September 912 Meeting is the County Budget Meeting, 9/13/11

This is a call to action for next week’s county budget hearing, Tuesday evening, 9/13/11 at 6:00pm. The meeting is in the county government center, 301 North Olive in West Palm Beach. Come early as the meeting is expected to be crowded.

As you prepare for the meeting, here are some resources that may be useful:

• September Talking Points
• Sample email and 3 minute remarks
• The 2012 TAB Proposal – September Update
• September Budget Hearings – Some Background

Also check the “News Articles” tab on the TAB website for the latest budget stories from the Palm Beach Post, Sun Sentinel, and others.

Those on the “receiving” side of the budget will be out in force. Those of us on the “paying” side must also have their voices heard. If you can’t attend, send an email. Addresses for the commissioners and administrator can be found on right side of the TAB website, or you can email all at once at: BCC-AllCommissioners@pbcgov.org.

For some specific details about this meeting, see the 9/9 TAB email.

Charter Review – Call to Action – Deadline August 26, 2011

Back in June, the County began public meetings about its ongoing Charter Review. See my post
here. If you recall – the County Charter is its ‘constitution’ and describes Home Rule. There are 20 Home Rule or Charter Counties in Florida. Palm Beach County does not have a formalized Charter Review process, and this is the first comprehensive review to have taken place.

The Charter and the county’s charter review website can be found here. While there are a few changes that the Commissioners would like, citizens can input their own suggestions via the County Website. Suggestions are limited to 300 words per suggestion. Here is a link to the survey page. You can make as many submissions as you like.

Personally, I am not in favor of a few changes favored by several of the Commissioners – a) changing the county commission makeup to include a few at-large commission districts, and b) to have non-partisan elections for County Commissioners.

I have a few changes that I am submitting in order to make for better governance without bogging down the document or specifying so much detail that the slim charter becomes unmanageable. You may have others. If you would like to submit any of the ones listed below, just click on the [copy] to the right of the suggestion you would like to copy, and then cut/paste from the text that comes up and submit that to the survey link above. Each of my submissions are shorter than the 300-word limit per submission.

Friday, August 26, is the last date on which submissions will be accepted on the county website.

Allen West—9 Step Action Plan

Volunteers Needed

The South Florida 912 is seeking volunteers to join our grassroots action team.

During the elections next year, this team will use a variety of tools to educate the public on the candidates and their positions. Methods will include making phone calls, walking neighborhoods, attending candidate rallies, and generally spreading the word about candidates who espouse our core principles and values.

In August and September, we are starting a pilot project to hone our skills, debug our tools, and work to prevent another increase in our county tax rates. Participants who complete an assignment on this project will receive formal recognition as a South Florida 912 Grassroots Activist, and be included in future team activities and events.

Projects will be starting the first week in August, so sign-up now! Given the August heat, most activities will involve making local calls from the air-conditioned comfort of your home, and attending several public meetings. If you can join us, please send a note to action@southflorida912.org and someone will contact you shortly.

Thank you,
The South Florida 912 Action Team

Call to Action – PBC 2012 maximum millage to be set on July 11th

We in South Florida 912 have been coalition partners and founding members of Palm Beach County Taxpayer Action Board.   You’ve heard about this for a year – now it’s time to act.  Read the details about the budget and background here,  and then go to the Tips and Talking Points for details on emails and speaking up at Commission meeting.

Time: 9:30 on July 11th with public comment to begin around 10am.

Place: 301 N. Olive, West Palm Beach Fl – County Commission Chambers

It’s time to act!

(note: the entire budget details can be found on the county site here.)

Call to Action – County Budget Workshop

The initial county budget for 2012 has been published in preparation for the budget workshop on Monday, June 13 at 6:00pm in the BCC chambers on the 6th floor of the county building at 301 North Olive. The Sheriff does his presentation at 6:45pm, followed by public comment at 7:30pm.

We need your help! – Come to the meeting and tell the commissioners not to raise our taxes.

On its face, the budget maintains the same tax rates as last year (4.75 county-wide millage), but the County Administrator is asking the Board of County Commissioners to raise that rate to 4.992, “to reinstate some of the less desireable budget cuts”. This is orchestrated – the submitted budget is designed to bring the vocal interest groups to the meeting to protest cuts to PBSO, Palm Tran, the pools and lifeguards, etc. Like last year, the commissioners won’t be able to say no the Palm Tran Connection riders who will come to the meeting in their wheelchairs. We need to insist that if they reverse these cuts, they take the money from elsewhere so the budget stays neutral at 4.75 mills.

TAB expects participation from all the coalition partners, but in the past it has been 912′ers that has provided the most vocal and numerous opposition to county tax increases. Time to gear up and do it again.

To help, we have prepared a sample 2 minute public comment, and a sample email to the commission (CLICK HERE). Feel free to use and modify.

Also, for background information, check out these resources:

From the TAB website:

• The TAB Proposal and the County Budget
• The Kabuki Budget

and from the local media:

• Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw: I can’t cut more
• Palm Beach County administrator: “Most difficult budget year ever”
• Palm Beach County budget cuts target parks, sheriff to avoid tax increase

Once again, please come to the meeting or at least send an email to the commissioners. Email addresses for all commissioners are listed on the right sidebar of the TAB website at http:/pbctab.org

ALERT–FLIMEN–ALERT

LINK TO HOUSE
LINK TO SENATE

2) CALL THE FOLLOWING SENATORS
(EMAILS WILL NOT LIKELY BE READ BUT IF YOU BUT IF YOU DO, MAKE THE SUBJECT LINE SOMETHING LIKE “PRO-E-VERIFY”; FAXES ARE GREAT; * = MOST IMPORTANT):

Urgent Action Required – IG and Ethics Ordinances

Help is needed to prevent a last minute attempt to weaken the Office of Inspector General.

Please attend the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners meeting:

When:  Tuesday May 3rd
Time: 2:30pm (arrive prior to that time and submit a card if you wish to speak or have your card read into the record)
Agenda Items: 4G1 (IG), 4H1 (Commission on Ethics), 4H2 (Code of Ethics)*
Where:  County Commission Chambers – 6th floor, 301 N Olive, West Palm Beach FL

See article in Palm Beach Post.

The Palm Beach County League of Cities has not given up on the municipalities’ attempts to thwart the scope and independence of the Inspector General. The League is once again raising issues that were the topics of heated debate during the entire 3-month ordinance drafting period. Some of their issues:

- They still insist that definitions be inserted for Fraud, Waste, Abuse, Misconduct and Mismanagement
- They raise concerns about the ability of the IG to have unfettered access to records and the IG’s ability to subpoena
- They disagree with the procedures for filing complaints again the IG
- They are unhappy with the funding for the IG – larger cities are concerned that they will not ‘get their money’s worth”. They also feel that the funding requirement is an unfunded mandate.
- They also want to make additional changes to the Ethics Ordinances
- They want to delay implementation of all three ordinances until October 1 – which is the next fiscal year (2012).

All of the issues, save the last, were topics of endless debate for the last 3 months.  The drafting committee members voted on each section of each ordinance.  The League of Cities had equal membership with the County in the drafting of the ordinances. 

Points you should consider making (if you speak, submit a card to be read into the record, or in an email):

1.  The opposition to adding definitions to the IG ordinance received a final 5:2 vote by the drafting committee.  The national Association of Inspectors General weighed in on the subject and said definitions would “have the unintended consequences of restricting the office and hampering its effectiveness”.  We want an independent Inspector General.

2. The ordinance drafting committees worked for over 3 months on agreeing to the changes in the ordinances.  Do not over-ride the hours the committee spent debating and voting on all of these topics, just because a couple of the members were not successful in making their case to the committee.   Please approve on preliminary reading and advertise for public hearing on May 17th the 3 ordinances as presented by ordinance drafting committees.

3.  The majority of voters in each of the 38 municipalities voted for the ordinances to apply to their city.  The funding requirement was in the ordinance voted for and states “shall be funded at a minimum in an amount equal to one quarter of one percent of contracts of the county, and all other governmental entities subject to the authority of the inspector general”.   The ordinance does not specify how the entities will pay the fee – the cities have the choice, should they so vote, to add a .25% fee to all of their contracts.

4. Delaying the implementation until October 1 is unacceptable.  There are complaints awaiting action by both the Commission on Ethics and the Inspector General that cannot be dealt with until the ordinances are adopted.

If you are unable to attend the meeting, please send an email to the commissioners making similar points at:
BCC-AllCommissioners@pbcgov.org.

  *The Agenda for the meeting can be found here.

Wisconsin Call to Action

We received this today:

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Jim Woods
Medina County Friends And Neighbors (MCFAN)
North East Ohio Conservative Council (NEOCC)
Regional Director for North East Ohio, Ohio Liberty Council (OLC) Board of Directors
http://www.ohiofan.org

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From: Thomas R. Zawistowski
Subject: EMERGENCY CALL TO ACTION
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 13:43:54 -0400
To: james.woods

Dear Jim,

Many of you who have been in the Patriot Movement since last year at this time will remember that our efforts were instrumental in getting Scott Brown Elected to the Senate in Massachusetts. Today, I believe that we are having another Scott Brown moment that requires your immediate attention and sacrifice.

In case you are not aware, the Public Unions in Wisconsin are attempting to circumvent the legislative process by electing a radical judge to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in an election that will be held in Wisconsin this Tuesday. The incumbent conservative Judge David Prosser was up by 15% and consider an easy win a few weeks ago. Then the Unions started to pour money into a campaign to unseat him. Why? Because this seat will be the deciding vote in the Wisconsin Supreme Court and they are going to try and get rid of Governor Walker’s bill eliminating collective bargaining for state workers by going through the courts, using activist judges. I believe that it is in our best interest as conservatives to do what we can to keep that from happening.

Below you will see an email from the TEA Party Express which is on the ground running ads to fight for Judge Prosser. The race is considered a dead heat going into the weekend. If we can start to bring our resources to bear this today, we can make the difference in this race. I am asking you SEND THIS TO YOUR MEMBERS TODAY and to click the donate link below and give what you can give.

This is important. We can not let the public unions stall the nationwide movement to reign in there power over our government. We have to win this race. I really appreciate your support and ask you to act NOW.

Sincerely,

Thomas R. Zawistowski
Executive Director
Portage County TEA Party
4682 State Route 43
Kent, OH 44240

We’re down to just 4 days before the critical election for Wisconsin Supreme Court – an election that will determine whether Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators win or if Barack Obama and his union bosses will win.
To further demonstrate how critically important this election is, consider this: Governor Sarah Palin has now gotten involved in the race urging a vote for Conservative Justice David Prosser. Here’s the report from Politico:

FOUR MORE DAYS – PALIN FOR PROSSER: Wisconsin voters go to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in a state Supreme Court race and a Milwaukee County executive election that will test the strength of popular opposition to Republican Gov. Scott Walker. The judicial election is especially important because the state Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the Republican-backed measure to limit collective bargaining for public employees. The latest sign that the election has become nationalized came overnight, when @SarahPalinUSA tweeted support for conservative Justice David Prosser: “Wisconsin, please remember to vote for Justice Prosser on April 5.”

We here at the Tea Party Express are one of the few “conservative” groups running ads in this race. With just 4 days left we are giving it everything we’ve got and have already spent over $100,000 in this campaign.
We must spend much more though to reach all of Wisconsin’s voters and we need your help. Please donate to our Wisconsin State PAC (click on the banner above)
If you can afford a larger contribution of $100, $250, $500, $1,000 or more, then please help us.

You can contribute any amount – since this is a State PAC there are NO contribution limits, and corporate contributions ARE accepted.
To contribute, click on the banner above and follow the links.

As always, if you prefer, you may also make a contribution via U.S. mail, by sending a check to:
State Tea Party Express
8795 Folsom Boulevard, Suite 103
Sacramento, CA 95826-3720
*Note: Make checks payable to “State Tea Party Express”

Textbook Protest PB County

NOTE: This protest has been postponed – see attached comment.

Subject: Textbook Protest PB County

————
February 22nd, 2011

4:00p

Fulton Holland building
3300 Forest Hill Blvd
West Palm Beach

This is a letter from our friend and active 912 er

Please get involved!

===========Hi Everyone…just want to let you know that I’ve stepped up as Chair of the Palm Beach County Textbook Action Team (TAT) to address the issue of the flawed textbooks our children are using.

The Palm Beach County School Board has received a letter and a list of many of the errors/omissions in our children’s textbooks. They have been asked to work with us to have textbook discrepancies addressed and rectified/explained to students by their teachers in the classroom. They have also been asked to notify the book publishers that no additional textbooks will be purchased until the present issues have been resolved.

A statewide protest, targeting those counties whose school boards have chosen not to respond or to work with us, has been scheduled for Tuesday, February 22, 2011, George Washington’s birthday (see attached flyer). To date, I have not received a response from the Palm Beach County School Board. I am therefore requesting your help with the protest. Please let me know if you and any members of your group will be available for the protest. Below are some suggestions for signs – please send me your suggestions.

Pass this on to everyone you know. For those of you in Broward County, check with Andrea Joy Bellitto (iamajoy1969@aol.com), Broward County TAT Chair. In the event the Palm Beach County School Board decides to cooperate, the protest will be cancelled and you will be notified.

Here are some possible signs:

· Truth In Education

· Remove Faulty Textbooks

· Children Believe What They Read

· Just because it is in Print – Doesn’t Make It True

WE NEED BODIES!!! Any questions, contact me. Thanks in advance for your co-operation.

Alison Rampersad, TAT Chair
Palm Beach County
sitaramc@comcast.net

(954) 977-4888

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