This site is meant to facilitate the upward flow of information to help our elected officials stay in touch with those they represent. Also as a means to help us (the voters) help our leaders lead.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

New Elementary School in Shelby ???

Should Shelby build a new elementary school and or remodel others; there were 3 options presented at a recent forum put on by the schools to get public input. The three options ranged in cost from 18 million to 22 ½ million dollars. Plus they were talking of adding another nearly 2 million to their plans for a couple of extra things.

The main reason given for the need to do this was overcrowding. Well a couple of our Oceana Tea Party members took that argument apart at the meeting.

Bill and Jeanette Marossey brought this issue to the attention of our Oceana Tea Party at our last meeting Nov. 2nd. They went to that forum along with Tom Allison our Co-Chair. The Oceana Herald Journal ran an article about the meeting. In which they quoted Bill as saying- “Every single person I talked to has the same belief that when you closed down Benona and Ferry elementary schools, you created an overcrowded situation, and now you say we need a massive expenditure to correct the problem you created in the first place,” This the article said that Bill read from a prepared statement Bill and Jeanette had with them.

There was a lot more to the “Prepared Statement” Bill read from. They sent it to me and I felt it worth copying for all to see with their permission.

-----Their Statement-----
I. The citizens that are contributing to the school system are paying
11 mills, 6 to the state and 5 mills locally; we still have 13 years
left on an outstanding loan and now you want to pile on a few
More mills and jack that back up to 20 years.
II. Did the thought ever cross your mind about paying the first loan off
Before starting a new one? Every person I talked to has the same
Belief that when you closed the Benona & Ferry Elementary Schools
You created an overcrowded condition and now you say we need
a massive expenditure to correct the problem you created in the
first place.
III. Oceana County has over 80 Bank Foreclosures this year alone & (the
Nation’s foreclosures up 7% in one month), and that’s not counting
land contracts & government loans…all up in smoke.

The U.S. is bankrupt
The State is shutting down (License Bureau’s Closing)
(Mich. Can’t match funds for
Unemployment Insurance)
Police posts are closing
The Road Commission has had financial problems for yrs
Food prices, hospitalization & everything else is going up
(pay more get less)
401 K’s plunged $4,000 overnight
Social Security & Medicare are in trouble
Post Offices are closing
Land values are down (86,000 Homeless in Michigan)
And even the Shelby Dollar Store went out of business!
The guy from Hart was on the news last night, he left
Michigan by wagon train for New Mexico.

NOW THAT’S BADOh, and did I mention the Whole World is in a financial crisis,
First Greece now Italy.

SO WHY ARE WE EVEN HAVING THIS DISCUSSION ? ?“Disconnected from Reality”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is citizen involvement at it best. My thanks goes to them for standing up for what they believe. Also kudos for the other members who helped research their information.

The Marossey’s did their share and are still following through on this issue. Will we get behind them? They will give us an update at our next Oceana Tea Party meeting Dec. 7th at 7pm at the Heritage Hall within the Hart Historic District on the corner of Lincoln and Union 3 blocks East of downtown Hart.
Jack Hoogendyk will be our guest speaker and will be talking about Freedom to Work in Michigan. We will also be talking about a concerted effort of Michigan Tea Parties to unite behind a Conservative Senate Candidate for the 2012 election. Bill and Jeanette will update us about this school issue.

Our policy is to help citizens get involved in government at all levels. Come to one of our meetings and see for yourself what they are all about. Check us out on
Facebook...Oceana Tea Party.

Way to go Bill and Jeanette and thanks to those who helped them to do this. This is not a done deal yet and if it gets to the ballot we can do plenty to stop this. Signs, lit and door to door, you know the drill.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Dumping Debbie

I received an email awhile ago asking if I as a leader of a Tea Party group could find another from our group to attend a state wide meeting of other Tea Party leaders. (2 from each group). I asked Tom our Co-Chair to come with me and he said he’d like to come. The meeting was yesterday in DeWitt near Lansing.
The purpose of the meeting was to see if there was enough interest within the Tea Parties in Mi. to unite for a specific purpose. That specific purpose was to defeat Debbie Stabenow. In my terms “Dump Debbie”.

You know I was Going to go.

This effort was to be patterned after what happened with the Tea Parties in Indiana which had banded together for one purpose and that was to de-throne Sen. Luger. It worked. The temporary group they formed was called “Hoosiers for a Conservative Senate”.

The email I mentioned earlier was from Cindy Gamrat who moved to Plainwell Mi. from Indiana where she was a part of that effort. Cindy organized a Tea Party in Plainwell and has set up a group called Michigan for a Conservative Senate. Her goal was to do what they did in Indiana here in Mi. She was bringing some of the leaders from Indiana to help and join with us.

I remember two of the greatest players in basketball; one from Indiana (Larry Bird) and the other from Michigan (Magic Johnson). ---- Can you imagine if they were on the same team ???

Tom and I went and were pleasantly surprised to see well over 100 people there 2 from each Tea Party Group from all over the state, from the East side, West side, South and North. One lady from the UP drove 9 hours to represent her Tea Party. The room was filled with a bunch of Alphas.

Cindy had risen to the occasion with a nice line up of speakers. After her brief outline she introduced two consecutive leaders of the Indiana effort who drove up here from Indiana to cheer us on. They did. It was really interesting/exciting to hear the inside scoop on how they battled the entrenched organization of a fixture in the Senate. They Won. We heard of a lot of little dirty tricks that were played on them and how they combatted them.

With that, the crowd was starting to warm up to the idea. Next a speaker from Freedom Works talked. It had been made clear by all the previous speakers that Freedom Works was there only to help, after we organized. They were not there to tell us what to do or how to do it, only that they were willing to help when it came to crunch time once we got going. They would/could be our allies, not our partners. The help they could provide would be financial and political as far as getting signs made, setting up the infrastructure for boots on the ground efforts (door knocking, lit drops etc), a phone bank system and later advertisements. He said what Freedom Works needed to see from us was unity behind a candidate that had a chance of winning.

The main thrust of the meeting was to see if we as individuals and individual Tea Party groups could unite under one candidate picked by us. We would do that by having our own State convention. This is already in the works and we are thinking of sometime in Jan. The problem of course is that there are 5 Republican candidates and some of us or most of us have already pretty much decided who we would like as a nominee to run against Stabenow and we are anything except united. As it now currently stands, come election we would split the Conservative vote, just as Indiana did previously before they united. We would lose and Debbie Stabenow would win.

The Speakers from Indiana told us they had the same situation in the election previous to the Luger election. There were 5 Republican Candidates and one of those was the Republican Party favorite and pretty middle of the road and the other 4 were Conservative. The result was the Conservatives split their vote and the Republican Party favorite won. The votes of the other Conservative Candidates together however would have easily beaten the Republican Party favorite. The Speakers from Indiana said they learned their lesson. They decided next time around they would, despite their personal preferences unite behind one Conservative Candidate. They did and they won. They were luckier the next time as they only had one candidate who was a Conservative and he was a great Candidate; so it was easier, but they were ready to swallow some pride if need be. They had already tasted a mouthful of humble pie from the last election and were ready to unite.

Our job was to decide if we could swallow our pride and do the same thing.

The meeting was of two parts, the first open to the press and the second a closed door working session. The security was tight. The first part was with all the speakers explaining what Michigan for a Conservative Senate (MI4CS) wanted to accomplish and the outline of how they did it in Indiana.

The second part was to figure out how to set the whole thing up in Michigan in a way that would work here and get it running. The Basic format was to split up according to the 14 Congressional Districts. Each district picked a liaison. Each district was to suggest a plan. The idea of having a Convention of those present in Jan seemed to be a done deal. The “leaders” of each Tea Party needed to go back to their groups and figure out which of the Senate candidates they were in favor of. Before that there was talk of setting up a debate with all the candidates to help us vet the candidates.

Remember it will be up to each Tea Party group to decide what candidate they want, then the 2 reps from each group will vote at the convention. I was told the vote will not be by district. Whoever wins at the convention will be the candidate behind which we will all then get behind. That will be the hard part. At the meeting Cindy asked whether we would be willing to do that even if it wasn’t our favorite candidate and I believe all 100+ raised their hands in support. I’m hopeful but it will probably be a struggle.

The problem will be in the time difference between our MI4Conservative Senate Convention in Jan. and the Republican Primary in Aug. I doubt many of the Senate candidates will drop out after our convention in Jan. and it will be hard for their backers to change allegiance. But at this meeting everyone there seemed to think they could.

They were united in their desire to “Dump Debbie”

Speaking of that, I brought a box of “Dump Debbie” buttons and probably gave away at least 500 of them. Tom and I made some friends there and I’m sure we will make use of those contacts in the future.

Our next Oceana Tea Party meeting is Dec. 7 same times same place. If you want to join us or want to get on our mailing list give me a call. 231-728-3455. Not only will we be talking all about this state wide Tea Party movement to Dump Debbie, but the second half will have former State Rep. and former US Senate Candidate Jack Hoogendyk telling us all about Michigan "Freedom to Work"!

Bring a Friend.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Time to Get Busy

I voted in my new precinct (Newfield Township) Tues the Nov 8th. I later called the Newfield Clerk and he said I believe, there were 144 votes cast in that election. Wow 144 votes out of well over 2,000 voters. The only things on the ballot were two ballot issues. They were school millage issues and they both passed. I voted against them.

The next day I talked with our County Clerk Becky Griffin and she told me that the Newfield precinct was the only one that had an election in the whole county. That is because the school millage was for the Hesperia schools which are mainly in Newaygo County.

On a sadder note, Paul Scott, state Rep for the 51st from Grand Blanc in Genesee County lost a recall election the unions had put on. He lost by 322 votes which is a really small amount, but seemingly enough because he didn’t call for a recall. I felt bad as I had gone twice to his area to knock on doors for him along with State Rep. Jon Bumstead. Tom Allison from Mears came the second time. We all had skin in the game.

All however is not in vain perhaps. The Republicans seemed to have hardened their stance due to the loss and the idea of forcing a recall. The MEA alone spent $142,000.00 on the election. They were really well organized. The main reason the MEA recall happened was that Paul Scott was head of the election committee. He was the face of the union reform legislation. The unions targeted him for recall due to that. However as Mike Bishop former Majority Chair in the Senate tweeted, the election may have had the opposite effect upon the Education Committee. He tweeted the following.
-----tweet-----
"The MEA spent $150k dollars only to get their nemesis, Representative Tom McMillin, appointed as the chairman of the education committee."
---------------

Tom McMillin is rated the most conservative legislator in the state and supports the privatization of the public schools. So although the message was sent by the voters, it seems that the course for the MEA in the house and the education committee in particular may be rockier than it was before. The MEA’s narrow victory may have been tactical defeat.

In Ohio, Ohioans seemed to have rebuked Gov. Kasich’s efforts at public union reform by voting in favor of proposal two which upturned the legislation passed and signed into law. The good news was that proposition three also passed which was a rebuke against President Obama’s health care. The prop. said that no Ohioan could be forced to buy the Insurance. A friend of mine pointed out to me that Kasich made his mistake on the Union legislation by not doing what they did in Wisconsin which was to exempt Police, Fire and Emergency Providers in their reforms. By not exempt them Kasich gave the opposition too much ammunition to use against the legislation in a public vote.

No matter how I spin it however I didn’t want to see Prop 2 pass in Ohio and Paul Scott recalled. As a member of the Oceana Tea Party and a Tea Partier from the beginning I have seen a slowing down of the momentum of the Tea Party and had predicted a type of backlash. The media sure played it that way and it seems to have started. What this tells me is that I have to along with other conservatives and redouble our efforts. I wrote a longer piece on this in my Live Dangerously blog.

-----link-----
http://tinyurl.com/6q7dptm
---------------

Locally we held our Nov. Tea Party meeting. Our main event was showing the movie “Sick and Sicker” a documentary on ObamaCare and how it plays out in Canada, and we even served Popcorn. Before that however we conducted some business and I kept pushing the group to become Precinct Delegates. Also I told the members that our next Speaker for Dec. would be former State Rep. Jack Hoogendyk who would be telling us all about “Right to Work” in mi. This should be an interesting meeting. Jack ran last against US Senator Carl Levin. He is now based out of Lansing and has his finger on the pulse of what is going on.

Next, locally we celebrated Tues. morning the 52nd consecutive meeting of the Cozy Conservative Corner. It was our 1st year birthday. We had one of our best crowds, Tea Partiers, Republicans, independents. Conservatives all, you know those clingy flyover people with their bibles and guns. We had a snarky good time.

Later that day for lunch the Republicans of Oceana County had their meeting. I was happy to see the Wentzloffs attend as they are filing to run as Precinct Delegates next year. They are from the Tea Party.

All of my efforts have been to bring together various quote “divisions” within the Conservative movement and get more people out to vote in the next election to Dump Debbie and Obfuscate Obama and his agenda. Also at the meeting our Chair Juanita Pierman wasn’t there so John Hendrixon our co-chair was in charge. We talked a lot about the annual bus trip in which we fill a nice Charter bus with school kids to visit the state Capital and get a tour of the place with Sen. Goeff Hansen and probably our Rep. Jon Bumstead. We talked of getting Mason county involved and adding an extra bus so we could take over a hundred kids. Total cost will be over $2,000. Be prepared, the begging will soon start. LOL. Please think about donating something. Dig deep people as this is a good cause.

The next day Juanita and Tom Allison and I went to the Mason County Republican Party Meeting to promote that idea. Juanita made a nice presentation and answered all questions. They seemed more than willing. This is a great way to plant the seed of civic involvement and responsibility in our youth.

On a different note Juanita contacted the person running the Oceana County GOP website and he was supposed to call me but hasn’t yet. I will call him today. Our Oceana GOP site hasn’t been updated since the last election in 2010. I’m dying to get my hands on it and start filling it up with current stuff and all kinds of other things.

It will depend on the format as to what I can do and not to mention my abilities, but we have a big election coming in less than a year now and the need is huge. We all know the Presidential, Senatorial and Congressional races. But we also have our State Rep along with five Township officials from each of our 18(?) Townships -- that is a lot of candidates. I would like to list all of them and give links to anything they may want the public to know along with their pic etc. I would want this to be a one stop website for anyone to get the lowdown for issues and candidates running on the Republican ticket, no matter where in Oceana they live. I hope --- but we’ll see.

This could be another way to push Precinct Delegates which is a pet cause of mine. But mainly we need to get up current info about our Oceana Republican Party, when we meet and what we are doing. I want to get pictures up and make it as interesting as possible to all who view it. If we want to grow then this is a good platform to do it with.

Currently you can find the GOP and Tea Party on Face book under Oceana GOP and Oceana Tea Party.

So much for my schemes. LOL I’ve been working hard on my house outside and now I have a load of lumber to build a shed roof over my burn wood racks next to the house and large enough to cover my tractor and little utility vehicle.

Guess what. As I pulled up next to the pile of lumber with my bags of redi-mix, it started raining and today it is snowing.

It snowed this morning and is still coming down on and off as I’m writing this. It’s 3pm. Nothing is sticking thankfully. Hopefully there will still be a few clear enough days to cement in my posts and build my little tractor/wood port.

So long for now.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

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