BUNCOMBE COUNTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING

April 24, 2006

Present

Chuck Durand Bill Reynolds

Sandra Bradbury Bill Porter

Frank Kirkland Kathie Lack

Frances Cosgrove

Absent

George Keller: 252-4423 Eric Gorney: 686-8260

Nancy Day: 251-1988 Michelle Cox: 683-4620

Robin Ramsey: 628-3216 Renee Russell: 684-0037

Betty Budd: 231-6977 Bob Long: 258-9987

Frances Cosgrove: 254-1015 Matthew Hebb: 337-0728

Ron Dayton: 258-0807 Mary Jane Westall: 254-6221

Jennifer Styles: 667-8511 Daniel Rodriguez: 628-0804

Jerry Orr: 669-9279 Beki Taylor: 667-8119

Alice Keller: 252-4423 Bill Lack: 253-5709

Vice-Chairman Chuck Durand called the meeting to order at 6:40 p.m. at Ryan’s Family Steak House, then gave the invocation and led the pledge of allegiance.

Sandra Bradbury called the roll. A quorum was not present.

Bill Reynolds said whatever we do in connection with the upcoming election, we just need to do it with thought and passion. It always works better if you act like you mean what you say.

Bill Porter passed out a card showing where he stands on issues. Bill wants changes in Raleigh and is going after income tax. He is not satisfied that the lottery cannot be undone and is determined to get rid of it. Trudi Wallen has said if we had drawn districts we would have the majority. We need Republican control for redistricting after the 2010 census. Bill Reynolds noted that the NAACP blames redistricting on Wilma Sherrill.

Frances asked if Mark Crawford is a candidate and was told that Mark now lives in Cullowee, District 50. He is running against four people.

Chuck heard second-hand that the Board of Elections has enough people to do the job at the upcoming election. He will verify that information tomorrow. Counters start at 7:00 p.m. At 4:00 p.m., the BOE will call Judges and ask about their turnout. They will know from previous experience how many more will come in. The BOE will send some counters to help. They think they will be able to take the master list of volunteers and call them at 4:00 p.m. to go to certain polls. This will give them two hours to get to the polls.

No one knew whether the Sheriff’s race will bring out a lot of Democrats. Chuck said he was going to continue to call people to be on standby as counters. They will be paid $75 for a few hours work. Frances said she had tried to get the BOE to let people work half-days. Frank Kirkland thought the BOE should be able to say if they have all the Republican poll worker slots filled. Chuck said he is still getting calls from Chief Judges needing more poll workers.

It was noted that the Judge race is important. We have a strong majority on the court but it gets diluted every time the Governor appoints someone else. We want to maintain that majority. Democrats want to control the courts because they cannot get what they want in the legislature. Chuck had cards showing the Judge candidates endorsed by the NC Republican Party. Chuck said the NC Republican Party fooled around and refused to endorse anyone, so we decided to print these cards. The day the cards were delivered, the State Party finally sent us a set with their endorsements.

The primary will have paper ballots, counters and older people working. This paper trail came out of the 2000 election. The Buncombe County BOE had machines ready for this primary. On the day they would have made their presentation to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners, the Commissioners had already decided on paper ballots. Chuck said we need to get behind the BOE and give them our support so we can use machines in the next election. We have $8,000,000 of machines in storage and will be counting paper ballots this time.

Chuck said the headquarters lease expires May 2. The owner is out of the country and his representative had full authority to negotiate with us; however, she always wants to contact the owner about everything. He will be back this week. If he decides to raise the rent from $300 to $600 a month we cannot afford it. By tomorrow something should be decided. If the owner will not continue to charge $300, we will have to move and find another place. We need office space and storage space. Chuck advised everyone to stand by to make a move. We might have to take office stuff to an office and store the other stuff. We will need people to help move May 4 or 5. We have about $2,000 for headquarters.

The next meeting will be an Executive Committee meeting on May 22. [Note added after the meeting – the May 22 meeting is of the CENTRAL Committee.]

Our next project is Get Out the Vote. This was talked about it in the Action Club. We will have a plan; e.g., verify phone numbers. We need more participation from candidates for Get Out the Vote. All this is for the November election. On May 22, plans will be ready for the Get Out the Vote program. It is a very time-consuming job. We do not want to go through poll worker problems for the November election.

Chuck suggested a change in our organization. We will need to vote on this at the next meeting (if we have a quorum) that each Precinct Judge has more incentive to get poll workers than the Precinct Chair. Judges are appointed for two years. We have no Chairs in 20 precincts. There are only two precincts with no Judge. Frances noted that Chairmen do not get paid. Precinct Chairs will work with the Judges, send lists of previous poll workers to the Judges and have them call and confirm they will work. There will still have to be follow-up.

Frances said the Area Coordinators used to get poll workers. There was much discussion about splitting precincts and finding places to vote that are handicapped-accessible. They will probably split two or three more precincts in the future. We now have 75 precincts. Frances said at one time the BOE talked about new voting places for Precinct 14, which covers a lot of territory. There is presently a small voting place, but nothing was ever done about it.

Chuck said we will try to work out the details at the next meeting. We need to work on getting poll workers. The Precinct Chair will be outside and the Judge inside. They will work to staff polls inside and out. We can get more done with less people.

Bill Porter said there are two new members in the Men’s Club.

Frances said the Blue Ridge Club is growing. They are selling Vidalia onions as a fund-raiser.

Kathie Lack said there will be a County Commissioners meeting tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. Property rights advocates should be against county-wide zoning. Nathan Ramsey will present a non-binding referendum to vote on. We need that room to be packed. We need to load the room and vote on it. Kathie said we will have stickers saying “No Zoning”. She thought Nathan would ask for public comment that would be televised. She wanted everybody to sign up to speak whether they want to speak or not.

Kathie said the Action Club project is a billboard campaign. The first idea is a picture of the American flag inverted under the Mexican flag. The words “Had enough?” and a website address would be below the picture. Candidate positions on immigration are on the website. The Action Club wants to work on other issues, like the gas tax. They plan to raise money and keep funding projects. They will use every opportunity to get the word out about candidates and issues. They plan to go to every event possible to set up a booth.

The meeting adjourned at 7:35 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sandra Bradbury, Secretary

Buncombe County Republican Executive Committee