November Meeting Recap

In Case You Missed the November 15 QC – STV RWF Meeting

Our November meeting was the first meeting in our new location at the San Tan Civic Center. The room is larger than our previous location and can accommodate up to 75 people. We were not sure how many members and guests might attend in the aftermath of the election, so we were pleasantly surprised to see the large crowd that came out to hear our four terrific speakers.

November is our annual meeting and every two years we hold our election of officers during the annual meeting. We introduced the proposed slate of officers for the 2023-2024 term of office at our October meeting. 

There were no additional nominations for the following positions, therefore, the new BOD was elected by unanimous consent:

• President Kaye Feller
• 1st VP Program Kim Snow
• 2nd VP Membership Arlene Stassinos
• 3rd VP Ways & Means Gail De Mario and Pamela Brandis
• Secretary Rosalynn Gorski
• Treasurer Kathleen Leaman

Our treasurer, Kathleen Leaman provided her annual report on improvements put in place during the last year. Her report is available upon request.

Arlene Stassinos, 2nd VP Membership also provided her annual report on our growing membership. Following her report, Arlene held a drawing for those members whose renewal for 2023 was made prior to November 10. Winners were Annice Jones, Lena Hodges and Kim Snow. We offered one prize for associate members who had renewed by November 10. The winner was Jim Ross. Congratulations to the winners.

The first of our four speakers was District 2 Supervisor, Michael Goodman. Supervisor Goodman opened by complimenting our club on opening our meetings with a prayer and pledge of allegiance to our flag. The supervisors also open their meetings with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance. Supervisor Goodman was instrumental in getting this practice in place at the Board of Supervisor meetings. Supervisor Goodman has lived in Pinal County since 1980 and understands the frustrations we all feel and experience with the traffic here. He also discussed the need to expand the infrastructure to support our growing population. In the last six years, the county has seen $144M invested in our roads including expanding the 24 to Ironwood among several other projects. This was done without the ½ cent sale tax that failed in the most recent election.

Supervisor Goodman went on to discuss the primary election problems and said that all five supervisors were asked to resign by citizens of Pinal Co. Rather than resign, they set out to understand the problems and how they occurred. Within two days of election day, they fired the Supervisor of Elections and appointed Virginia Ross, who stepped down from her position as Pinal Co Recorder and assumed the Elections Supervisor roll. QC – STV RWF member, Dana Lewis, was appointed as the Pinal County Recorder. Between these two ladies, the election procedures and readiness were revised and updated and as we all know the Pinal County elections had few, if any, problems. Per Goodman, if we are strong – we can move forward. San Tan Valley is working to grow the retail sector in STV. The supervisors are looking at zoning to ensure new employers are able to move into Pinal County creating jobs for residents and growing the income of the county long-term.

Eric Hayes of Turning Point USA and Action was our next speaker. TP Action is the elections arm of Turning Point USA. On election day, Eric went from polling place to polling place in Maricopa County and what he saw was no media present at any of the sites. (In August, the media was outside several of the Pinal Co polling sites in response to the sites running out of ballots during election day). Eric posted a tweet, about the problems at the polling sites with no media anywhere around. This tweet went viral, catching the attention of Tucker Carlson of Fox News.

Turning Point Action is currently planning out its action plan for 2023. Eric is young and found his calling as he sat and watched Trump at one of his rallies in 2020. He felt at home with what he saw and heard which brought him to join TPUSA. Eric has focused on getting precinct committeemen (PC) appointed. He considers them the Big Voice for we citizens and for citizen lobbying. We need to play offense and leave playing defense behind. We also must look for and identify new PC's and activists.

Next up was our own Legislative District 15 state representative, Neal Carter. Neal said that the state House elected representative Ben Toma 17 – 14. Toma was the majority leader with Rusty Bowers (lost his primary vote) in the last legislative sessions. Toma is far more likely to work with the Democrats than his opponent, Chaplik would. Our new Majority leader is Leo Biasiucci, a good conservative, and Teresa Martinez was elected to Majority Whip. Teresa is from Pinal County.

Neal discussed the races that were won by Republicans in the general election. Tom Horne won the Superintendent of Public Instruction by a very narrow margin. Nick Myers (Nick is the first Corp Comm from Pinal Co) and Kevin Thompson won their seats on the Corporation Commission which gives Republicans a 4-1 margin on the Commission.

The Ballot initiative requiring a 60% majority for tax initiatives passed as did the requirement for ballot initiatives to have only one subject. Also, Arizona will now have a Lt Governor position. This position will run with the governor so they will both be of the same party in the event the governor leaves office during their term of office.

The 2023 legislative session begins on January 9, the second Monday in January.

Our fourth speaker, Travis Padilla, is one of two new Queen Creek City Council members. Travis is a constitutional conservative. He owns several businesses and has lived in QC for 13 years. In addition to winning his seat and running against three other candidates for the three open seats, Travis also walked precincts in other CD's and LD's helping other Republican candidates in their races. QC council meets on the 1st & 3rd Wednesday s each month at 6:30 PM. You are able to see the QC agenda on their website prior to the meetings.

Kathy Leaman provided an update on our December 6, 2022 fundraiser, America First Christmas Gala. It will be held at the Ballroom, Anthem at Merrill Ranch, Florence. If you attended the Christmas Luncheon at Valentino's last year, this year's event is just around the corner from Valentino's. Speakers and guests include Mark Finchem, Andy Biggs's wife, Cindy Biggs, and Sheriff Mark Lamb. Also attending will be State Senator Jake Hoffman, LD 15, Neal Carter, and Jacqueline Parker, LD 15 State Representatives.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:25 PM.