION WEEK –
NANCY BOCK said in 2004 Congress passed a law that required the public schools to teach the Constitution.  Last year in 2010 someone in Florida went to their school board and asked them about the law and wanted to know what that school’s plan was for teaching the Constitution and the school did not have any plans, nor did they even know about the law.  The TEA Party Patriots have come up with a plan that involves three letters.  She has written the first letter on June 7.  She did not do it as a TEA Party Patriot, although she did mention what the TEA Party had found out in Florida last year.  On July 6 she got an email from Tabbie Nance that said she had brought this to Dr. Novey’s attention and would share with Matt Bottoms.  The next step will be the second letter.  She wants to know how we want to pursue this.  If we are interested we can go to the TEA Party Patriots page and there is a link to US History Constitution.  You can go there and see about the letter she wrote and read more about it.  Constitution week is September 17.  They have some leeway; they can either teach it the week before or the week after.  The program can be broken down according to age group.  She would like some input as to how we should pursue this; go to the central office to determine if they are going to order this material; if they are going to give it to their teachers; and give the teachers time to review it.  She wants to know if there is anyone who is passionate enough to join Kenny and her in pursuing this project.  WAYNE said the superintendent of schools has the option of what books to buy.  In other words you do not have to go to the State Board of Education and let it filter down through the many layers of bureaucracy.  You can go right to the schools and they have a budget for that.  ERIC wanted to know if the second letter should come from the TEA Party.  NANCY said she had had no response from any one except Tabbie.  If we don’t hear from them soon, we need to go down and tell them we sent them information on Constitution Week and have not heard from them and would like to know where they stand.  NANCY said if they already have something in play then they should be able to answer that letter right now.  NANCY said maybe we could give it another week or two.  KEN said he thought she should at least call Tabbie and let her know we have not heard from anyone else.  ERIC said he could call as Vice President of the TEA Party and let them know that this is one of our core values and teaching our children about the Constitution is important to us.  He could back NANCY up that way and he didn’t mind doing that.  ERIC told NANCY, why don’t you give them a call and he also will call sometime this week.  NANCY said she would call and then let the TEA Party know what she had found out.

REPORT ASSIGNMENTS –
JIM NALITZ said he had gone on line to every web page of every school in the county, and had accumulated information on number of teachers (counted by name and what they taught).  Of the 727 teachers reported he had found only 550 teachers who were actually teaching kids.  When they did this study they excluded principals, vice principals, assistants, social workers, directors, technology, guidance councilors, that sort of thing, and that is how they came up with 550 teachers.  With the 720, they break down their staff into certified and non-certified.  Non-certified is custodians, cafeteria workers, and that sort.  Every body else is certified.  That is how they come up with 720 teachers.  The difference is if you’re looking at 720 teachers then they come up with 1 to 12 (1 teacher to 12 students).  If you look at 550 you come up with 1 to 15 or 16 (closer to 16).  It is not that big of a difference, so as ERIC pointed out it doesn’t matter when you are comparing Carteret to 99 other counties because they are also counting it the same way.  JIM said someone had mentioned about teachers teaching in different schools.  Down east we have 4 teachers who have to switch between Harkers Island and Smyrna, and they are art, music, band, and that sort of thing.  They have PE teachers, EC teachers (which are ‘exceptional children’) IG (gifted children) and then they have Title One (schools that have low reading scores).  These are the pull out teachers; the ones that when you are teaching a class, these teachers come in and pull out 3 or 4 of your kids.  Teachers have to arrange their schedules around all of this.  It is not a good way to run a class room.

MISC. –
KEN reported that he had received an email from Pastor Montague and he is thinking about returning to Carteret County.  He is looking for property for a church probably in the Morehead City/Newport area.  If anyone knows of anything, please let KEN know so he can pass it on to Pastor Montague.

STEVE BEST reported he had another video and would show it after the meeting for anyone interested.

Discussed how we are going to handle these city council and mayoral elections.  There are 8 areas but only three have positions contested with multiple candidates running and a small number of TEA Party Patriot members in those areas who might be interested.
KEN said while we are talking about this, he wanted to report that he had been looking into having a TEA Party meeting in the Cape Carteret area.  He has secured the first and third Tuesdays for August and September at the Western Carteret Community Center to have a TEA Party type meeting to see if we can draw any people from down there.  If it doesn’t do anything in that time frame then we may have to rethink it, but he is going to try to put something on the web site and try to get an editorial in the newspaper, just to let the people know about it.  Thinking about 7:00pm.  It is not a restaurant so you may want to eat beforehand.
Back to candidates debating.  ERIC thinks since we have several city council positions in the running, he would like to have them all there for questioning.  Only problem is we have 38 candidates (city council – 6 different towns that have more candidates than positions available.  That is a lot of candidates.  Several said that they are not interested in any other town’s election but their own.  KEN said every jurisdiction has their own local issues that people are concerned with.  To him that rules out a big ‘league of women type debate’.  The people of Cape Carteret aren’t going to debate those from Morehead City.  If they were running for state office, it would be different.  It is up to our members from the various towns to go to any meetings of the candidates, determine which candidate most likely fits the TEA Party core values and report back to the group.  ERIC said the reason he was looking into this situation was the last election.  We were a little late in vetting the candidates and there were some we knew nothing about.  KEN said yes, but there were also state, federal, and judges; they weren’t local positions.  His feeling is we have enough to deal with at the state and federal level, to be dealing with townships within Carteret County is wasted time.  It is perfectly normal to get involved in county politics cause all of us live in the same county, but all of us do not live in Emerald Isle or Morehead City so therefore there is a lack of interest in local township elections, other than our own.  To conduct a debate of all the county candidates will be too time consuming and involve an awful lot of time and work.  Look at all that went into the July 4th parade float.  ERIC said he thought we had done great on getting the float together.  KEN said, maybe, but, look how long it took to just determine what trailer we were going to use.  ERIC said he has found out that the mayors determine on what the city councilmen are informed about.  They control the paperwork that goes to them.  Took a vote and decided not to hold a debate for city councilmen or mayors.  Mayor Jones and David Horton have already been invited to attend our meetings so we will just go with them.  How much time do we want to give them?  ERIC thinks 15 minutes to explain his platform and 15 minutes of questions and answers equating to one half hour of our time.  WAYNE said whatever we do it is going to be overshadowed by this sulfur deal.  It is not over yet.  HOWARD said he did not think we should solicit the other Mayoral candidates but if one of them were to come to us and ask to speak to us, we should not refuse.  Let’s don’t go after them, but if they come to us, don’t tell them no.  ERIC said the main reason we are vetting Morehead candidates is because of the sulfur situation.  HOWARD said it is not just Morehead, it is a concern of all of Carteret County.  KEN said, the way he was understanding our position was, there would be no debates, either mayors or councilmen.  Only the two already invited and we are going to stay out of the little local kind of things unless some come to us and asks to speak to our group.  Then we can decide on that.
LOU KUKULINSKI reminded us that Sam Sanford will be packing boxes to be mailed to our troops overseas and needs help.  He will be at the strip mall across from Trucker’s Toy Store at 9:00 tomorrow (Wednesday). Go around to the back alley.   He hopes to have 100 boxes ready for mailing to our troops in Afghanistan and will be at the Morehead City Post Office at 8:00 the next day (Thursday morning).  Boxes cost $12.95 to mail.  Requests that everyone interested in helping with postage please stop by; pick up a box and customs form, take it into the post office and mail.  They will be there until all the boxes are mailed.
EULA PARKIN asked if anyone knew who Robert Spencer was.  She checked the Wikipedia and found out that he was born in 1962.  He is a practicing Greek Catholic.  His grandparents were forced to migrate from the area that is now Turkey, because they were Christians.  He graduated from UNC, Chapel Hill in 1986 with an MA in religious studies.  He rejects that all Muslims are violent people and his writings have been condemned as hate speech.  The Truth about Mohammad is one of his books.  Today it came out in the Times that he was supposedly the one that inspired the Oslo murders and is being sued and will be taken to trial.  Robert Horowitz is going to defend Robert Spencer.  The most this nut, that committed the murders, will be able to get is 21 years, regardless of how many people he killed.  In Oslo he can do the 21 years and then come back and be tried again and get another 5 years, over and over.  The Jihadish actually took credit for the killings in the beginning and then backed off and said no they were not responsible.
ERIC asked if anyone else had anything to report.  ROY MUSSER said Obama called our bluff yesterday and asked everyone to call in to their representatives and let them know how we feel.  From what has been reported, there were a tremendous amount of calls made, but most were telling our representatives to “hold their ground”, “no increased taxes”.  Not exactly what Obama was thinking, Roy didn’t believe.   Obama is still spouting the scare tactic that the seniors are not going to get their Social Security check, and the troops will not be paid if Congress does not lift the debt ceiling.  ROY said a lawyer came on the program he was listening to and said that was illegal; that according to the Constitution, he was not supposed to incite fear into the American public.  There’s also a law on the books right now that they can’t have these meetings behind closed doors; everything is to be out in the open.  KEN said he has been emailing Beynor that he should be holding these meetings in the open and would thereby have more supporting him.  KEN said he did not understand the rational of having these meetings behind closed doors. He asked if anyone had watched Hannity last night.  He had the (in)famous Bob Beckel on who called us (the TEA Party) ignorant and anarchists.  NANCY said she had read a letter to the editor discussing this stoppage of payments and she had read somewhere that said the only person who could stop social security payments is the President.   Everyone at the meeting said that was their understanding also.  NANCY said if this is true, someone needs to write a letter and inform these seniors of how they are being duped.  Steps have already been taken to make sure these payments are met, regardless of what happens to our debt ceiling.   All agreed that NANCY should write this letter.  ROY said you write it, we’ll sign it.  ERIC said he was expecting to be arrested any day for all the stands he has taken.   PEGGY asked if anyone had noticed Obama’s campaign ads which show him in the white house.  This is illegal also.  That’s not going to stop him though, nothing else has.

ERIC adjourned the meeting at 7:10pm and advised that STEVE BEST had a video, if anyone wanted to stay and watch it.

Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

MINUTES OF CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
19 JULY 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:02pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by WAYNE WILLIS
Invocation was given by SCOTT CARPENTER
Number of Attendees – 34

RUTH PARKER and PAT NALITZ reported that they had gotten some information on teacher count in Carteret County.  Ruth had looked up Croatan, West and East Carteret High Schools and PAT had gotten the others.  PAT is going to take them all and check for duplications, etc. and will report next week.

STEVE BEST showed a video on Agenda 21 – (the possibility and probability are very real and scary).  BOB asked that we keep an eye out for anything that appears to fall into this type of intrusion into our lives, especially here in Carteret County, and bring it to our attention.   Ken brought up about a report that BOB had read a few weeks ago about Carroll County, Maryland.  He said that he and Diane had lived in Montgomery County Maryland for a few years and saw all through that area some of what Agenda 21 was like.  Their consulting and planning committees did things like zoning out some areas for development.  It meant that farmers couldn’t sell their land or develop it into housing areas, which devalued the price of the land.  They also designated other areas into what they called farmettes, where you could sell them in five and ten acre plots, but this too devalued your personal property.  They also devalued your property and house by the way they routed the highways and other things through there; so they used a variety of ways to control certain areas and devalue property.  His son lived in Columbia, Maryland in a planned/gated community, that was started back in the 70’s, in Howard County, which is close to Baltimore and Washington, and is highly regulated; and a carbon copy of that is already here in North Carolina in Cary.  BOB said same in Pine Knoll Shores.  Cary is so planned out that certain areas are only for shopping centers; areas have to be screened from the road; a complete manipulation of the way they handle the property and what you can do on your own property.  This type of manipulation of property is spread all over the northeastern portion of the country, but Maryland is a prime example of what is going on.  BOB said he had seen a map where they had identified wilderness areas and wanted to connect these areas with corridors so wildlife could move from one area to another.  So, in order to do that, the government is going to have to take your land away from you.  These wilderness areas are going to be set up so that no human activity will be allowed and then they plan to set up large buffer areas around these wilderness and corridor areas (where very limited human activity is allowed).  The idea is to move people into smaller areas (termed ‘stack ‘em and pack ‘em), putting them in these high rise building units and keep the appropriated lands off-limits except to wildlife.  True, BOB said he hated to see dead foxes, rabbits, squirrels, ‘possums, even deer, etc., on the highway; but this, he felt was an overkill.  If they pull this thing off, while it may be decades in the completion, it will be like a cancer, unless stopped, will continue to grow and invade our lives significantly as time goes by.  It will certainly have a big influence on what our grandkids can do, where they can live, and other things like that.

BOB acknowledged WAYNE WILLIS and his guest Matthew McCastle to discuss the progress of the game he had originated.  WAYNE said before he got into the game, he wanted to bring up something he had read in the paper about renewable energy, wind, sun and biofuel.  Some of the stimulus money is paying for; and, in spite of the fact that Duke Energy had done a study on the windmills and determined that it would cost 25 cent a kilowatt instead of 10 cent, which we are now paying, the crowd up north said we are going to have it whether we want it or not.  They know best.  The pamphlet he was referring to was published by Coastal Federation.  HOWARD GARNER said that should tell us something right there.  Discussion on windmills with a couple of members under the impression that windmills had been built in Bettie.  Someone tried to get some built there but was stopped.  We may think this is just a pie in the sky right now, but it is a big possibility for the future.  WAYNE recommended we all read the pamphlet he had gotten from the library put out by the Coastal Federation.
WAYNE then introduced Matthew as the young man who was working to get WAYNE’s game up and running.  He informed us that Matthew almost had the software ready.  Matthew said it was pretty simple and easy to use; start out with a deck of cards with questions that it asks you to answer; every answer you answer right you get 10 points, and when you reach 100 you win.  You will be able to play it on pretty much any computer.  WAYNE said as soon as it was completed he will have copies made and bring them in to demonstrate it to us.  BOB wanted to know if WAYNE had a time line on that.  Matthew said he hated to say, because he was working two jobs right now and did not have the opportunity to work full time on finishing up the project.  SCOTT and SONYA CARPENTER said either they had missed the meetings where we had discussed this game or it was before their time, and would like to know the details.  WAYNE said, since history was not being taught in the schools, as in the past, many of our children today didn’t even know who our first president was; so he had come up with a game you could play on the computer, to help teach in an interesting way, history to our children of today.  It had started out as a board game, but had evolved into a computer game.  It is in two parts.  Ten years with 5 questions in each year.  There is a deck of information cards (as he calls them) of what happened world wide.  He calls the game ‘Patriots or Potentates’.  ‘Which are you’?  Questions will go back to Plato and Aristotle, the first great republic.  It is multiple choice questions, not discussion or essay type.   You get 4 choices; one the absolutely right answer, one that is almost right, one is ridiculously wrong if you know anything at all about the subject and the 4th one is a joke.  The question is what is the most important thing that happened during this period of time and the subject is in the questions; example. Castro…his name will be mentioned two or three times.  So, you know the answer is about Castro, and you just have to determine which answer is the correct one.  Last fall he had talked to the Assistant Superintendent of Schools about using something like this in the classroom and was told “Hurray, hurry up and get that on a computer disc so they can teach history again in the class rooms.”  He hopes the idea will spread all over the US.  His first idea was to market it through the TEA Party, because it was obvious we all wanted our kids to learn; so, he thought we would encourage others to try it.  The deal we had made (WAYNE and TEA Party) was an oral not written agreement; that said the TEA Party would get 10% of the sales generated as a fund raiser.  Another use that has come up is ….a friend of his who has written books about cancer,  people who have it and care givers, victims, survivors, etc., has a connection with Duke University and she wants to take this software and put in questions about cancer, and make it something to educate people about cancer.  This could be very beneficial because early treatment is most important in keeping people alive.  She thinks this could be a very important tool using his format.  He hopes to get the show on the road as soon as possible.

BOB then asked ERIC BROYLES to report on his attendance to the Board of Commissioners meeting last night and his reading up on the Sulfur Plant that has been proposed to be built in Morehead near the Port.
Eric said he had also attended the Morehead City Council meeting which was last Tuesday.  Both meetings were packed, standing room only.  At both of those sessions there were about 20 speakers, scientists, doctors, chemists, etc.  The bottom line is ‘this project is not fit for Morehead City and Beaufort’.  It represents health risks, economical risks (tourists, our major source of income), and environmental risks.  This company is a foreign based company.  They bring nothing to the table except maybe 15 to 20 jobs.  Other than that they are not paying us any taxes or any other contribution except damage to our community.  Up until now they were only transporting not processing, which was fine.  The risk for that was a lot lower than what they are now proposing to do.  They want to build two 150 foot (higher than the bridge) smoke stacks with scrubbers to help alleviate the odors, two big domes to hold all this sulfur in.  By changing the status of the sulfur it becomes very explosive.  All this is going to be done right up against a highly populated residential area.   In fact, not far (only a mile and a half) from where he, ERIC, lives.  He would hate to see an accident occur.  A short while ago the Port had an accident occur and they had to clear out a area of about 10 blocks of Morehead City, and an accident with this sulfur product will be far greater.  They will be processing 10 times what they have been processing but now it will be in molten form, which is highly volatile.  He said a doctor had spoken at the meeting last night about the increase in breathing/lung problems here that have quadrupled from the smoke from the Onslow county fire and this could be even worse.  ERIC said he did not see how, even with the scrubbers in the smoke stacks, it would alleviate the odor of rotten eggs, which is what processed sulfur smells like.  If you have ever smelled a propane tank, you know how it smells like rotten eggs; well that is what this is going to smell like except it will be 10 to 12 worse.  It will destroy property values, may as well consider your property value 50% less than now.  If you think your taxes will go down, don’t bet on it, since they will need to raise them to keep things going, but you won’t be able to sell your house for what you might have thought you would.  He had talked to the second in command with Air Quality Control and since this person owned property here in the county it was kinda hard for him to make any straight comments about the problem.  He does understand our concerns though, but ERIC still wants to know who is going to monitor our air quality.   Air Quality Control won’t.  They said their monitoring is “sniff, sniff” the sniff test.  Well, ERIC, as far as he is concerned feels we could be in pretty bad shape by the time they sniff things out.  CLAYTON GILLIKIN said he had worked down to the Port and the Air Traffic Control group was forever coming to check out the wood chip shed.  All kinds of chemicals were used and during hot weather especially, the odor was horrendous.  He said they would come directly into the shaker house and do an air quality check.  If he got a bad reading, he would go outside the building, 50 feet or so, and take another reading.  Then he would throw the first reading in the trash can.  CLAYTON saw what was going on, so he started retrieving the discarded readings for about 6 months.  He put them in a plastic bag and hid them right there on the Port.  He told someone what he had been doing and said one of these days he was going to turn them in.  Apparently someone overheard him and they disappeared that night.  ERIC said he was told each municipality received an air quality control form from the Environmental agency back in December.  The comment period ended about the end of January.  As far as he could tell no comments were entered.  They were not required by law to publish it anywhere, except on the Environmental web site, which 99.99% of the public has never heard about.  They said they had complied with the law and nothing can be done now to stop it.  He asked the question last night with the commissioners if an economic impact study had been done; or an overall health impact study done.  It did not seem right that they could just come into a community and destroy it without the public being more informed.  We would not have found out yet if the permit requested by CAMA had not come to light.  All these town and county officials were asleep at the wheel and now with all the mail being sent to them in opposition, they are having to backtrack.

BOB asked ROY MUSSER if he went to the meeting tonight and he said yes.  Everything is done except the CAMA permit with two weeks before approval.  Then we have 20 days to oppose this.  They had their lawyers from Raleigh at the meeting.  The Realtors were there saying they were already getting people backing out of home buying agreements.  BOB said none of that impacts CAMA’s assessment.  They said that this sulfur’s site will not be on their perimeters, so they OK’ed their perimeter, as if the odors would stay right over the sulfur plant and not spread out over any other areas.  From all he could find out it is a done deal.  He heard of a project in Virginia along the same lines, but even though they fought, if finally became so expensive they had to drop their case and lost.  Our only hope is to keep fighting and holding them off as long as we can.  Maybe they will decide it’s not worth it and back away.  That’s all we can do, because we really can’t stop them.  Question was asked if anyone at the meeting spoke in favor of the sulfur plant and the answer was no; everyone was opposed.  ERIC said no one at the two meetings he had attended had anyone spoken in favor either.  He said he had seen one article in the paper by the State Port, and also the advertisement in the paper in favor.  HOWARD said he thought it was kind of strange that they could slip this through and gave the example that right beside our land on the Nine Foot Road is a bar pit for digging dirt.  To dig dirt the owner has to have a mining permit, and every time he wants to change that permit, he has to send us and all the adjoining property owners a registered letter, so we can comment.  It is strange that there is so much more permitting processes to dig dirt than to do this.  ERIC said the city council zoning does not address mining; therefore the zoning for this is not right.  ROY said he builds houses and anytime they need a CAMA permit it takes three months before they can start that house.  A man who spoke at the meeting ROY was at said he was trying to build a marina and it took him a year and a half to get a permit and they did this (got their approval) in three days!!!  BOB said from what he had seen the CAMA permit was normally the first one you get and with this project it was the last one gotten.  It appears they tried to get everything lined up and in place first.  He does not believe that the politicians (regardless of what they say) did not know about this until now.  ROY said they were all acting upset with each other that they had not been informed prior.  ERIC said he couldn’t find fault with the councilmen, because any information they receive is passed down by the mayor and manager.    If the councilmen were not kept informed; then the mayor, who is up for reelection, was not doing his job.  ERIC said the city council of Beaufort has voted against this sulfur project and the Town of Morehead City also has voted against.  The Economical Development Council has now voted against this.  Last night the county commissioners voted against this, also.  Messages are being sent to all levels of government throughout North Carolina that we are NOT in favor of this project.  BOB wanted to know if this was a state, county or town decision.  ERIC said state since this was state property (the port).  KEN said the Environment Impact Statement was a state document and they would have had to do that, in order to get it through, (sounds like an Easley thing, just like Cannons Gate where they told the regulators ‘there’s an EIS coming in; get it out as quickly as possible and get it approved).  EIS’s have to be published, public comment, and a follow up period where they address all these comments.  They cannot build that thing without an EIS.  Apparently they already have gotten that approved.  In order to slip that through, they had to have some high level state help.  It was asked why they had to ship the sulfur here for processing – why not keep the whole process in Aurora?  It looked like a waste of time, money and effort to ship it to Morehead, process and ship back to Aurora.  ERIC said it was apparently because they have had many problems with the town of Aurora and can not get anymore cooperation.  WAYNE said when the subject of windmills came up, the commissioners agreed that structures over a certain height were not allowed.  Why can’t they do something like that now with the 150’ smoke stacks.  Can’t because it belongs to the state.  State is probably exempt from county regulations.  CLAYTON questioned the 150’ smoke stacks right on the end of the Beaufort airport runway.  Looks like something could be done to stop it.  There was much discussion on the hazards of molten sulfur and the processing.  BOB said he would like to have a chemist come and talk to us about these hazards being bantered around.  Which of them are true and which are not.  ROY said he knew a lady who was a chemist and might agree to come and talk with us.  Since we have a resident chemist in KEN LANG, BOB asked him about some of the comments made here to night as to the volatility of molten sulfur.  He explained the difference in the two types of acid discussed.  Some mixed with water are highly volatile and others are not.  We should be aware of what we are talking about.  When you mix water with molten sulfur, it will be unpleasant, but not create a Chernoble.  We need to be careful about fear mongering.
BOB said while this is a subject of interest to citizens of Carteret County, it does not really address our core values, but it is a reason for the TEA Party to get involved in the upcoming election of this year 2011 (local government).  David Horton, (Morehead town commissioner) came and spoke to us a few weeks ago about the excessive spending on O’Neal Park.  Since he had decided he was not able to make a difference in stopping the problem, he had decided not to run for reelection.  According to the paper and conversations with ERIC, apparently Mr. Horton has now decided to challenge Mayor Jones in the mayoral race.  Mr. Horton has asked to come and speak to the TEA Party group again to try and enlist our support.   BOB said we can not openly support any candidate, but we can ‘recommend’, so going into the elections this year we need to again have a printed guide like we did last time and say “The following candidates support the TEA Party principles.”  He thinks this will sound better than ‘the TEA Party recommends’.   BOB wanted to know if anyone was opposed to David Horton coming and speaking to us.  ERIC would like to get Jerry Jones down also and have a debate.  Comments were ‘sounds good to me’ and ‘ought to be interesting’.  BOB said normally when you have a  debate, questions are asked; so we will need to formulate some very relative, Morehead City issue/interest type questions to ask.  LOU KUKULINSKI asked why the TEA Party would be doing this, since most of us do not live in Morehead anyway.  ERIC said this issue (sulfur) affects not only Morehead City but Carteret County also.  Maybe, if we didn’t think we should have a debate at our meeting, then perhaps we could have something like the League of Women Voters have, like at the court house and advertise it.  CLAYTON said he hoped we would ask legitimate questions, not stupid ones like the LWV usually ask.  Many members agreed.  The questions are stacked.  ERIC said if we are going to be the one to sponsor this, then the questions should come from us.  BOB said one of the problems with having this type of questionnaire, is who we are going to invite.  Just about every municipality is having an election.  In addition to mayoral races, there are city council member races.  To invite all the candidates would be overwhelming and time consuming.  It would be too big a production and he didn’t know of many people who would want to sit around for 4 hours listening to the candidates argue.  Discussed breaking the debates down into more than one event.  Maybe having the mayors debate and all be asked the same questions and at a later date have the city council debates.  Would there be enough interest by the public for such events?

BOB said over the next couple of meetings we need to be thinking about the election this fall (2011) and how we can be an effective organization in bringing about electing people that think along the same lines as the TEA Party.  ‘Fiscally responsible, Limited Government, and Free Markets’.   This sulfur business is a good example of why we need some limited government intervention and regulation.  PAT said she did not think regulation was the problem here, but it appeared that instead we need to ‘follow the money’.  BOB said we need an investigative reporter to look into this, that he feels there is a good story here to be told.

It was reported that one of our members had heard on the radio on his way to the meeting that we were now back in District 3.  BOB said he understood that it had been requested that the county not be divided into 2 districts.  Understand that a couple of other counties would be split up and added to District 3 also.  Rumor is they are going to split up District 7, so McIntire will be totally redistricted out of his seat.  As BOB said, ‘none of it is a done deal yet’.

NANCY BOCK said she was missing a bag for covering and carrying a table that was used at the July 4th parade.  If anyone has any idea what happened to it, please let her know.  She would check with ROMA to see if he put it into his car.

Question was raised ‘were we going to have David Horton come and speak with us’?  HOWARD GARNER made the motion that we have Mr. Horton come and speak at one of our meetings and Mr. Jones attend another meeting rather that have a debate between the two.  That also will cut down on the length of our meetings.  And after both have spoken, we can make a decision as to what we will do in the election.  Decision was made not to have a debate
between Jones and Horton.  We can do the same with any other town official races if we would like.

GRACE GILLIKIN reported on talking with the lady in charge of the Morehead parade and that she had requested any information to be sent to her as soon as available.

EULA PARKIN asked “How many here tonight consider themselves a Christian?”  She read an article on the ‘Sad Solidarity of Christians’.  A recent study revealed that over 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of their faith.  That equates to one every 5 minutes 24/7.  As we have sat in here tonight talking for about an hour and a half, 12 to 18 Christians have been killed.  This is not just in Muslim countries, but they are being persecuted in other countries.  She said it was reported that at a Christian funeral in Holland, it was yelled “one dog less”.  Does this sound familiar?  How about the religious group that pickets military funerals here in the US?
Discussed Muslim mosques being built.  There is no separation of church and state in the Muslim religion.   It incorporates Sharia law into their religion.

BOB directed ERIC to contact David Horton to come and talk with us sometime in the next few weeks.  Asked that he also ask Jones, but schedule him on a different date.

Meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
JULY 12, 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 WAYNE WILLIS
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
Number in Attendance – 24

New Attendees:
Kelly? – Sorry I did not get her name, since she did not sign in.  I enjoyed talking to her after the meeting.  She owns a farm near Raeford and visits in Carteret County.
Gene & Kathy Crain – They live on a boat and are staying around Beaufort while they are doing some repairs to their boat.
BOB told us about his life with boating.  Bought a boat and while he was under contract with Brandywine, he kept his boat there.  When the contract was up, he had to move the boat, whereupon it was stolen.  It was a 16’ John boat and was never in the water.  About three years ago he bought another boat, and it still has never been overboard.

BOB read an email he had received concerning a study on class size and mortality rates:
“Children randomized to small classes (13-17 students) experienced improved measures of cognition and academic performance relative to those assigned to regular classes (22-25 students).  As expected, these cognitive measures were significantly inversely associated with mortality rates.  However, through age 29 years, students randomized to small class size nevertheless experienced higher mortality rates than those randomized to regular size classes.  The groups at risk included males, whites/Asians, and higher income students.  The study involved 11,601 students in Tennessee between 1985 and 1989.

BOB reported on the “Beaufort County Committee for Constitutional Studies and Beaufort County Post 6088 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in cooperation with Harvest Church will celebrate the 224th birthday of the U.S. Constitution with a short ceremony followed by the presentation of a seminar on the Principles of Liberty and the United States Constitution.  The presenter will be Dr. Earl Taylor, president of National Center for Constitutional Studies, who is an authority on the Constitution.”  The event will be held Saturday, September 10, 2011, 8:00 am.-5:00 pm.  Admission is Free; however a $15.00 donation will cover the cost of a study guide, which will be available and is recommended.  There will be periods for breaks and lunch.  Restaurants are nearby or you may brown bag.   NANCY BOCK said she had read where one of these seminars will be held in New Bern.  She will report to the members as she gets additional information.

BOB asked if everyone was familiar with the Chevy Volt and the ‘dirty little secret behind  it’.   He had read where Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute recapped the well-known consumer fraud in which GM has touted the VOLT as an all-electric mass production vehicle on the supposed basis of which its sales receive a $7,500.00 taxpayer subsidy, which still renders it overpriced and unmarketable.  Sales are anemic:  326 in December, 321 in January and 281 in February and has announced a production run of 100,000 cars in the first two years.  “Who is going to buy all these cars?”  Answer:  Jeffrey Immelt’s GE will buy a boatload of those uneconomic GM cars.  (As you probably know President Obama recently selected GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to chair his Economic Advisory Board.)  Soon after Immelt’s appointment he announced that GE will buy 50,000 VOLTS in the next two years, or half the total produced.
Assuming the corporation qualified for the same tax credit, we (you and me) just shelled out $375,000,000.00 to a company that pays no taxes, to buy cars that no one else wants, so that GM will not tank and produce even more cars that no one wants.  It has been found that in a telling attempt to preserve battery power, the heater is exceedingly weak.  Consumer Reports their tests averaged a paltry 25 miles of electric-only running, (in part because it was tested in cold Connecticut).  It will be interesting to see what the range is on a hot, traffic-jammed summer day, when the air conditioner will really tax the batteries.  When the gas engine came on, Consumer Reports got about 30 miles to the gallon of ‘premium’ fuel, which in terms of additional cost of high-test gas, drives the effective mileage closer to 27 mpg.  A conventional Honda Accord, which seats 5 (VOLT 4), gets 35 mpg on the highway, and costs less that half of what VOLT costs, even with the tax break.
This is a classic tale of the Government deciding what the public needs, not the marketplace.  Why?  To keep the UAW in business, so they can pay for Obama’s reelection and because he owes them for his election.  Starting to make sense now?

BOB reported on Obama’s speech this past week on increasing the debt, where he talked about millionaires keeping money they didn’t need.  They should be willing to give it to those in need.  Even he had more money than he needed.  BOB then read a list of 55 programs
the Republicans had proposed cutting, but the Democrats won’t agree to any cuts at all.  These programs would equal a total savings of $2.5 TRILLION.  Following are just a portion of the Republican proposed cuts for your viewing:
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy – $445 million annual savings
International Fund for Ireland – $17 million annual savings
National Endowment for the Arts – $167.5 million annual savings
National Endowment for Humanities – $167.5 million annual savings
Amtrak Subsidies – $1.565 billion annual savings
Eliminate duplicative education programs (HR2274 in last Congress eliminates 68
programs at a savings of) – $1.3 billion annual savings.
Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half – $7.5 billion annual savings
Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% – $600 million annual savings
Essential Air Service – $150 million annual savings
Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants – $2.5 billion annual savings
Economic Assistance to Egypt – $250 million annually
General Assistance to District of Columbia – $210 million annual savings
Presidential Campaign Fund – $775 million savings over ten years
And how about:
Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment
plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its
budget – $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees!!! – $1 billion total savings
Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees – $1.2 billion over 10 yrs.
Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress
Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs – $900 million savings.
And this is only 18 of the 55 proposed!!

TOM HARMON gave the following report on his wife’s recovery.  She had received 2nd and 3rd degree burns when she spilled a pot of hot grease on her legs.  He carried her to Carteret General on the 4th and they wrapped her legs.  The next day they sent her to the NC Jaycee Burn Center.  She had to have skin grafts.  She has gone through some rough times but is walking a little more each day and improving with time.  Tom was not at home when the accident occurred.

Discussed LIGHT BULBS – An aide of Walter B. Jones said Jones was against doing away with the old style bulbs.  PAT NALITZ said they had found that turning on and off the new type of bulb (which is supposed to last almost forever) will deplete the life of the bulb.  BOB said he had one in a crawl space that he installed in 2008 and it was still burning (had never been turned off).  PEGGY GARNER said she hoped they did not do away with the old bulbs, since those who live in the country depend on them to heat the pump houses in the winter.   (They put off heat.)  Also she had read where they had been replaced in street lamps in a northern city and they were having problems with them, especially in the winter.  It seems the old bulbs put off enough heat to melt the snow and the new ones let it pile up creating problems.

GERE GUERIN said he had several packages to be mailed to our troops overseas and
requested that the attendees please take one and mail it tomorrow.  The cost is only $12.95 and will reach 10 to 20 GIs.

Discussed the letter to the editor from a C4 member criticizing County Commissioner Chair Doug Harris.

Discussed Project on dredging at Port for sulfur project.  The facility will be 2 ½ times taller than the Beaufort bridge.  This will ruin Morehead City with the sulfur smell (like rotten eggs).  HOWARD questioned how in the world they got all the permits through without the people of Morehead knowing something was going on.  Mayor Jones and Manager Randy did a lot of manipulating behind the scenes.  It only came out when the CAMA report came out.  They will be bringing the product from Aurora to process here and then ship back to Aurora.  BOB asked us to keep our eyes and ears open and keep up to date on this project.

BOB said STEVE BEST had been assigned to report each week on a portion of Agenda 21.  STEVE has a 30 minute program  (Audio/no video) which he plans to show next week.

WAYNE WILLIS asked if anyone had heard anything on overriding Gov Perdue’s Vetos.  The Legislature will return to Raleigh tomorrow and that’s when the fun begins.  Discussed various bills.
Discussed Redistricting of 3rd and 7th Districts.  It appears that Palombo, who planned to run again Jones, is having to rethink his position.  Since Onslow and most of Carteret have been removed from Jones’ district, it also cuts back on the number of those familiar with Palombo.  WAYNE said Federal Law mandates that we are required to maintain a certain number of black districts.  This redistricting is supposed to help the Republicans gain the necessary 4 seats.  The census showed that more people are now situated (living) in the central part of the state.  Therefore, the coastal area districts are having to be enlarged to obtain the required number of voters.  HOWARD said he remembers attending a Craven County Tax Payer Association meeting several years ago where gerrymandering was set up to have a certain number of districts with large number of blacks.  Redistricting is done every 10 years after the census.  Areas are divided accordingly to maintain an equal number of voters.  It has been over 100 years since the Republicans have been able to have a say so in the redistricting.
MISC. Discussions:
RUTH PARKER reported that the couple from South Carolina, (Ken and Betty Lee Westbury), that were here for our May 10th meeting, had lunch at Cox’s today.  They said they really would love to attend our meeting tonight but had other plans.  They reported that they had taken some of our ideas they had heard back to South Carolina with them and were in the process of getting rid of about 3 people.  They sent us their best wishes.
EULA PARKIN said it was becoming more and more obvious that the TEA Party has to have a thick skin.  She said she had been watching GLEE on TV the other night and got very upset with the way it made fun of the TEA Party.
BOB said it was ridiculous the way the media made fun of Michelle Bachman’s gaffs, but ignored Obama’s …example when he said he had been to all our 57 states.
Someone talked about how Texas job hiring was increasing.  Another reported that they are importing items from Mexico to sell here and are hiring people to transport them to other areas for distribution.  Items are not made here so we are helping Mexico more than the US.
School Discussion.  BOB said Robin Comer (County Commissioner) had told him that once the money is allocated and handed over to the school superintendent, the schools can spend that money anyway they wish.  Requests for a breakdown of spending had gone unanswered.  He finally received a one page accounting from Dr. Novey, which was worthless.  They say they have 710 teachers in the county, but how do we know that is right?  Can we trust anything they report any more?   PAT NALITZ said a teacher had told her that six teachers were going to lose their jobs in her school, but when she spoke with her recently she said no teachers were let go; but some aides she understood were.  Pat wanted to know why they were told that 6 teachers were going to lose their jobs and it didn’t happen.  BOB asked PAT if she would go on line and try to determine exactly how many teachers there are in Carteret County; are some being counted more than once.  She said she would try but it might be difficult since she had to check each and every school and there may be some overlap.   The Board of Education is only an Amen committee to Dr. Novey.  Al Hill is the new chairman of the BOE.  He just swapped jobs with Cathy Nagle.   Most feel that everything is already decided prior to meetings.  We still need to find good Conservative people to run for the BOE.

NANCY BOCK, Treasurer, reported that we made $450.00 on the parade and we have $1,246.00 in the bank.

A small discussion on Immigration followed.  Alabama’s law is the toughest.  Most of the states attempts at controlling immigration have been kicked down by local circuit judges.  It will end up in the Supreme Court before anything can take affect.  A lot of the states have prostituted themselves by folding under to the Feds for their money.

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