Dear Tea Party Members,

During today’s meeting, I resigned as your leader of the Brooklyn Tea Party. During my term as president, we helped get two candidates (Congressman Bob Turner and Senator David Storobin) elected into office — only to have no-principled Dean Skelos terminate, passively and aggressively, the districts they represented.

When I was approached by our first president, John Press, I was shocked that I was even offered the honor to lead this principled group. I was the only candidate asking for Tea Party support to refuse to take the Brooklyn Tea Party pledge of 2010, and just a few months later I was president by a unanimous vote of the same group.

From day one, the group understood that I was not 100% Tea Party. Realizing in 2011 that there was no one else qualified that wanted to lead the Brooklyn Tea Party, I agreed to lead on a temporary basis — until someone else came along.

While I completely value the Tea Party’s general position against wasted spending, to lower our taxes, and to root out government corruption, sometimes some of the Tea Party values contradict with the family values I hold dear — religious freedom, traditional marriage, etc. When a candidate such as Eric Salgado comes along, who is completely against the Tea Party on the issue of immigration because of his family values, I will support him over Joe Lhota (Lhota is no where close as a Tea Party candidate. He raised the bridge tolls as MTA chairman).

I served as Brooklyn Tea Party president because the group is filled with genuine and honest individuals, who were duped by the Republicans and Dermocrats in Albany and Washington. The Brooklyn Tea Party needs to exist because it is one of the few groups in Brooklyn to maintain integrity.

I explained to those who attended today’s meeting that my role as president was to ensure its survival. I acted as a trustee. Your new president, Frank Russo, is completely Tea Party on the issues, has great work ethics, and has the integrity I was looking for in our next leader. He was voted in unanimously to be our next leader.

Thank you all for the support you gave me. Sincerely, Joseph Hayon