The Times-Picayune reports that Dale Stastny, longtime COO of the Audubon Nature Institute, has announced his retirement at the end of 2011. But their description of Stastny as "Ron Forman's right-hand man" actually understates his role: when it came to the day-to-day running of the ANI over the past ten years, behind the scenes he has often seemed to do the work of BOTH of Ron's hands. In addition, even during contentious controversies over whatever project or development the ANI was plotting, Dale Stastny could usually be counted on to be unfailingly respectful and courteous to members of the public, even when they were the vocal opposition. We often wondered over the years how he put up with doing so much of the real work for less than half of Ron Forman's whopping compensation...

Ironically, when asked which ANI project has been "most satisfying", he apparently cited the redeveloped Audubon golf course, a project that has LOST an average of $450,000 a year since the start!

Separating fact from fiction on Audubon's oft-repeated claim that they operate without receiving substantial public funding.

"Without receiving any operational support from public money ...we have significantly improved park services ..." (Ron Forman, letter to the Times-Picayune, 8-14-01)