http://www.nwfdailynews.com/opinion/tea-31816-party-different.html
It’s unfortunate that today I have to write an article countering an editorial printed in the August 11 NWF Daily News (re: “Serving a different kind of Tea).
The Daily News wrote “Consider the detour taken. Too bad.”, meaning the Fort Walton Beach Tea Party has had a shift from local to national issues, based on our Tea Party’s support of the Emerald Coast Tea Party event.
What the Daily News missed is at the heart of the Tea Party, which the national media also misses. We are a decentralized, grass roots movement, no matter how anyone else tries to portray us. If it makes sense for us to call the Niceville-Valp Tea Party, or the Emerald Coast Tea Party, or the Bay County Patriots, or the Navarre Tea Party, we pick up the phone and work together.
If our interests don’t match up, we work independently and take on the issues each group finds important. It’s how our founding fathers envisioned the role of citizens and we in the FWB Tea Party have decided to take that role seriously.
Consider our August 10, 2010 meeting. The FWB Tea Party has a stated set of principles and a focus on issues. Period. Whether they are local or not is a subject of debate.
We had former Destin Mayor Craig Barker and Captain Donnie Brown discuss their “air curtain” design, but also present the challenges, and successes, during this oil spill, of working with BP, the Federal Government, State and local government. Why is this a FWB Tea Party concern? One of our core principles is to “hold elected officials accountable”. Listening to people on the front line dealing with our government during a crisis tells us where we should contact our elected officials that certain rules and laws need to be changed.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) attended, and took a few minutes to discuss Amendment 9 on the November ballot. This amendment intended to defend Floridians against being compelled to buy insurance under Obamacare, and has been struck down on the ballot language by a Judge in Tallahassee. Rep. Gaetz shared the appeal strategy being employed by proponents of health care freedom to revive this important constitutional change. Is this a local or national issue? Since it’s our votes and our money, I’d say this is a very local issue.
Rep. Gaetz also discussed an issue near and dear to the Tea Party – transparency in government. He asked for our input and advice regarding whether to support legislation that would shift public notices – those printed at taxpayer cost in local papers – to an internet based approach saving hundreds of thousands in local taxes annually. The taxpayers of Northwest Florida functionally subsidize Freedom Communications (the parent company of the Daily News and other local payers) roughly $250,000 annually for public notice advertising. Statewide, newspaper notice costs range into the millions each year. While we wait for further details, the FWB Tea Party initially supports a move to put these notices on the internet where the majority of Americans now get their news and information.
We had a “spirited” conversation regarding the local elections – starting with the $135 million dollar, over ten years, so called “Half Cent” School Sales Tax proposal. We worked our way through the ballot, starting with local elections first, because we know that the people who can most affect our wallets are the closest to us.
Oh, and we discussed CAIR for about 30 seconds. We have as another core principle to “support and defend the Constitution”. CAIR demands that Emerald Coast Tea Party drop a speaker, and we simply point to the First Amendment. It doesn’t require a lot of conversation to understand what the First Amendment says, and that we can support any speaker we want, and we support our friends at the Emerald Coast Tea Party in their venture. By the way, CAIR was asked to speak at the event and declined.
And just for the record, in addition to our local attendees at our meeting, we had representatives of Niceville-Valp, Emerald Coast, Panhandle Patriots, Navarre Tea Party, and even Bay County Patriots.
The FWB Tea Party was the only group to go on the record at the School Board meetings opposing the $135 million Sales Tax increase. We have had representatives at most of the Board of County Commissioner meetings and budget workshops. We are organizing to fight the proposed 25% millage rate increase by the City of FWB, and we will be attending the budget workshops starting August 16th.
We have gone on record at EPA hearings about waste water requirements. Local or national? You be the judge. The EPA is national, but when our Florida water bills quadruple (that’s not hyperbole folks) you better believe that’s a very local issue all of the sudden. The FWB Tea Party organized other Tea Parties across the State of Florida, and citizens showed up by the hundreds at three separate EPA hearings in Tallahassee, Orlando and West Palm Beach to protest this EPA directive. (PDF on Waste Water Issue). Not many people are aware of this threat, but every County and Municipal government official sure is.
We have spoken about Charter Government and tax abatement issues locally. We had a direct role in the veto of Florida Senate Bill 6 over education – because it violated our principles. Local, state or national? Well it directly affected our children so I’d say that’s pretty local.
The FWB Tea Party has also hosted several very well attended and detailed candidate forums for State Representative, Sheriff, School Board and County Commissioner. You can view them at www.wcvctv.com. Why did we do this? Because we have learned one valuable lesson – who we elect matters. At EVERY level of government.
Can you publish the Daily News Editorial this week about the North Bay fire department being the most expensive fire department in the state of Florida over 2,000,000.00, they also have a personal trainer and I wonder if the trips to McDonalds and Sonic for food in the fire truck are charged to the budget (are we paying for the 19 employees meals). Meeting to discuss proposed tax increase 14 September 2010.