Meeting January 27, 2011

January 27, 2011

Our meeting was opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and Dave Rector said a prayer.

There were 15 in attendance.

Hardy thanks was given to Wayne Robertson. His expertise and efforts pertaining to web sites, now has us up and running. We are www.essexteaparty.com and proud of it.

Dave Rector made several efforts to have our Tea Party meeting announced by WRAR to no avail. They agreed to carry the announcement all day on January 26 and 27 but reneged. We are feeling a push back from them. We can only assume they too are afraid of anything a little bit controversial.

Dave Rector spoke with Dr. Melvin, School Superintendent, last week. To date, it is known that three key positions will open soon. There seems to be some disagreement between our new Superintendent and the current staff. Two of the positions are now held by very competent hard working people. They will be a great loss to our school system. The third person will leave a position that may be not be refilled to help with the school systems budget cuts. This was suggested by the Essex Tea Party. A start to removing redundancy.

Dave Rector presented Agenda 21 again. It's becoming more and more evident that many of the movements happening in our nation are to meet the requirements of Agenda 21. Our government wants to herd us into little cells or communities like they are doing in many foreign nations. There is a constant push for The World Organization to control everyone worldwide, and to treat us all the same. There will be further discussion as to how Agenda 21 links to many of the mandates our government is trying to force on us.

Bill Lucas explained how Land Use policy in our county caused a $1,000,000,000.00 shortfall in taxes and created a 14% real estate tax increase.  There was discussion about the pros and cons of this matter. We had a farmer at the meeting that was a real advocate of everything we discussed but against our tampering with the Land Use policy. We were able to have a fact filled discussion and listen to everyone's feelings about this subject and leave with the satisfaction that everyone was treated with respect.

The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, Virginias leading non-partisan foundation focused on improving state and local government, sent our 2009 BOS and SB candidates a “Transparency Pledge”.  Through the research of Betty Lucas, we find that Langford, Stevens, Ellis and Bullis did not sign their pledges.  Betty has originated an Essex County "Transparency Pledge" that the Tea Party is going to present to the BOD, SB, Airport Board, Dave Whitlow, Linda Lumpkin and many others. We feel that anyone dealing with county money should be asked to sign a pledge. This will be a requirement for BOD candidates, as well.

Bill Lucas explained the importance of the Tea Party contacting the river front land owners about changing their voter registrations to Tappahannock. He estimates 2,000 votes from the Wares Wharf area to the town. We could replace every board member with their help. Several suggested contacting Home Owner Associations to initiate this effort.

A gentleman that was helping the newest airport board for a while, says they are very responsible, frugal, business-savvy men.  He also told us that the board member position   is an unpaid job.  The more he talked, the more they sounded like possible candidates for the upcoming BOS election.

It was agreed that we would have a booth at Rivahfest 2011. This could be our best effort yet to enlist new members.

MEETING DATES:

BOS Meeting - February 8, 2011 at the School Board, 10:00am

TP Workshop - County Budget Cuts - February 9, 20ll, Essex Library at 7:00

SB Meeting - February 14, 2011, School Board at 7:00

Tea Party Meeting - February 16, 2011, School Board at 7:00

God Bless America,

Pat Roth

Acting Secretary