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- Jul 25, 2009
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I am a Parent, and it is from that standpoint that I am grateful to the Alumni Association. My more critical comments, however, were from the standpoint of a Tax Payer. ....
As a taxpayer, I am not in favor of the Alumni Association being allowed to use a Federal Building free of charge, not even paying the utilities. ...
So I decided to do some of my own research. Going to the Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association web site I found an article where they discuss building their Alumni Center with their own funds. At one point they go on to say:
“With a building owned by the Association on property leased from the Academy, any ethical issues about fundraising from or holding events for the benefit of the Academy in the Alumni Center are removed.”
Additionally, I found that the Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association provides use of their facilities to the Academy AND pays the Academy $30,000 annually for utilities.
...
Rideon:
I suggest you need to go back and look at both your own data and the letters so you fully recognize the fallacies in your conclusions.
Additionally I'd like to point out the following:
a) $30,000 is "only" $115,000 LESS a year for the Land, and utilities than MARAD and the Superintendent was/is asking the USMMAAAF to pay for "Babson Center".
I'll ask have you ever been to "Babson Center"? It's ~5,000 square feet of absolutely horrible space - it was storage and office space above the original academy garage. Why does the USMMAAAF "need" 5,000 square feet you might ask - they don't but the previously unused space is not easily reconfigurable, and until now, nobody else wanted it. The USMMAAAF took the space, in a place nobody wanted, and a condition nobody thought was very much of anything, they made it habitable and usable (basically call that tenet improvements since that's what it was). In my world when you lease Class C or D "flex space", even in the NY Metro "triple net", where the tenet is responsible for everything and the leasehold expenses - which is basically what was proposed, I assure you that rather than the proposed a rent of $29/sq ft AND 10 days notice for cancelling the lease, that sort of space is readily available for amounts ~50% of the proposed price and with the types of terms 3 or 5 years, etc that the AAF proposed. When you researched the lease for the land the CGA Foundation is built upon, did you notice the land lease cost/year (seperate from the utilities and services)and the term? - I am truly asking, I didn't look that up but I'm pretty positive it's not a 10 days notice and has similar terms, etc, that typical land leases in the current market have - that is after all how the Federal Government typically handles real estate transactions whether they are grazing or mineral rights or lease of federally owned space for things like "public-private" partnerships, etc...
As far as a long term solutions and wanting to control the space for any extended period of time, the facts clearly indicate that is not the intent of the AAF. They've bought property (vice asking it be leasd to them on any sort of favorable terms) at market pricing. It's currently a home that is legally in the Village of Kings Point but you cannot get to or from that home via any way other than going through Vickery Gate. So the property is basically private property, now owned by the foundation, entirely surrounded by the Academy. Why you might ask is it entirely surrounded by the Academy. How does such a thing come to pass? It cameto pass when the USMMAAAF purchased the former Barstow Estate, which the home backs to, and donated it to the Academy - it's now called the "McNulty Campus". Sort of seems to me, that AAF does "pay its way" and why wouldn't MARAD and the Adminsitration continue to want it to be a neighbor, such they'd support the rezoning, etc with the Village of KP or have agreed to an alternative where the AAF donated the property to the Academy and then leased it back, like the CGA Foundation leases the land its building is on, so rezoning, etc would have even been legally required?
Another interesting thing to me is whenever one of my neighbors, especially my next door neighbor, wanted a variance or a change to zoning, I was the most important person considered by the Planning Commission and Zoning Board. Why wouldn't MARAD and the USMMA Superintendent be supportive of the current application, etc? Did you in your research go look at any of the applications, etc for the Lerner Center at the Village of King Point? I believe if you did, you'd find that what the USMMAAAF is trying to make happen thereis very, very much like what the UNSA Foundation did immediately outside the USNA's gate. That exact thing ma ny of us were pointed at in our "form letter" reply when we asked the Superintendent and the Secratary of Transportation to reconsider there demands and actions until the Center was completed and to support the USMMAAAF's applicaions with the VIllage Board.
Finally if you look at it from the USMMAAAF's perspective, they did not refuse to pay rent. They offered a counterproposal as to the amount, and suggested a preferable way for the Academy to recieve the funds is as a decrement from the unrestricted gifts the foundation already gives to the Academy. As I've noted that amount totals over $2,000,000 pledged by the reunion classes at the 2013 homecoming alone, so when you say:
"A very different stance from that of the Merchant Marine Academy Alumni Association which insists they should get it all for free. Even worse, after being notified the Academy needs the space for classrooms while other building are renovated, their response is to take it to court."
that just makes no sense to me. The USMMAAAF is a Non-profit, the board is entirely volunteer. Each year the USMMAAAF give large sums to support Academy Programs so it's not like they are using the space to make money for any other purpose or even to do not for profit efforts for anything other than what the USMMA or it's students, including your child, want or need them to do.
Further in the context of what you wrote above and what I'm pointing out here, when you write:
Again, I do support having a strong Alumni Association and am grateful for the work they do for the academy, but on this issue, I disagree with their stance.
you again confuse me. You support the AAF and you're grateful for what it does for the Academy but rather than do that with the $145K/year in the proffered lease the offer of which was rescinded, you'd prefer the AAF remit a check to the Tresuary of the United States (that's where it would go) get significantly reduced at best through the necessary processing steps and then if it ever sees its way back to USMMA it would be pennies on the dollar. How is that a better thing for the Academy than what the AAF proposed? How is what the AAF proposed "being allowed to use a building free of charge" - I certainly don't think of it that way, it was just the AAF trying to make sure that as much of every dollar it raises is available and used as much as possible for and by the Academy vice for other purposes.
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