Portage County TEA Party

4682 State Route 43 • Kent, Ohio • 44240 • 330-474-3878 • 330-673-4672 (Fax)

February 28, 2013

Mr. Michael Gonidakis

President

Ohio Right to Life

88 East Broad Street, Suite 620

Columbus, OH, 43215

Dear Mr. Gonidakis,

Though we have not yet met, I am well aware of your organization and our group respects the mission of Ohio Right to Life and the work that it does. However, I am confused by your organizations aggressive support for the expansion of Medicaid in Ohio, after the citizens of Ohio overwhelmingly passed the Ohio Heath Care Amendment rejecting the expansion of government run heath care.  An Amendment I believe the majority of your donors supported. I concede your right to speak for your organization, and to make your own decisions about where you stand on this and other political issues, even if we disagree. However, you cannot speak for our organization or our movement as you tried to do yesterday.

I and our organization are offended by the blanket statement you made yesterday that is simply not true and is insulting to the hundreds of thousands of Ohioan who are affiliated with the TEA Party movement.  Yesterday you said “Do tea party leaders really want to say “To hell with these fellow Ohioans”?” in challenging our opposition to the expansion of Medicaid in Ohio.  What TEA Party leader has ever said anything remotely resembling that? Where have we ever acted in anything but the best interests of our fellow citizens and our state? Our opposition to the Medicaid expansion is based on real concerns that this expansion will not improve health care for these citizens because Medicaid is already a failing program. Fewer and fewer doctors are willing to participate in Medicaid and adding hundreds of thousands of new patients will not make treatment better or more economical. Pretending that taking federal tax dollars for funding Medicaid expansion is somehow "free money" that does not eventually come out of the pockets of Ohio and other tax payers just makes your argument even less convincing.

Your statement is a false representation of what we believe in and why we oppose the Governor on this issue. You owe all of the good people who are part of the TEA Party Movement in Ohio an apology for publicly suggesting that we do not care about our fellow citizens when our positions indicate that we care more deeply about them than you and your organization. Despite your willingness to compromise your organizations principals based on the outcome of an election, as indicated in your statements yesterday, we remain committed to our principals and will continue to stand for free market health care solutions and the rights of individuals to make their own health care decisions.

Regards,

Thomas R. Zawistowski

Executive Director

Portage County TEA Party

 FREE PUBLIC SHOWING OF “FrackNation”

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2013 

KENT, OH: — The Portage County TEA Party announced today that it will provide a FREE public showing of the independent documentary, FrackNation, at the Maplewood Career Center on Sunday, February 24, 2013 at 2:00 PM.  Maplewood Career Center is located at 7075 Ohio State Route 88, Ravenna, Ohio.  The movie investigates the charges that have been made, in print and in cult films like “Gasland”, which claim the process of hydrolic-fracturing is “dangerous” and should be stopped.  FrackNation was independently funded using a new social media called “crowdfunding” in which over 3,000 individuals donated over $220,000 to pay for its production.  It was written and directed by a trio of filmmakers: husband and wife team Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney and their colleague Magdalena Segieda - who did not take any oil or gas industry money to fund their investigation which took several years to complete. 

In making the announcement, Tom Zawistowski, Executive Director of the Portage County TEA Party said, “It is important for all Ohio citizens to see FrackNation because “fracking” has been under consistent attack in our state by well-funded groups on the left who use misinformation and gross exaggerations to provoke fear among our citizens.  FrackNation investigates these charges and sets the record straight in an entertaining and provocative way that will bring comfort to anyone in our community who is concerned about this practice. That is why our organization is working with more than 60 other groups around Ohio to provide an opportunity for everyone to see FrackNation for free.  We look forward to having a large crowd for our showing on February 24th for the hour and 15 minute film.”

FrackNation follows journalist Phelim McAleer across America as he faces threats, malicious 911 calls and bogus lawsuits for just trying find the truth about fracking.  Fracking is a way of extracting oil and gas from deep in the earth. It has led to a fossil fuel boom in many states across the U.S. and has become the number one target of the environmental movement.  McAleer uncovers fracking facts suppressed by environmental activists, and he talks with rural Americans whose livelihoods are at risk if fracking is banned.  You can view the FrackNation trailer on YouTube by going to:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq2Y6A6LqcY. 

“FrackNation is pro-truth and pro-investigative journalism. It reveals the exaggerations and frauds that are at the heart of the anti-fracking movement and the length activists will go to reach their goal of banning fracking,” said Phelim McAleer, co-director.

Supreme Court Ruling: We wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

Several weeks have passed since the Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare and I have spent that time trying to make sense of it. Chief Justice Roberts’ statement, “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices,” certainly caught my interest.  Since then I have thought a lot about how disappointed many members of our movement are in the “System.” The System of government we believe in so dearly.  Equal branches of government, checks and balances, representative government.  None of which appear to be in working order from our point of view.

In August of 2009, we went to town hall meetings with our Congressmen to clearly state that we did not want government healthcare. We were called radicals, and worse, and our “representatives” stopped having town hall meetings. 

Then we went to Washington in September of 2009, with over a million of our fellow Americans, stood at the steps of the Capitol, and in a loud collective voice, told our representatives to “Kill the Bill”.  Instead they pretended we were not there. 

So we came back again in November 2009 and demanded that they listen not just to us, but to the 60%+ of Americans who did not want the government to take over healthcare.  The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted to pass the bill, even while admitting that they did not read it.

With the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, we were given another chance to work within the “System”. Despite what many called impossible odds, we worked to get a Republican named Scott Brown, who had promised that he would not vote for the ObamaCare bill, elected to the key 60th Senate seat.  The System had finally worked, the people had spoken.  But our “representatives” still would not listen to the people. They wanted control of healthcare in the US and they would get it no matter what the majority wanted. Once again, in the spring of 2010, our System of government had let us down.

In 2011, over 4,500 volunteers under the Ohio Project took 18 months to collect 381,000 citizen signatures to get the Ohio Health Care Amendment on the ballot. The issue passed by a 66% margin last November with 2,221,175 citizens saying NO to ObamaCare. None the less, in 2012 the Supreme Court let us down by not doing their job while blaming the American people for not doing theirs.

So, We the People, the majority of whom do not want any kind of government-controlled healthcare, find ourselves three years later, right back where we started.  We have been ignored by the House of Representatives, the US Senate, the President and the Supreme Court.  But despite all of that, we haven’t lost a thing. It is totally within our power to rise up and use the ballot box to defeat Barack Obama and win the Senate this November, and ObamaCare will be no more, it will in fact never have been at all. 

For if this is truly a government “of the people, by the people and for the people”, isn’t it appropriate that the outcome is ultimately in the hands of the people?  Today it doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court said, or what the polls say, or what the media says.  The only thing that matters now is what we say.  We are privileged to be in Ohio at this critical time in our nation’s history, when we must choose between individual Liberty and Statism. Not just for ourselves, but for our fellow countrymen and future generations.  All we have to do is reach out to our fellow citizens, and decide together which path our nation should follow. Then let our decision be known on election day. We wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

Tom Zawistowski

Executive Director

Portage County TEA Party

Ms. Allyson Westover

President

Field Board of Education

Ms. Westover,

Perhaps you should have followed your own instincts and refrained from responding to my letter to the editor in the Record Courier.  Your charge that the TEA Party “made the decision” to disseminate information to the public with distorted facts, figures and misleading information regarding the districts financial forecast is a blatant lie.  I will not stand by and have you accuse the member of the Portage County TEA Party, who are residents of Brimfield and Sufffied, who volunteered to spend hundreds of hours of their personal time, to meet with the Board, the Superintended and the Treasurer, of intentionally misleading the public. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

These people have more dedication to the school system than you or your Board will ever have. These people are CPA’s, and businessmen and businesswomen who committed their time to allow you and your Treasurer to explain your forecasts and your finances and you could not do it.  If you can’t explain your finances so a CPA can understand them, how do you expect a common citizen to understand them?  Our members told the public the truth about the schools finances - you just don’t want them to know the truth.

Furthermore, your statement about our singling out just Field schools is also untrue.  I just spoke to the Waterloo Superintendent this week and our members have meet with the Waterloo School Board and the Superintendent numerous times in the past year. We are closely engaged with the Crestwood Board and Superintendent right now.  We have had numerous discussions with the Aurora School Board. The fact is our members are engaged with their communities as much as we can possibly have the time to be engaged all over the County.

As for your questioning the fact that the TEA Party was asked to write a proposal for a levy that would be approved by the public, I was asked to do so in a private meeting on January 12, 2012 with a key administrator from Field School who called me and requested that meeting.  Why you did not know about it says alot about the disfunction of this Board under your leadership.  In that meeting I was also asked to tell the Portage County TEA Party members in the Field District to vote for the levy on the Ballot in the March Primary.  I explained at that time, that I do not tell the members of the Portage County TEA Party what to do in their communities, they tell me what they want to do. They did the work to understand the facts and only they can decide what they want to do with their tax money.  Which they do by voting.

This is the mistake that you, and many others in the county, consistently make about the TEA Party.  We have 2,200 Totally Engaged Americans as members who understand that freedom and liberty come with the personal responsibility for the governance in their community. That means going to local government meetings, taking the time to understand the issues and the finances involved, and contributing to the discussion about what is best for the community they live in.  Our members are doing that, and we encourage all citizen to join us, but our members make all the decision about what action our group takes in their community. The groups in Brimfield and Suffield make the decisions about Field School Levies, I do not.

In your letter, you note that Field Schools suffered a 10% cut in operating budget over the past two years, but when we put forward a proposal to back a levy to make up those cuts with new taxes, the Board didn’t even consider the proposal.  The Ohio Department of Education representative, Mr. Hardin, stated that he felt that the Field District was funded at about 88% of what it should be, our proposal would cure that with a 10% increase.  He also said that the Field District had a student teacher ratio of 17-1 when the state average is 22-1 and that adjustments needed to be made.  We proposed a 5% pay cut to save teacher jobs and provide better services for the students, but the Board will not even propose it, because they want to protect the senior union employees at the expenses of students.  The tried and true union tactic is to take away all the special programs, and busing, and charge for sports and other activities to “blackmail” the community into giving into their demands for more money.  So, much for caring about the children. It is all about greed.

As far as me attending Field School Board meetings, I gave several years of my time and money to the Field Schools and I attended dozens of meetings only to see greedy union interests destroy the system. From all accounts, the Field School Board meetings have become nothing but union rallies at which regular citizens are treated with disrespect and intimidation tactics and you and your Board do nothing about it.  Mr. Kettering started openly laughing at one of our members who was trying to make at statement at a recent Public Board Meeting in an attempt to intimidate him.  You, as Board President, did nothing to reprimand him or bring order to the meeting. The three of you have created this atmosphere of distrust and division in the community not the TEA Party.  I have asked our members to stop going to your meetings because it is just a waste of their time. 

This Board is not and never has been open to community involvement in solving the financial issues. Your message has consistently been, we want more of your money and we will do whatever it takes to force you to give it to us. The community message has been -  it is our money and we are not going to give it to people we do not trust to spend it appropriately.  It comes down to a matter of trust. You don’t have it and the TEA Party does.  Your actions are driving this District into state receivership for no reason other than your inability to engage with the community in an honest manner and put all issues on the table including wages and benefits.  Since you are not interested in solving the problem, you should resign so that citizens who are interested in doing so can get the job done and bring the students of the Field School District the education they deserve and that the tax payers have paid for them to receive.

Tom Zawistowski

Executive Director
Portage County TEA Party

Portage County TEA Party PAC

March 6, 2012 Primary Endorsements

(Click on the 2012 Canditates Link to the Left to View Videos)

Republican Endorsements

President - Rick Santorum

Senate - Josh Mandel

State Central Committee - Jamie Callendar

Ohio House 76th District - Matt Lynch

County Commissioner - Roak Zeller

County Recorder - Kevin Fowler

Democrat Endorsements

Sheriff - David Doak

County Commissioner - Jon Barber

Issues

AGAINST Field School Distrit PERMANENT Levy

AGAINST Waterloo School District PERMANENT Levy

Portage County TEA Party

4682 State Route 43 • Kent, Ohio • 44240 • 330-474-3878 • 330-673-4672 (Fax)

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - June 10, 2012

Ohio House Candidates to Speak at Public Meeting - June 12th at Maplewood

Kent, Ohio -  The Portage County TEA Party will host a public meeting at which all four candidates for Ohio House races in Portage County have been invited to speak. The meeting will be held at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, June 12, 2012 at the Maplewood Career Center at 7075 State Route 88, just North of Ravenna. Each candidate will speak for 15 minutes. In the 75th House District, which includes thirteen southern townships, incumbent Democrat Kathleen Clyde is being challenged by Republican Nick Skeriotis. In the 76th House District, Democrat Tom Warren will be competing with Republican Matt Lynch in the seven northern most townships. Those who attend the meeting will have an opportunity to meet the candidates individually and ask them questions after their speeches. The speeches will all be video taped and posted on both the Portage County TEA Party website and the Record Courier website.

Furthermore, the Portage County TEA Party will be opening for public viewing it’s new fair booth which will be erected in the Maplewood Cafeteria for attendees to go through before the meeting. Over 200 man hours have gone into designing and constructing the  20’ x 10’ tent display. It contains 26 panels, hung in a maze like format, which describe in pictures and words the founding or our nation, the current economic issues plaguing our nation and the role every citizen must play in getting our nation back on track.  The meeting is free and open to all citizens and refreshments will be served.

The TEA Party is not a political party but a grassroots cultural movement.  The movement is educating American citizens about the Constitution and the uniquely American form of self-governance that has made our country so successful.  Through this education, the movement is attempting to re-define what it means to be an American citizen, by encouraging individual to vote, to run for office and to attend government meeting in their area so that they can participate in their self governance.  The acronym TEA stands for Totally Engaged Americans.

#30#

Portage County TEA Party PAC

4682 State Route 43 • Kent, Ohio • 44240 • 330-474-3878 • 330-673-4672 (Fax)

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 7, 2012

60% OF PORTAGE COUNTY TEA PARTY PAC ENDORSEMENTS WIN

Kent, Ohio -  In the primary elections on March 6, 2012, 60% of the candidates endorsed by the Portage County TEA Party PAC won at the polls.  Republican Candidates Josh Mandel for US Senate, Matt Lynch for Ohio House 76th District, and  Kevin Fowler for Count Recorder, were winners along with Democrat David Doak for Sheriff.  The group also endorsed against the Field and Waterloo School Levies, both of which were defeated.  

Portage County TEA Party Executive Director, Tom Zawistowski, summed up the election by saying, “We congratulate all the candidates who ran for office, not just those who won. It is a tremendous act of personal sacrifice for these citizens to have the courage to participate in the election process. We thank them for stepping up.” He continued by saying, “We are also thankful to our PCTEA members who not only endorsed these candidates and issues, but put their time, money and effort behind those endorsements. Finally, we want to thank the citizens of Portage County for coming to our candidates nights, viewing the candidate videos on our website, and trusting the Portage County TEA Party endorsements once again." He concluded by adding, "This is a monumental election year for our nation and the Portage County TEA Party will be bringing just about every candidate to our community throughout the summer and fall, so that every voter can be an informed voter in the 2012 elections.”

The TEA Party is not a political party but a grassroots cultural movement.  The movement is educating American citizens about the Constitution and the uniquely American form of self-governance that has made our country so successful.  Through this education, the movement is attempting to re-define what it means to be an American citizen, by encouraging individual to vote, to run for office and to attend government meetings in their area so that they can participate in their self governance.  The acronym TEA stands for Totally Engaged Americans.

#30#

Tom Zawistowski, Executive Director of the Portage County TEA Party and Ohio Liberty Coalition President, appeared on the PBS show “The State of Ohio” on Sunday, October 14, 2012.  Among the topics discussed were the involvement of Ohio liberty groups in this election and the “phenomena” of Americans participating in their own self-governance which the establishment parties just don’t yet understand.  

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UNDERSTAND THE FISCAL INSANITY:

This short video is a non-political explaination, by an accountant, of the severe financial challenges facing our nation:

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Portage County TEA Party

4682 State Route 43 • Kent, Ohio • 44240 • 330-474-3878 • 330-673-4672 (Fax)

Editor                                                                       February 14, 2012

Ravenna Record Courier

126 North Chestnut Street

Ravenna, OH  44266

Dear Editor,

As your readers know, the Portage County TEA Party recently submitted a proposal to the Field School Board that would restore cut services and produce a balanced budget from now until 2016 and beyond.  This proposal was a direct result of administrators and citizens linked to the Board coming to our organization and asking us to tell them what it would take to get a levy passed by the community.  We put forward a proposal that asked both citizens and district employees to share the sacrifice to bring the community together in a way that was fair to all parties and benefited the children.  That proposal was rejected by the Board without a single word of discussion with our members or leadership.

Our organization, meaning our leaders in Suffield and Brimfield - not just me, provided detailed information concerning our proposal to the Publisher and Editor of this newspaper, but apparently there was not enough space to print the numbers, graphs and charts we provided to make our case. So, I will take a few paragraphs here to sum up what the Board rejected. Our Brimfield and Suffield members met to vote on our position concerning the current 7 Mill levy that will be voted on this March 6th. They voted unanimously to reject that levy which would be a 30% increase in property taxes, include 8% raises for teachers and staff, and would be a permanent “forever” levy that citizens will never get to vote on again.  It was not until after that vote was taken that our alternate proposal to the Board was discussed with our members.

Let me be clear, it is no easy task to get citizens who just voted unanimously against a tax increase to be open minded enough to consider a tax increase. However, we explained that the District had suffered real income losses due to the cutbacks in state and federal spending.  We suggested that it would be a show of good faith for citizens to step up and make up for those losses by passing a 2.4 mill five year levy that would generate $883,000 per year. This would be a 10% increase in property taxes. This would take the average home owner in Fields School Districts property taxes to about $2,500 per year with about $1,600 of that going directly to the school. However, this was only part of the solution.

The next step was to ask the Board to open the contract and negotiate with the teachers, and staff at Field Schools to agree to a 5% cut in pay across the board - which by law is the only action the Board can take.  A balanced budget also required a complete pay freeze for five years.  Our organization did a survey of home owners in the district in January.  That survey showed that 45% of all homes had suffered between a 10% and 25% loss in total household income over the past three years.  It further showed that 40% of those households had at least one person unemployed for at least three months since 2008.  Finally, it showed that 42% projected that the value of their home had decreased between 10%-40% since 2008. These were the people we were going to ask for a tax increase and for whom the Board wants to take money for an 8% pay raise! 

Finally, our proposal said that if the teachers and staff agreed in writing to the 5% cut and five year pay freeze, that we would work not only to get citizens to pass the 10% tax increase, but also to renew the 7.3 mill levy that would come up for renewal in 2013.  We understand, nobody wants to take a pay cut.  Nobody wants a tax increase either. However, if we care about our kids education, everyone needs to be reasonable and responsible and give a little.

Unfortunately, the union controlled Field School Board does not believe in sharing the sacrifice.  They claim that our proposal is “neither doable or viable” despite the fact that they have complete legal authority to take this action. They say they are “more than willing to listen to viable solutions from the community” apparently as long as the community just agrees to give them what they want. They forget the Golden Rule - he who has the gold makes the rules.  It’s the tax payers money and we make the rules. The last levy failed 70%-30%. The March 6th Levy will fail by a similar amount.  The tax payers, of which the TEA Party is just 10%, have spoken loud and clear. So, what does the School Board announce along with the rejection of our proposal?  “If the levy fails on March 6th we will put the same levy on the Ballot in June.”  What is the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.  Who is the unreasonable party, the TEA Party or the Union controlled School Boards in our county and our state?

Tom Zawistowski

Executive Director 

Portage County TEA Party