Tea Party is active in Big Valley

May 24, 2010
Lookout Fire Hall, Lookout CA.

An internet search for information on the Tea Party will describe the party as from far right wing lunatics to patriotic citizens concerned with our government. The official Tea Party platform is  that the party is a non-partisan group promoting limited government, fiscal responsibility & adherence to the constitution. They also support political education of Americans.

Whatever your views are about the Tea Party, there is an active group in Big Valley lead by Nora Harper and Denny Hackett of Lookout. The are meeting regularly at the Lookout Fire Hall at 6:30 P.M. the second Tuesday of the month and thefourth Monday.

Norah Harper, one of the founders of the Big Valley Chapter along with Denny Hackett has expressed that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the Tea Party and is quite sensitive about negative portrayals. This year on May 11, in keeping with it's stated goal of political education sponsored a Candidates Night for Modoc County. Norah states that the Tea Party is not a political group, but rather group of concerned citizens. During my visit (as editor of Big Valley News) I found that the group was not at all hostile to non conservatives and would entertain any positive input. Democrats are welcome (yes there actually are some in Big Valley!)

I (editor) cannot make any statements about the political leanings or how radical the Tea Party is, but my observations are that this local group is a genuine collection of people who are concerned about our government and have every intention of positively influencing the direction of our country. They ( at least the Big Valley Chapter)  do not seem to be  a bunch of whacko radicals. An illustration of their aims are the discussion groups which meet after the main meetings. They are the Constitution group, the survival and preparedness group, one for local budget concerns and a fund raising group. The survivalists are not gun toting para-military types, their concern is disaster survival such as heat, water, food and shelter during a disaster and emergency readiness.

So, there is a local chapter of the Tea Party in town, it looks like it will stay It is associated with the Redding Tea Party. Unfortunately someone has decided that in order to read anything on the Redding web site you have to join and sign up. Not so here, and Big Valley News is offering the local Tea Party it's own web page for news and announcements.

For more information call Norah Harper at 530 294-5219 or Denny Hackett at 530 294-5180