Marathon Information Request Gets Zip
When the city of Marathon’s city council gave its final OK to partnering with Crane Point Hammock to develop a zip-line attraction in the nature reserve, city councilman Dick Ramsay insisted on accountability.
At a May 14, 2013 council meeting, Ramsay moved to approve the conditional use permit subject to property deed restrictions, a hold harmless regarding an ADA complaint, and a requirement that Crane Point deliver an initial progress report by June 1st. The council voted 4-1 in favor.
In addition, Ramsay wanted the council to require Crane Point Hammock to come before the City Council to give updates, including financial reports, on a regular basis. He asked Crane Point attorney John Wolfe about whether the council could have updates from Crane Point every other month.
Wolfe replied, “Yes.”
Since May the chair of the Crane Point board has come before the council exactly once.
Jeff Smith spoke at the September 10, 2013 city council meeting for 59 seconds, reporting that Crane Point had assembled a team of ten “various” professional firms and has spent $35,000 for permitting and “entitlement” expenses.
Council members had no questions. They didn’t want to know about what permitting actions had been taken. They didn’t ask about where the $ 35,000 came from. None of the city councilors asked which professional firms had been contracted with and what, exactly, these firms were doing. One has to assume that either they had been briefed about all this out of the public eye or that they just didn’t care.
Councilman Ramsay didn’t return phone calls so the Blue Paper could ask about his feelings about Smith’s report.
Crane Point’s management of funds is important to Marathon taxpayers because they will be responsible for ponying up $ 35,000 for each zip-line worker that Crane Point can’t or doesn’t pay. That’s because Crane Point’s former executive director Audrey Moir persuaded the City of Marathon to apply for a Community Development Block Grant from the state to help fund the projected $1.1 million construction for the tourist attraction. In exchange for $ 727,000, Crane Point will be required to create and sustain 21 jobs, 19 of them for low- to middle-income earners. Marathon taxpayers would be obligated to repay the state $ 35,000 for each job short of that should the project fail or not hire the required number of workers.
The council, which had no questions for Smith, might be interested in the fact that, according to GuideStar which gathers and disseminates information about “every single IRS-registered non-profit organization,” Crane Point has not yet filed the required IRS form 990 for last year. Form 990 is used by tax-exempt organizations, nonexempt charitable trusts, and section 527 political organizations to provide the IRS with the information required by section 6033.
The penalty for not filing can be onerous. According to the IRS, “If an organization whose gross receipts are less than $ 1,000,000 for its tax year files its Form 990 after the due date (including any extensions), and the organization doesn’t provide reasonable cause for filing late, the Internal Revenue Service will impose a penalty of $ 20 per day for each day the return is late with a maximum of $ 10,000.”
The end of Crane Point’s fiscal year is September 30. Therefore, their 990 return is due 4 1/2 months after year-end or February 15 with an automatic extension of three months to May 15. If they request it, the IRS will grant an additional, non-automatic extension of another three months to August 15. As of mid-October no return has been filed.
It’s not the first time that Crane Point has been late.
Though the non-profit doesn’t owe property taxes, beginning in 2008 they began owing non ad valorem taxes, which for Marathon, is storm water, and wastewater. The 2008 bill was paid late, thereby incurring a penalty of $ 377.14.
However, more serious troubles began in 2010 when the FKLST didn’t pay their bill until January 24, 2013. The final cost? $ 15,160.20. That’s because the tax bill was sold as a tax certificate to a company in June 2011. [Note: Marathon, much like other cities and the county, sells unpaid taxes to people or companies that pay the taxes, put a lien on the properties involved, and charge interest on what unpaid money.]
The council members should have known all of this because a group of zip-line opponents calling themselves Keep Crane Point Natural provided each city councilor information about how the non-profit has been fiscally irresponsible for years.
Many questions remain unanswered despite the city council’s total lack of interest. Did Crane Point borrow the $ 35,000 for the “various” professional firms they hired? How will the group stay afloat since a group objecting to the zip-line project has filed an appeal on planning director George Garrett’s approval of a height variance? That appeal may end up in court causing further costly delays. And why is the public being kept in the dark about something they may end up footing the bill for?
Maybe the next time Jeff Smith appears before the city council one member might want to inquire about all these issues. That is, if Jeff Smith does make an appearance in two months, as promised.