Posted on 05/17/2003 6:19:04 PM PDT by madfly
Palm Beach Post
Editorial
Thursday, May 15, 2003
The Nature Conservancy, whose brand name is right up there with Good Housekeeping, has been running a scam worthy of Enron. As described last week in a Washington Post series titled "Big Green," the environmental charity bought pristine lands, then sold them at a discount to trustees for fabulous private-home sites.
Nature Conservancy President and CEO Steven J. McCormick whined that the Post had "painted a distorted picture" and "misrepresented our motives and methods." Wrong response. The Nature Conservancy, with 1 million members and $3 billion in assets, has done a tremendous amount of good throughout its 52 years in places that include Palm Beach County. Having been caught, dishing out lame excuses only makes the damage worse. There is no excuse for the so-called "conservation buyer" deals, which worked this way:
The conservancy would buy an unspoiled property -- such purchases are the group's specialty, as its name implies -- then sell the land at a much-reduced price to a buyer who agreed to development restrictions. No problem so far. But in many cases, the buyer was a Nature Conservancy insider who had contributed to the organization an amount that happened to match the "discount." The buyer then claimed an IRS deduction for the "gift."
In effect, taxpayers subsidized the sweetheart purchases. The development "restrictions" were carefully written to allow construction of the buyer's grandiose dream home. Beneficiaries included Oracle software executives and David Letterman, who acquired property on Martha's Vineyard. The Washington Post also described failed business ventures and environmentally damaging attempts to drill for gas on Nature Conservancy land. The charity also gave Mr. McCormick a $1.5 million loan for a low rate that the group tried to conceal.
Palm Beach County residents might be concerned because the Nature Conservancy has acted as a broker for sensitive land acquired in voter-approved bond issues. Fortunately, those deals are different from -- and did not figure in -- the deals described in "Big Green."
The county gives the Nature Conservancy a 1 percent commission and has paid the charity $243,662 since voters approved $150 million in bonds four years ago to purchase environmentally sensitive lands. The conservancy, justifiably praised for its negotiating skill -- it also brokered land purchases from the county's similar 1991 bond issue -- has lost interest in county work as big deals have given way to smaller purchases, prompting the county to add the Conservation Fund as an agent.
Mr. McCormick complained that The Washington Post "dismissed our accomplishments for the environment." In fact, his land-buying schemes have done that.
Cover page for all articles is here:
This Washington Post series describes The Nature Conservancy's transformation from a grassroots group to a corporate juggernaut.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/natureconservancy/
Fact is many, if not all, of the foundations, trust, and puesdo governmental authorities deal in this sort of chicanery. Some of the transactions are legal symphonies. Legal master works, that smell to high heaven. These groups represent a gray area in the law, and despite their stated lofty purposes look pretty rotten when you lift the skirt.
Tax dodge of choice for the select few.
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