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 point out a few items that you can cut, since the City Council chose not to take a hard look at the budget and reduce spending.

Crestview found a way to cut $3,000,000 from their budget, and we are asking that you ask our staff to go find more cuts.

• There are roughly 98 employees in parks and recreation.  They cleverly list Golf Course employees (31) separately, but seriously, no I think golf courses are the definition of recreation.  By comparison there are 108 Police and Fire employees.  Surely, a hard look at Parks and Recreation is in order.
• You 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.  You are setting the stage to tie the hands of the next City Council with a future tax increase.
• We have 3 rec centers with a lot of employees.  I have been to those during daytime hours and it appears there is more staff than patrons.  Surely we can reduce staffing and create a more efficient system.  I have not completed research on the Senior Center off Memorial.
• 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%.
• Our golf courses bleed red ink.  Enough.  And I’m a 7 handicap golfer
• 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.
• Continue to reduce funding to the Chamber and EDC – are we really seeing a measurable return on investment?  Why are we using tax dollars to the Chamber – our other municipalities don’t do this in Okaloosa.
• 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!
• I have heard that Director level employees have received pay hikes, despite claims that employees have not received pay increases in several years.
• There is a lot of unused space in city hall facilities why 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? I don’t think so, which means taxpayers are subsidizing private businesses earning a profit.

That’s the “short” list.  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.  And if you don’t, we will see 5 of you in March!

• 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!

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.