NCCA Does Not Officially Endorse Tea Party Movement
Jeff Pelline recently reported on the Tea Party Patriots’ campaign to gather signatures for its “Citizens Power” initiative. After Jeff mentioned that the “signed petitions are supposed to be returned to the county Contractors’ Board building, as in the past,” a concerned reader asked whether NCCA is a “Tea Party supporter” and “anti Union?”
Subsequently, I sent an email to NCCA asking if they are officially endorsing the Tea Party Patriot movement?
Here’s the response I received yesterday from Barbara Bashall of NCCA:
Dear Don,
First I have to thank you for checking out the facts. I think it is so
important to do that, so that we can discuss issues on their merit and not
on rhetoric.For clarification, the NCCA is NOT endorsing the Tea Party Patriot movement.
No doubt, some of our members are sympathetic to their cause and involved in
that movement. The Tea Party Patriots meet at the NCCA conference room as
do many other non-profit and community organizations. The NCCA rents and
donates the room to many groups and private parties in the community,
similar to the Association of Realtors.I hope this answers your question.
Sincerely,
Barbara Bashall
6 thoughts on “NCCA Does Not Officially Endorse Tea Party Movement”
Don,
It’s good to hear the contractors group confirming that the TPP meets there and that some of its members are involved.
It also would be interesting to check campaign finance records and see if the NCCA PAC contributes to to the same candidates that the TPP supports.
We’ll know soon enough, I guess, since the reports are a matter of public record.
-Jeff
I was curious about Ms. Bashall’s “The NCCA rents and
donates the room…” and wondered whether it was rent or donate for the TPPs; so I called up and asked. Here’s a brain dump of the conversation, for what it’s worth:
(caveat: it’s from memory, may not be entirely accurate)
When I asked if the TPPs paid or got the room free, she said, first, that this info was confidential. Then that she’d already responded (in the email you printed above). Then that NCCA donates heavily to nonprofit groups, at least 20 of them, ‘on different levels;, and on Mondays the room is free to nonprofits (first-come-first-served), but other days they pay. I asked for some examples of other nonprofits, she said once a month the Nonprofit Leadership Council meets at NCCA (representing 20? nonprofits, I think), as does overeaters anon 1/week, and Child Advocates has met there on occasion…)
She seemed a little hesitant to agree with my summation that sometimes the TPPs pay, and other times they get it free. (perhaps just because it sounds like I’m singling them out as if they’re getting special treatment)
And if we nonmembers want to rent the room, it’s $150 for a half day or 250 for a full day.
That is all.
(except, what’s the nonprofit leadership council? I searched for it on The Union, Yubanet and NCVoices custom search ( http://bit.ly/ncvsearch ) but got no hits.)
Carry on…
It occurred to me that sometimes people substitute “council” for other organizational entities (center, committee, etc.), so I did a Google search for ” ‘nonprofit leadership’ nevada county” and turned up the …
“Center for the Nonprofit Leadership of the Sierra,” here:
http://www.cnlsierra.org/Home.asp
You can find a list of members here:
http://www.cnlsierra.org/Governance.asp
Obviously, this may or may not be the group that meets as NCCA.
The Tea Party meets there on Mondays, according to the email, so it must be free. It shouldn’t be a mystery to anyone in the community that the NCCA and Tea Party are political allies, whether you agree with it or not.
Hardly a surprise.
As Barbara Bashall said herself: “No doubt, some of our members are sympathetic to their cause and involved in that movement.”
Simple, simple. What day do the members meet?
Go to parking lot.
Observe bumper stickers.