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Dale Stastny, the Executive Vice President
and Chief Operating Officer said in a November
interview, "I do see a correlation between what’s happening now and
what happened in 1975. The neighbors and other people fought the
zoo for five years, and they lost. It got built and you would probably
be hard pressed to find more than one or two people who would admit that
they didn’t want the zoo."
Dale Stastny is an employee of the Audubon
Institute, which is oftentimes confused with the Audubon Commission.
The members of the Commission are Mayor-appointed for four years.
They are the public body charged with the upkeep of Audubon Park and they
are not paid. In order to run the park efficiently, they hired the
Audubon Institute to take over the day-to-day maintenance. The Institute
is given no public operational money, but they are given capital money
to use in projects. These projects in turn generate operational money.
A contract was approved on October 24, 2001
that stated that the Commission will accept, for a duration of 10 years,
the CEO of the Institute. [Editor's note, this agreement was subsequently changed to
allow the CEO of the Institute to execute documents on behalf of the Commission without
actually becoming the CEO of the Commission]
The newly renovated golf course is to serve
as a money making project, with the new green fees approximately triple
of what they were. It will now cost $18 on weekdays and $25 on weekends
to play the course. There will also be a revenue-generating pro shop,
cart rental, and restaurant in the new Clubhouse.
One lesson that we learned with our research
was that non-profit in no way equals poor. To see an example of this,
look at our worksheet on the salary of Mr. L. Ron Forman, CEO of the Institute [not available to s.a.p
but his salary for his work with Audubon is around $360,000 per year]
The new golf course will still have 18 holes,
but it will be par 62 (a normal golf course is par 72). Two kinds
of Bermuda grass will be used for landscaping and four new lagoons will
be dug. The Meditation Walk will be moved about 20 feet and re-landscaped.
The Hurst bridge and the Hurst walk are still in question. The Institute
has not decided what the policy will be for access to these two areas.
There are safety and liability issues about allowing non-golfers to walk
on the golf course. Stastny suggested that there might be a
system where access would be allowed during certain hours with certain
sign-in [signage?] rules.
Also, a new clubhouse is to be built. On
the Audubon Institute’s website,
the purpose of the clubhouse is listed:
"The primary purpose of the
clubhouse is to provide for the administration of the golf course (pro-shop,
green fee purchases, cart rentals, golf pro administrative and storage
space and location for managing the day time activities on the course).
It also must provide for the physical comfort and needs of the individuals
using the golf course (restrooms, food service, changing room and a place
to wait or relax before or after golf)."
This brings us to the arguments of grass roots
organizations who are opposed to action of the Audubon Institute.
The Audubon Institute stands firm in its claim that the golf course is
not expanding. Its opponents recognize that no new space in the park
has been dedicated as green space. However, more parking spaces are
being paved and the clubhouse and equipment storage are taking up space
in an oak grove that stretches from Magazine to the golf course.
The opponents are argue that the public is still losing green space in
what is, after all, a public park. The following cartoon was taken
from the Save Audubon Park website
Many also dread the environmental impact that
the course will have. It happens that the fine, short, and delicate
Bermuda grasses that the Institute chose are not well-suited for Louisiana
life. They are highly susceptible to Dollar Spot Fungus in warm and humid weather.
This kind of fungus requires three different kinds of fungicides used in
rotation plus extra fertilizer. This treatment normally leads to
the weakening of the natural defenses of the grass, and infestation of
other pests, fungi, or bacteria is likely.
I questioned Dale Stastny as to whether anything
had been done to make the course ecologically friendly. He told me,
"We are an environmental organization. It’s not like this is an
area in which we are uncaring or ignorant. The specifics of this,
with the golf course, we are not very knowledgeable right now, but we will
be. It will be consistent with all of our past actions."
And to that statement, the opponents say, "That’s
what we’re afraid of." The Audubon Institute has a long history of
mutual back-scratching with oil and land development companies and a track
record that is sometimes not so becoming to an "environmentalist, conservationist"
organization. The Audubon Institute has long been a member of the
National Wetlands Coalition, whose name sounds benign and rather like a
conservation organization. This is the organization of mostly oil
companies and land-developers (with the sole exception of the Audubon Institute)
that is dedicated to the rolling back of wetlands protection policies in
favor of wetlands exploration. They drafted and sponsored the Shuster
Bill, nicknamed the Dirty Water Bill, in 1995. This bill aimed to
take away the oversight of the EPA awarded in the Clean Water Act.
Leighton Steward, CEO of Louisiana Land & Exploration Company, is a
founding member of this group. It is the states’ largest landowner
with nearly 1,000 square miles of coastal Louisiana in its name and environmental
regulations imposed by the federal government cause financial loss to the
corporation. This is group is in favor of reducing the Clean Water
Act and the federal protection of endangered species.
The Audubon Institute often lists their membership
to the National Wetlands Coalition as just another great thing that they
do for the environment on its long lists of memberships. But why
would the Audubon Institute join a group like this? There have been
public accusations since 1995 that Ron Forman is simply "singing for his
supper." Perhaps it was best stated by the Times-Picayune writer
Steward Yerton, who said in his 1995 article, "Force of Nature":
"A tour of the Audubon facilities is like a stroll on the mining and oil
and gas exploration hall of fame."[Emphasis added].
Members of Save Audubon Park point out that the
Ron Forman and his Institute are merely in the business of animal entertainment
and they would like to see their business grow.
Audrey Evans, community outreach coordinator for
the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, told the Times-Picayune in the above
article, "It’s disturbing that the public could be so confused. The
public should be informed that a group they are supporting through zoo
memberships is also on record consistently continuing to associate with
forces who are actively working to destroy the wetlands."
Also quoted in the article is Elizabeth Raisbeck
of the National
Audubon Society in Washington, D.C: "You will not find any bona fide environmental groups on the membership
list."
[
This review of the Audubon Park controversy was prepared in support of a paper on the subject of the
Four-Quadrant theory for a "Full-Spectrum" approach to problem solving. For more on this theory and how it relates
to Audubon Park click here.]
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