I heard on FOXNEWS (I think) yesterday that the folks in Martha's Vineyard were upset with David Letterman's property deal.
DAY THREE
Landing a Big One: Preservation, Private Development (DAY 3)
By David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 6, 2003; Page A09
Landing a Big One: Preservation, Private Development (3rd in Series on The Nature Conservancy)
MARTHA'S VINEYARD, Mass. -- Two years ago, the Nature Conservancy triumphantly announced a complex real estate transaction, a $64 million deal in which it acquired 215 acres of rare open sandplain. Conservancy officials hailed it as "an important victory for conservation on Martha's Vineyard," part of a campaign to save the Earth's "Last Great Places."
The Conservancy, known for buying and holding raw land in perpetuity, did not opt for 100 percent preservation in this case.
Instead, as part of the deal, the Conservancy placed restrictions limiting some development on the newly purchased land and then immediately resold half of it to others, paving the way for Gatsbyesque vacation houses on pristine beach and grasslands. Those buyers included a pair of Oracle software tycoons, a retired Goldman Sachs executive and comedian David Letterman.
madfly,
thanks for posting the link to day three and keeping everyone updated. I just logged on to see if anyone had posted Friday's Washington Post article "Charity Hiring Lawyers to Try to Prevent Hill Probe"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62135-2003May15.html . I see farmfriend posted it over here: (oops! too many windows and I can't pull it up until I get rid of this one.)
A day or two after I first posted this thread, I listened over the phone to part of a C-Span interview between Brian Lamb and McCormick. McCormick kept reiterating how TNC had helped to preserve all this land. When they took calls from the listeners, one man from New York, I believe, said that this whole thing was bad news, part of the UN's Wildlands Project to steal the land from the American people, and turn 50 percent of the country back to its pre-Columbian state, and it was why we keep seeing ranchers and farmers going out of business. He kept telling people to see GetUsOut.org ! America's waking up! Hope it's in time.
I started to make a link to the Wildlands Project article above originally posted by GeorgeFrmBrOOklynPark. I can't do it right now, because, as I said, I have too many windows. The same kind of shenanigans occurred with a government group overseeing part of the Sky Islands (?) Project, and one of its employees was able to buy a home in the newly 'protected' area, an area he was responsible for promulgating environmental rules for!