A quick background – back in 2009 the EPA demanded Florida, and Florida only, comply with bizarre and onerous water quality regulations that would have raised our water bills by at least four fold. We organized a statewide appearance at EPA hearings and shoved them backwards. This issue did not go away…but yesterday the EPA is backing down from the ruling.

This is a great example of what happens when the Tea Party movement teams up with County and City government to fight regulations that make no sense. We provided a loud voice for the public to demand that our elected officials stand up to the EPA, and boy did they!!!!

We can make a difference!!!!

Note the quote by the Earthjustice folks at the bottom: http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/dcblog/2011/11/enviros_state_officials_still.html

Details:

To summarize it, it states EPA preliminarily approves DEP’s draft of a numeric nutrient rule. If the Florida Department of Environmental Protection adopts satisfactory nutrient rule standards, EPA will withdrawal the rule it has adopted. The EPA rule in question is the one we have filed our legal challenges against. I believe this means EPA is seeking a graceful way to back away from its numeric nutrient rule. After EPA adopted it, the storm of controversy it generated has been overwhelming. Now that DEP is in the picture of creating its own rule, this gives EPA a convenient way to withdrawal their rule. The EPA rule was originally justified on a finding by an EPA Administrator that Florida wasn’t doing the job and it was necessary for EPA to step in and do it its self.

Now that EPA has preliminarily found Florida’s initial draft to be satisfactory, it is my belief they have begun the process of backing away from the rule and getting out of this controversy. There is a very good chance EPA will never actually implement or enforce its rule, as long as DEP appears to be making progress on its own rule. I will keep you posted as this develops.

In September 2001, we were attacked by a group of 19 Middle Eastern males. This group had driver’s licenses in several states, including Florida, using improper addresses. None were obtained in false identities. Of the 19, 16 were here legally. The 9/11 Commission recommended changes to how state driver’s licenses (the term ID card also applies but for brevity I will lump both together) were issued.

In February 2005, Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner sponsored the REAL ID Act, HR 418, in the U.S. House. While it passed an initial vote, it was never enacted. A few weeks later, he added the REAL ID Act as an amendment to a defense authorization and Tsunami relief bill, HR 1268. Despite this federal function not being authorized under the Constitution’s Article 1 Section 8, and as such being a violation of the Constitution’s 10^th Amendment, this bill easily passed the House and Senate with no debate on REAL ID and was signed into law by Pres. Bush on May 11, 2005. The bill dictated to the states how they were to issue their driver’s licenses, to include keeping electronic or paper copies of citizen’s personal documents and a requirement for a residential address from all people, to include those such as police officers and domestic violence victims whose addresses were protected by state law. The concept was the person had to prove to the government who they were via these documents, even though there was no suspicion they were someone else, and there was never a warrant issued for the seizure of their papers as required by the 4^th Amendment. There was no “opt-out”, and if a state did not comply, they were required to change how they issued their license to have it say it was not valid as “federal identification”- the Act says this using those two words, so it is a federal identification. The initial deadline for state compliance was 2008. The purposes stated in the federal act were four:

1)      Entry into federal buildings

2)      Flight on federally-regulated commercial aircraft

3)      Entry into nuclear power plants, and

4)      Any purpose as determined by the DHS Secretary.

The last one was omitted by Mr. Brian Zimmer, the staff member that claimed responsibility for writing the 2005 law when he spoke about it to the Florida Legislature in February 2011, and again by Mr. Sensenbrenner when he publicly discussed REAL ID in August 2011 at the Heritage Foundation.

The law was adopted in Florida in 2008 as part of Omnibus bill CS/SB 1992. It was 4 of 47 sections that changed our driver’s license law in Chapter 322. The law too effect on January 1, 2010, and resulted in huge backlogs due to citizens not having their papers in order. According to Steven Fielder of the DHSMV, Florida has spent over $10 million on REAL ID since 2008, with almost $3 million of that as unreimbursed state tax dollars. During this time, not one terrorist or illegal alien has been identified due solely to REAL ID.

In the intervening months, the Florida DHSMV deviated from the law by reducing the paperwork requirements for those born before 1935- many of these people never had a birth certificate, and thus could not renew their license they had here for decades. There were no sanctions for this common-sense deviation.

The law has significant parallels to the Brady Act of the 1990’s. In that Act, the federal government attempted to utilize local law enforcement to perform a federal function (background checks for firearm purchases). Two Sheriffs sued, and the Supreme Court held it was a violation of the 10th Amendment for the federal government to draft into federal service the local officers due to the dual sovereignty of the federal and state governments. The tie-in to REAL ID is that the federal government is attempting to draft the licensing functions of the several states to make a “federal identification”. This is likewise a violation of the 10^th Amendment.

As the states looked at what REAL ID was going to do to them, many passed laws to prohibit or restrict the law. As of October 2011, 19 states have done so, with the legislation coming nearly equally from Democrats and Republicans. Only 9 have passed it. Of these 9, Utah and Michigan have since reversed their position and passed legislation or a resolution against REAL ID. The federal government pushed back the deadline from 2008 to 2011, and then from 2011 to 2013. In the meantime, two bills were filed in first the 110^th (Republican, HR 4160) and then the 111^th (Democrat, HR 140) Congress to cut “federal” funding to non-compliant states. Each of these died in committee. In the 112^th, HR 3082 cut $16 million from REAL ID’s central hub funding.

The purposes of the law as have been articulated by the Florida sponsor, Sen. Cary Baker as well as Mr. Sensenbrenner respectively were to keep illegal aliens from getting a license, and to prevent terrorism (Mr. Sensenbrenner has also listed some things such as those with suspended licenses in one state not being able to go to another state, but there were already laws on the books here for that- F.S. 322.30). Both of these, while laudable, are not an effect of REAL ID. As to illegal aliens, they have driven in Florida w/o a license for decades and continue to do so. As to terrorists, of the original 19, 16 of them would heave been eligible for a REAL ID since they were here legally. The Heritage Foundation studied 39 failed terror plots since September 2001 and of these, none involved REAL ID in any way shape or form. The plots were foiled by good lawful police work coupled with intelligence. Many of the suspects in these plots were eligible for a REAL ID.

In summary, REAL ID:

1)      Was passed in violation of the 10^th Amendment since Congress cannot tell the states how to issue their driver’s licenses- a power reserved to the states.

2)      Endangers the citizens of Florida by placing all documents in a central location, and making public the residential addresses of police officers and domestic violence victims, both of which used to be protected by state law.

3)      Improperly required the seizure of personal papers in violation of the 4^th Amendment.

4)      Did not allow for states to “opt-out”.

5)      Is a federal identification card.

6)      Gives the DHS Secretary unlimited power as to the required use of a REAL ID.

7)      Has cost the Florida taxpayer about $3 million, or over $10 million when the “federal” money is counted.

8)      Has already been deviated from by the Florida DHSMV.

9)      Is not supported by federal case law.

10)  Has been legislated FOR in 9 states, 2 of which have subsequently reversed their position.

11)  Has been legislated AGAINST in 19 states by both Democrats and Republicans. None of these states have been penalized in any way by the federal government. Two attempts to do so in Congress have failed.

12)  Is being defunded by the current Congress.

13)  Would not have prevented the 9/11 attacks, and has not prevented any subsequent plots.

14)  Has not identified one illegal alien or terrorist.

15)  Has created a tremendous and unnecessary hardship for many citizens in Florida.

The solution is HB 109 / S 220, the Florida Driver’s License Citizen Protection Act, which addresses the Constitutional and citizen-protection issues identified above. It does not change how aliens are processed. It is currently in the House Transportation & Highway Safety Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Brad Drake, and needs to be heard so it can move to the next subcommittee.

Paul Henry

Floridians Against REAL ID, a non-partisan and non-profit citizen’s group

www.liberty2010.org/realid

realid@liberty2010.org

850-629-9550

Registration Open for Candidate Education Program
Offered by Supervisor of Elections Office

November 3, 2011 – The Okaloosa County Supervisor of Elections Office is offering Candidate University in a condensed format. The program is for those seeking to run for public office or any member of the public interested in learning about the process. It is designed to educate interested persons of the appropriate procedures and documents required to run for office in Okaloosa County.

Candidate University normally consists of a three-hour curriculum focused on the fundamentals of becoming and being a candidate. The upcoming crash course version is formatted for 90 minutes. Participants will be introduced to each step involved in the process including pre-filing, collecting petitions and qualifying. Campaign pitfalls will also be discussed. All participants will receive a certificate upon completion of the program.

The dates in which the sessions will be held are listed below:

Fort Walton Beach                                 Monday, November 14
Water & Sewer Building, 3rd Floor, BCC Board Room
1804 Lewis Turner Blvd.
11:30am-1:00pm
Crestview                                                 Tuesday, November 15
Newman C. “Buddy” Brackin Building
(formerly the First National Bank)
3rd Floor Conference Room
302 Wilson Street North
5:30pm-7:00pm
To register, contact Tiffany C. Rivera at 689-5600 or via email at trivera@co.okaloosa.fl.us

Fort Walton Beach is the home of the newest wastewater plant in the United States. On behalf of the Fort Walton Beach Tea Party, we would like to register our objection to these proposed regulations.

The litigation that was filed to create this issue does not in our opinion, have any basis in supportable science, and we question the EPA’s right to adjudicate this matter based on the 10th amendment.

The Fort Walton Beach Tea Party supports responsible means to protect our environment, and our tax dollars going to build a new, state of the art $60 million dollar waste water plant is tangible proof of our commitment.

The EPA was not needed to approve this new facility, so we question how it can now inject itself into a state and local matter.
We protest the following:
1. The proposed rules only apply to the State of Florida, they do not apply to any of the other 49 states. We believe that this may be a violation of the equal protection clause of the US Constitution.
2. There is no clear science behind the rules. The numeric criteria provide for Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) are ridiculously low and there is no scientific data to back up the extremely low MCLs for nitrates. There is also no data to support the idea that wastewater treatment plants are a significant source of nitrate contamination in surface water bodies.
3. In the panhandle, we are being punished for doing a good job of protecting our surface waters by having extremely strict MCLs. In other words, you will actually punish NWF for having the cleanest water in the state, and we will have to improve on that because, based on admitted flawed scientific data, the EPA believes that other regions should be treated more leniently.
4. There is not a single wastewater treatment facility in Florida that can currently meet the new limits.
5. The cost for retrofitting every plant in Florida is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars. In order to pay for the enormous costs to come into compliance, catastrophic double digit rate increases for all wastewater utility customers in Florida will be required. Meanwhile, the EPA has estimated that it will cost $4 million to retrofit all of Florida’s plants to come into compliance with the new rules. This is another ridiculous number that has no scientific data behind it.
6. There is no explanation for the profound increase this will have in the carbon footprints of the retrofitted plants. If these plants adopt a reverse osmosis system, it will greatly increase operating costs and ironically, increase the amount of carbon based energy needed to meet these unscientific standards. So in the process of trying to save the patient, we will kill the patient by using more greenhouse gases.
In this economy, we cannot continue to pretend that taxpayers can afford every environmental whim that comes down the pike. We have seen agencies like NOAA threaten the entire Florida Charter Fishing fleet based on limited data, and we are very concerned about the hard dollar cost to us as taxpayers.
We cannot afford anymore, and request that you stop this action.
Henry Kelley
Chairman, FWB Tea Party
legislative@fwbteaparty.com

On behalf of the FWB Tea Party, several of you indicated that you had not heard from the “first” person who was opposed to a property tax increase.  Well, take a good look around because you are now surrounded by not just registered voters, but people who pay taxes and actually show up to vote, as will occur in March 2011.

Perhaps you didn’t notice that voters rejected a sales tax a few weeks ago – less taxes mean less taxes!  It is the responsibility of the City Council to represent the citizens, and it was asserted that no one wants to cut spending, let me say on behalf of the assembled crowd “au contraire”.

Crestview found a way to cut $3,000,000 from their budget, and we are asking that you ask OUR staff, paid for by the residents of FWB, to go find more cuts.

• Have we taken a serious look at consolidation of services with the County, such as Fire and Police Departments? Mr. Holmes alluded to what businesses would do during a recession.   In the private sector, this is the first step a business would take – consolidate operations to save money.  Ladies and gentlemen – this recession is with us for a long time.  There is no real indication that improvements will occur anytime soon.
• The city paid $50,000 for a consulting project to tell us to raise our water rates– another form of taxation – was this really the best use of limited resources? No one in City Hall or locally could have done this project cheaper? And as a result, the Council is now looking for increases – stop paying outsiders for work that should be done in house.
• Like Crestview did, get creative on employee hours and furloughs.
• There are roughly 98 employees in parks and recreation.  By comparison there are 108 Police and Fire employees.  Surely, a hard look at Parks and Recreation is in order.  When I took a cursory look at the payroll vs. facility usage, there certainly appears an easy opportunity to reduce spending.
• The Council approved a $100,000 upgrade to Fred Hedricks, with an undefined future cost of $250,000.  That’s nearly 40% of their budget, and represents almost the entire tax increase based on the millage rate.  You are setting the stage to tie the hands of the next City Council with a future tax increase by not taking a hard look at closing, consolidating, or changing the operations of our Rec Centers.
• Take Mr. Reeves up on his proposal to cut $20,000 from the budget on fireworks.  Niceville has found a way to get private donations to make it work.
• Our adult recreation leagues have had plummeting usage, yet the city continues to accept this from the league management.  Participation has decreased in the last 3 years by 8%.
• Continue to reduce funding to the Chamber.  Why are we using tax dollars to the Chamber – our other municipalities are reducing these contributions.
• Are we fully leveraging cost savings from the library co-operative program?  This is one area (library usage) that has spiked during the recession, and due to rising fixed costs, such as a costly pension program, we cut hours at the one place our citizens are actually using.
• If you want a permit for a park rental such as the Landing, you have to go to the Fred Hedricks center on Jet.  Why on earth can’t this be done in City Hall where we collect water bills?
• We pay a corrections officer to manage inmates (non-violent) to pick up trash.  However, it appears we have kept 7 employees on the payroll who were supposed to be removed to save costs.  So this program has actually increased costs to the city!
• There is a lot of unused space in city hall facilities while we pay rent in other locations.  A decent facility plan should resolve this and save money.
• Do we charge enough rent to groups such as StageCrafters to use the Municipal Auditorium? Are tax payers supporting other non-profits that should be cut?.

You get the point – there is a lot that can be cut, and we in the FWB Tea Party are asking that you do just that.  If raising taxes by 8 ½ percent is the only solution that this City Council sees, then we will work with a new City Council in March 2011.  Thank you.

We have developed a program to help other Tea Parties get beyond where they are today to truly make a difference in their local and regional communities.

• Led a major effort to beat back a sales tax increase in our county.  http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/proposal-31344-board-school.html. This referendum was defeated 56 – 44, the most lopsided election on our local ballots.  This same referendum passed in many other counties in Florida.

• We still host rallies that draw well in excess of 500 attendees – such as this past weekend.  www.wcvctv.com – Watch the teaser video and see the part with Brigette Gabriel.  Keep in mind we live in a lightly populated region.

• Hosted local candidate forums that drew over 150 attendees on a summer night.  http://www.cvctv.info/channel.php?channel=election

• Direct involvement with the Governor of Florida on Senate Bill 6.  I was contacted personally by Charlie Crist on this issue.  While many view Crist as the enemy, I view him as the Governor of Florida – an elected official to be educated, not insulted. http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/corporate/critics-of-sb-6-the-education-bill-run-gamut-from-tea-partiers-to-teachers/1086982

• Advised our State Senator (and potential 2012 Florida Senate President) Don Gaetz on a jobs bill http://www.allbusiness.com/government/elections-politics-politics-political-parties/13924999-1.html

• Helped one of our major industries in NWF – the Charter Fishing Fleet, when it came under attack by NOAA and the Obama Administration.  http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/amberjack-21781-gulf-federal.html

• Was attacked by the Council on American Islamic Relations because we chose to defend the First Amendment http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/video-31705-party-group.html and made it all the way to Al Jazeera http://www.aljazeerah.info/News/2010/August/8%20n/Muslim%20American%20News%20Briefs,%20August%207,%202010.htm

• On election day, there was this: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/effect-of-tea-party-vote-in-gop-primary-874858.html

• And stood up and organized Tea Parties across Florida to blunt an effort by the EPA to raise our water rates by four fold.  http://southeastagnet.com/2010/02/16/epa-holds-public-hearing-in-tallahassee-on-new-fl-water-standards/

Contact us at legislative@fwbteaparty.com for more information!

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.

I have exchanged a series of what turned out to be fruitless emails with Mr. Ibrahim Hooper, the Director of Communications for the Council on American Islamic Relations.   If you listen to WFTW 1260 AM “The Wake Up Call” with Ken Walsh from 6 to 9AM, we have been talking about this for weeks now.

I started by asking if he had asked that had his organization asked the Emerald Coast Tea Party Patriots and the FWB Tea Party to drop Ms. Brigette Gabriel as a guest speaker at a Constitution Day Rally on August 21, 2010 from 1 to 5PM at the Emerald Coast Conference Center.   Tickets are $20 and proceeds go to the Wounded Warrior Project and the Destin Charter Fishing Fleet to assist both groups.  You can contact Geoff Ross at 850-313-1893 or purchase them at www.passionatepatriot.com Tee Shirt shop on Racetrack Road.

The facts are this – CAIR did not contact Geoff or me to cancel the speaker, they just sent the press release.  Mr. Hooper’s response to my email?

“Peace. Do you support Ms. Gabriel’s views on Islam and Muslims, such as her statement that Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office?”

I responded I would read her book and determine what she actually said.   I also asked Mr. Hooper if he believed Muslims placed Sharia Law about US Constitutional law.  As yet, that question remains puzzlingly unanswered.

After I completed her book, Because They Hate, in which she references CAIR and Mr. Hooper in particular, I asked had she factually misrepresented anything.  I still haven’t gotten a direct answer to that question.

We requested CAIR send a speaker, from the speaker’s bureau listed prominently on their website, and as yet, we have not received a response.  Interestingly, Geoff and I were interviewed earlier this week by BBC America because of their interest in this story.

The FWB Tea Party has as a core principle to support and defend the US Constitution.  This issue is simply this – no group can silence a speaker unless we as Americans sit by and let it happen.  Not this time, not this place.  While our airmen, soldiers, sailors and marines are deployed in combat, we will not sit by when a group attempts to threaten our First Amendment rights.

Our next meeting is August 10th, 7PM at the American Legion on Hollywood.  We will be discussing several pending tax increases in our community and other issues.  We might even bring this up as well! All are welcome to attend our meetings and speak out!