The citizens' analysis revealed that the land purchases were far more lucrative for the environmental groups involved than had been previously realized
Note: This introductory article is the first in a series that will take a closer look into the new environmental land buying program that is sweeping Hays and surrounding counties. Hopefully the series will help spark a broader discussion about the county's spending priorities and spending efficiency as well as the direction that the taxpayers and citizens want to go on the environmental front.
Send your comments and news tips to roundup.editor@gmail.com, to Ms. Lovejoy at LeneeL@centurytel.net or click on the "comments" button at the bottom of the story
By Lenee Lovejoy
Guest Commentary
Millions of dollars of Hays County assets were given away late last year, yet this is not recorded anywhere in the county’s financial records. These “hidden” transfers of county assets took place during land buys that County Commissioners approved just before Christmas.
They were the first under a new environmental conservation program that has been promoted aggressively to our county commissioners by groups outside the county. One such group is The Nature Conservancy, a Washington D.C. based environmental organization that partners with the federal government.
So far in Hays County only two land deals have been made under the new environmental conservation program, but more are planned – as much as 30,000 acres. The first purchase under the program occurred last November when Commissioners Court bought 1,000 acres of Nicholson Ranch property in western Hays County. The second took place in December with the purchase of 50 acres next to Jacob’s Well near Wimberley.
The promotions for the land purchases in Hays County did not disclose that generous gifts of millions in county assets would be made to an outside environmental group as part of these land purchases. Nor was it disclosed that a creative new finance method would be introduced that allows our elected commissioners to borrow large sums for land buys without requiring the traditional voter bond election.
These facts only became public after several Hays citizens made open record requests to obtain the purchase contracts used for the land deals, and analyzed the contracts. The citizens' analysis revealed that the land purchases were far more lucrative for the environmental groups involved than had been previously realized.
Just how lucrative? That is the topic of the next article in this series, where more details from the analysis of the Nicholson Ranch and Jacob’s Well land contracts will be disclosed. Just last week at Commissioners Court, Precinct 3 Commissioner Will Conley and County grants administrator Jeff Hauff announced that they plan to launch an aggressive effort to update the County’s Parks and Open Space Master Plan, and complete the effort within 6 months.
In the next article we will examine Jacob’s Well and Nicholson Ranch - whether they are sound conservation projects or borderline frauds financed by the taxpayers?
Lenee Lovejoy is a 15 year resident of San Marcos. After 20 years working in global corporations and public education as a systems analyst and web programmer/consultant, she decided to make a change. Today she runs a ranch with her husband and has her own web design/consulting business.
23 comments:
Here is another one of those articles that attack county monies going to land protection deals - but these writers hide in the shadows when the county money is being used to make crony business people richer off our private sector infrastructure welfare giveaways.
Now, I'm sure the writer is just trying to be fiscally responsible, but there is clear selective hypocrisy in this type of fiscal oversight. And until recently, the only qualified writer who exposed county commission crony land deals - the old fashioned private sector type - was Charles O'Dell.
But now that we are talking about environmental groups getting a piece of the corruption pie, all of a sudden the tax purists come out of the complacency woodwork. Worse, do we really need a series on this type of disguised libertarian trash talking? What is the Roundup editor smoking?
Personally, if my taxes are going to be sucked up by backroom political deals, I would rather it go to the Nature Conservancy than Cabella's or the junktique and yard art stores who need bathrooms at the Square in Wimberley.
The bloom is finally coming off the rose of the Jacob’s Well and Nicholson Ranch deals with the County and their not so silent partner, the Nature Conservancy. I am looking forward to the upcoming articles about the fraud of placing land in a conservancy and the subsequent denial of revenue to the County that we as taxpayer have to pickup. The Conservancy has current assets of over $5.5 million
Their 2010 Annual Report is at; http://www.nature.org/aboutus/annualreport/files/fs_fy2010.pdf
They are doing quite well in a rather poor economy.
The previous Anon poster is proof positive of the complicity of some who say,
"Personally, if my taxes are going to be sucked up by backroom political deals, I would rather it go to the Nature Conservancy..."
Second Anonymous is a big hypocrite. He or she is a perfect example of who Anonymous 1 is talking about.
When the word "environmental" comes into play, they all of a sudden become holy tax rollers. Disguised hate is what it is. And if I'm going to be ripped off, I agree with Anon 1.
It's about time nature got a break over the crony private sector manipulators.
Hurray for the Nature Conservancy and "big money environmentalism." And hurray for the Hammer going to the slammer.
Why is goverment waste supposed to be selective? Is military waste any more or better than environmental waste? Tax payer abuse by the government is evil in whatever guise it comes in. Anon # 1 is hypocritical when saying he would rather be raped by the environmentalists than the big bad developers. What's the difference? As Clayon Williams so famously was quoted as saying, "rape is like the weather, you should sit back and enjoy it." (Hint: That's one of the reasons Ann Richards became governor that year.)
Waste is waste no matter the political philosophy behind it. That's why the problem with local versus state versus national politics is so frustrating in the local context. People (Charles O'Dell included) will turn a blind eye to the national waste of tax money on programs that cannot be afforded no matter how well intentioned they are when their party is in power; but will turn on the guns when it comes to local tax expenditures for programs that are not of their parties origin or of their political philosophy.
Is it Libertarian to say that waste is waste no matter the political philosophy or party? If so, sign me up. While typically more of a Republican voter, I have supported Democratic candidates when I agreed with their stances on key issues I believed in and thought they were the best candidate for the job regardless of party affiliation.
The hypocrisy that the right and left represent both locally and nationally will continue until the fiscal restraints are broken and cannot be easily repaired. Then, and only then, will everyone be forced to recognize the fallacy and failure of the party system to work effectively for the good of all.
Yellow Armadillo, Anon 2, and the writer of this article assumes the Nature Consevancy and the WVWA are "environmental waste" that must be stopped by at all cost. This is nonsensical libertarian dribble.
You libertarian robots believe everything is either bad government or good free markets. Use of taxes for anything you think is not valuable - BAD. Use of taxes for almost anyting - BAD. Free markets determine everything efficiently and properly - STUPID.
Life in a complex society cannot be reduced to such black and white analysis. And now you libertarians are using the recession and the local tax squeeze to justify the parts of your economic philosophy that is holding our country back from recession and recovery. Hey, in business, you cannot make money if you don't spend money.
I believe most of you libertarians think the IRS is an illegal government entity. Be true to your mission: Stop paying taxes to them if you are so purist about your philosophy.
Just as I thought - you talk the talk but don't walk the walk.
30 acres of land preservation? Wow, that will surely bankrupt our county. Instead, we should go back to selling it to developers at bargain prices so they can at least build mediocre oversized, ulitily glutton homes on the land so more mediocre retail stores can come in and sell more mediocre stuff that we end up seeing later in mediocre yard sales.
I got a better idea. Use the money to support more automatic weapons stores in Hays County so we can let the public address this "liberal" problem with "Second Amendment solutions."
Heaven forbid we preserve the land so our children and grandchildren can use it so their feet can actually feel dirt instead of cement or concrete. Oh the un-Americanism of it.
"Conservation" isn't always about conservation. What's happening here with Nicholson Ranch, as one commissioner described to me, is a plan that allows developers to more easily develop existing warbler and vireo habitat by having land set aside elsewhere.
While the real conservation value of doing this is suspect to begin with, requiring public financing for a developer benefit makes little sense when the County is facing a $250 million-and-growing debt load.
Those who wish to develop large tracts of land could easily have handled this transaction themselves, complete with qualifying credits, leaving public tax money out of the equation.
As for Jacob's Well... Yes, its very worth protecting, but that doesn't mean its the County's role necessarily. The Nature Conservancy has over $5 BILLION in assets, and its 2009 income was over $850 million. The point is, public money is the least creative option, and the one that gets us in the most trouble.
We've got over $4 million into Jacob's Well already, and many are saying that more is required. I suggest we know how much more before spending another dime, otherwise we're being layered.
The County's Conservation Plan calls for up to 30,000 acres of conservation land. So far we're at about $9 million for less than 1,100 acres of it.
We just don't have the money for this, and there are better options available.
With water wars and shortages already at the front gate, it makes perfect sense to want to preserve as much land as possible from development. 30,000 acres is far too small a size. It should be more like 300,000 acres. The taxpayers should get behind the cause if they know what's good for them.
Horse whisperer said; “...it makes perfect sense to want to preserve as much land as possible from development. 30,000 acres is far too small a size.
What a preposterous statement from one of the “don’t build here” crowd! You fool, you would probably like to set the whole County aside as a warbler habitat without any thought of where the money was going to come from. I’m sure it wouldn’t come from you, as you likely don’t have any. You “do-gooders” are the same as you have always been, social anarchists.
The money and property gifted to The Nature Consevancy and the WVWA do represent an outrageous waste of taxpayer dollars.
- The taxpayers paid about $3 million for 46 acres but allowed WVWA to retain title to it. Why?
- The property is saddled with restrictive covenants which are under the control of WVWA and SOS ("development rights"). The county paid top dollar for property with development rights but received property that has virtually no development rights. The property is nothing but a liability. Moreover, WVWA kept 15 of the 46 acres that the taxpayers paid for. The Nature Conservancy will pay no taxes and has no obligation at all and yet will control use of the property - assuming that the development rights aren't taken by the developers in the SOS bankruptcy trial.
- The county effective gifted nearly 100% of the value of the 51 acre purchase to the Nature Conservancy by giving The Nature Conservancy the development rights to the property. The county now holds property that is virtually worthless and yet taxpayers paid an absolute premium for the property. The Nature Conservancy will pay no taxes and has no obligation at all and yet will control use of the property.
Why is the county paying a dollar premium for land with development rights and then giving those rights away without compensation? The development rights should never have been stripped from the land. This was a cowardly move by a county commissioner desperate to buy votes from a few in his precinct at the expense of all the taxpayers in Hays County.
Even worse, the dubious financing arrangement for these "deals" obligates the county to pay The Nature Conservancy "interest" at a rate nearly twice what the county can borrow at. If the county defaults then The Nature Conservancy walks with the property.
These are awful deals. The county can purchase property without giving away development rights and in no event should county commissioners be gifting all the value in the property that taxpayers paid for to The Nature Conservancy nor paying even more for the "privilege"
Horse Whisperer is right on about the need to set aside a lot more land to protect our water and other resources. Tax the big corporations on Hays County I-35 in return for all the free infrastructure these businesses got from their past crony political deals.
Don't follow the new logo of San Marcos: "We'd Love Your Company." In other words, we'll bend over and take it like a real punk.
I pay my fair share in taxes, have all my life. Problem is no one has ever asked me how I'd like em spent. Land preservation is one of the best uses of tax dollars ever devised (since the days of Teddy Roosevelt and before) but is a mere finger in the dike of the voracious appetite of third rate private development and tax and swap deals to promote more blood and water sucking development. You know the old saying, they don't make new land. I want my taxes spent on preserving as much open space eveywhere possible, starting in Hays County. We must have a healthy and proper balance. I hope the taxpayers wake up and realize that plenty of their money is already being spent on priming the county for explosive growth in the years ahead by construction of new roads and reconstruction of old roads into bigger roads, and deals to bring in new water sources. It is easy to tell by their actions which of our elected politicians are the leaders of the Developer Wolf Pack. I say Preserve First and carefully consider the long term consequences of more, extensive development. There are plenty of places around where you can live the Rat Race and pay taxes through your nose. Here at least we still have a choice.
The Anonymous poster of 1/11/11 9:00 @ PM stated the facts and if you don’t understand his words you are probably part of the problem. Our County does not exist to save animals and springs at the expense of all else. The commisioners certainly aren’t here to give away our tax money to some organization and then assume all of the risks of the “deal”.
I too, am looking forward to more articles about the fraud of placing land in a conservancy and the resultant denial of revenue to the County that we taxpayers have to makeup. It is a shocking to see the huge amount of land in the County that has exemptions from taxes. Check several large properties on the County’s rolls and you will see someone with over forty acres paying less tax than a home owner with a quarter acre. Agricultural easements for growing native grasses (weeds) and exemptions for protecting wildlife (placing a bird feeder and a bale of hay) are all over the County. There are several lawyers that make a very good living helping landowners avoid taxes by placing their land in a wildlife conservancy. The law that allows this is a loophole in the Texas Codes.
Spending millions of taxpayer dollars to allegedly protect a couple of insignificant little birds hardly anybody has ever seen and that apparently can’t coexist with humans should be a crime. It creates no jobs or improvement to our standard of living, it only makes us ‘feel good’. The Nature Conservancy has a sweet racket that they are running for their own gratification. They don’t spend any money of their own except to raise funds from others. They find willing participants like the WVWA who have the same type of charter and politicians looking to polish their environmental public image while aiding their developer friends such as Will Conley.
With the County’s debt load so extremely high and beginning to look like California’s and, I can only hope the new CC will end this stupid march to oblivion. Sam Brannon makes a lot of sense and he should be listened to about the runaway spending of the previous CC. Using conservation as a reason for spending is very similar to using “the children” to get your ideas through a body politic. These are two long-standing devices that liberals use to push through their agendas. This particular agenda however, is neither left or right, it is simple robbery of the County treasury. They caught us napping and looking to feel good about something but I for one will not fall for this ruse again.
Second to last Anonymous needs to cite his references to prove he knows what he is talking about. All to often we read comments that seem authoritative but assume we all should just believe them because they sound authoritative.
Generally we find this problem on the right, but not exclusively. Sam Brannon talks about better options to finance land conservation and what is real conservation. Well, what are they, Sam? Don't be shy. Don't just sound like you are smarter than the rest of us. Show us.
But at least Brannan uses his name, unlike so many other Anonymous experts.
In fact, government and business planners should think seriously about Hays County setting aside much more land - and develop a comprehensive Texas animal habitat. Just think of all the tourism that would "flock" to Hays County.
The hospitality sector would see immediate and on-going benefits and housing prices would rebound quickly as perceived shortages would create demand due to limited new housing, immediately helping the real estate people.
The local and county governments could redirect personnel and budgets to foster habitat education and promotion of tourism to Hays County. We wouldn't have to spend our tax dollars on corporate welfare infrastructure for more unnecessary strip malls and big box retailers (we are starting to see as many Home Depots as Starbucks).
Why can't Hays County residents start to think outside the failing "growth at any cost" mindset? It is time we shore up the existing economy with smart and creative economic
thinking - not the usual cookie cutter corporate blandness that we have come to accept. Everybody wants to visit or live in Costa Rica, and it has one of the best small country economies in the world. Why not turn Hays County into a Texas version of it?
Americans and Texans are stuck in an economic rut. It is time for creative economics - not more of the same failed build and they shall come speculation.
One more thought from Yours Truly.
Hays County residents need to stop thinking of the word "environmental" as if it were synonymous with "pornography." Such thinking is backwards and counterproductive.
A more productive thinking is how to use ALL of Hays County's strengths to sustain the local economies (cities and county).
As one commentor above said: Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. Any successful businessperson kwows that rule. Smart civic leaders know that rule as well. The tax slashers I read herein - although well intentioned - are too monotheistic with their tax ideals and need to be open to new ideas and strategies.
Actually, most successful business are not "conservative", they are aggressive and flamboyant as needed.
Setting aside land is one thing. The county can acquire the land - but that isn't what happened.
Paying a premium for land and then gifting the development rights to a private party is several steps beyond mere mismanagement of taxpayer dollars. Was there any value given for this? No. In fact the county is further rewarding The Nature Conservancy by borrowing money from them at nearly twice the rate the county could borrow elsewhere.
The groups promoting these irresponsible transactions like to use the words "sustainable" a lot as they try to rationalize these bad deals. However, these parasitic groups can't even sustain themselves. They rely upon county commissioners for sustenance since these parasites require regular feeding from the taxpayer trough for sustenance.
Throwing money in the trash can is not spending money or investing - it is sheer waste.
And the Community needs to look abit further into the woodpile: to find that certain officers of quasi-governmental entities are rolling over for developers to continue scooping up land without informing the neighborhood at large of what is happening right under their noses;allowing those developer/speculators to now own water rights under those lands; to promise what cannot (mmmm, should not be) be with regard to golf courses and grandiose garden homes and on and on and on. Is Wimberley and Woodcreek North going to be the next Kyle and Buda with its ticky-tacky, cookie cutter homes? Where's the environmental concern there and again, who is in whose pocket and for how much?
Tha last two Anonymous comments are valid and bottom line focused, but not contradictory to my earlier thoughts. In essense, why should the County make bad deals - assuming the criticisms are accurate - with good ideas? Land conservation is not wrong in and of itself, and can be used to our local economic benefit. But it is a "pisser" if the deals are too costly for taxpayers. Besides, why farm out good "county assets" to outsiders at all - whether they are a national non-profit or a national private corporation?
In my opinion what the tax slashers don't see is that electing in extreme government minimalists is primariy a citizen perceived angry response to ineffective or blatant special interest past government. That electoral mass decision may feel good in the short run, but it will ultimately do nothing to smartly improve Hays County's economic interests, unless more corporate strip malls, more cookie cutter housing developments, and increased alcohol consumption is considered an economic development plan.
Regardless if the outsiders are the Nature Conservancy or some dime a dozen corporate retailer, Hays County citizens need to stop using our economic development tax dollars to primarily enrich some out of state entity, bad deal or not.
The Nature Conservancy is the most controversial environmental group that claims to be "non-controversial." The TNC was involved in a lobbying scam using front groups to stop a dam project; threatened to have the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service take a landowner's property if he refused to sell to The Nature Conservancy; used undue influence to get property from an elderly victim and lost the court case brought by the proper heirs; and continues to sell private land to the government despite the wishes of those who sold it to the Nature Conservancy. TNC receives millions in government funds and uses tax money to forward its own agenda of nationalizing private land at a profit. Although The Nature Conservancy claims to be a land preservation group, it pays Michael J. Coda a salary of $154,082 (and benefits of $17,652) as Director of their Climate Change Program, getting into the highly contentious global warming controversy. To keep their media spin on being "non-controversial", The Nature Conservancy paid $1,251,150 to Media Strategies and Research company for consulting services.
Did I mention their CEO came from Goldman Sachs?
"Beginning at least as early as the 80's the ideology of Fabian socialist economics began its accelerating hold. Then it was called “privatization” or “third way”. Today the warm and fuzzy term for the economics of the Fabian inspired global Sustainable Development program is "public/private partnership". The purpose of global to local public/private partnerships is to secure globally managed corporate socialism. By definition, an economy based on public/private partnership eliminates free enterprise and liberty itself. With this economic model comes an advancing police state."
Does the above article remind you of something?
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