TAL Minutes - April 2003

The Tulsa Area Libertarians met at Ryan's Steakhouse at 7:00 P.M.
April 17, 2003

The meeting was called to order by Angelia O'Dell, Chair.

Vice Chair Rob Roberts, read the Statement of Principles.

Mike Clem, Secretary, read the minutes. Minutes were approved as amended to include the request by Jason Doll, Webmaster, that people contact him with information for the website.

As Treasurer, Mike English was going to be late.  He had reported to the Chair that the TAL account balance was $576.22 plus a donation from Billy Roberts.

Old Business:
Harry Browne has been contacted for the 2004 February State Convention.  We will need to raise $5000.00 to cover all expenses.  This includes his airfare, hotel and speaking fee.  To support this effort, he has agreed to hold private consultations for which we can sell raffle tickets.  His fee for these one-hour consultations will be $500.00 per hour when normally he charges $1000.00

A report was given on the social held for Bill Stone, South Dakota, Libertarian candidate for Tom Daschle's position.  Italian food, music and plenty of good conversation contributed to a very enjoyable evening.

The last item of old business was the necessity of an itemized report showing the repayment of all but about $150.00 to the State for the 2002 Convention hosted by TAL.  Convention chair, Angelia O'Dell and Convention Treasurer, Michelle Cook will present a final report to the State.

Also discussed were the outreach pieces prepared by National called "The Viewpoint."  The membership present agreed that the "Viewpoints" would be an effective outreach tool and that we should accept them in lieu of our unified membership payments.  Albro Daniel agreed to contact our State Chair, Christopher Powell and inform him of our position.  We will use the papers as outreach literature at upcoming festivals and fairs.

New Business:
The SEC meeting has been set for May 11th; however it was noted that that is Mother's day, which may be inconvenient. The membership present was agreeable to an alternate date of May 18th if others wanted to change the date.

It was announced that the Italian Festival in McAlester is Memorial Day weekend, May 26th-May27th.  The Chair noted that the fairs need to be used for Ballot Access signature gathering. Rob Roberts agreed to get a list of LP inquiries from that area and see if some of those people would help at the booth.

The Chair asked a person to head up a garage sale committee and Misty Roberts agreed to assist.

The Chair also asked volunteers to assist with the Convention planning.  Michelle Cook has agreed to be Convention Chair and Clint Gallatin is handling the contacts with Harry Browne.  Joy and Mike Remmington agreed to assist.

A short program was presented by Roger Bloxham on the Environmental Protection Agency and its increasingly expanded powers.  He had finally obtained the official EPA manual and read excerpts from it to illustrate the contradictory, arbitrary and even tyrannical nature of many statements.  Bloxham noted that the EPA has become an extremely detrimental factor in the economy with many smaller businesses unable to meet the stringent and contradictory laws.  He also noted that many times federal agencies are involved in programs to stimulate the economy, while the EPA works at cross purposes and their regulation and compliance have a stultifying effect on the economy.  All entities are, of course, using taxpayer money.  Bloxham covered some of the history of the EPA and explained that the EPA was responsible for a major increase in the use of administrative law rather than judicial law.  Licensure, permits and enforceable edits from agencies circumvent the criteria for due process under the law and use administrative judges and courts rather than judicial.

Lynn Atherton
Acting Recording Secretary