Controversy Shows Rift In GOP

TELLURIDE – The conservative credentials of local homeowner, former eBay chief executive officer and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman have come under fire in that state after her 2008 tax returns disclosed that her charitable foundation gave $1.15 million to Telluride’s Valley Floor Preservation Partners, the San Jose Mercury News reported on Tuesday.

Whitman also received criticism for giving $200,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund for its work in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta while positioning herself against environmentalists once she decided to run for governor, according to the news account.

Whitman’s assistant campaign manager Tucker Bounds told the Mercury News that Whitman made the donations before deciding to enter the governor’s race and that she stood by her donations.

“Meg has consistently been on the side of jobs and people first,” he was quoted in the article.

The VFPP was established in March 2006 as a partnership between the Town of Telluride, local conservation organization Sheep Mountain Alliance, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and The Telluride Institute to launch a fundraising and education campaign to acquire property located outside Telluride’s municipal boundaries owned at the time by the San Miguel Valley Corporation.

One month earlier Telluride’s electorate had rejected a court-ordered mediation agreement that would have allowed some development on the 572-acre parcel, instead voting 603-439 in a special election to pursue its condemnation.

In February 2007 the case went to trial in Delta County, Colo. and there the jury there awarded the SMVC $50 million for the property.

Bounds said that Whitman became involved in the issue “only after the landowner had received his asking price of $50 million,” the Mercury News reported.

“She strongly believes that the government should not be able to arbitrarily seize land from private citizens,” he told the publication.

The SMVC appealed the decision to the Colorado Supreme Court, but in June 2008 it handed the Town of Telluride a decisive victory in a 6-1 decision.

Shortly thereafter the town officially acquired the land.

“Land conservation is not by any means a partisan issue,” said Hilary White, program director for the VFPP during its fundraising campaign for the Valley Floor.

“It’s peoples connections with landscapes that drive their interest,” regardless of political affiliation, she continued.

Although White neither confirmed nor denied Whitman’s contribution and would not speak directly to the controversy, she said that a number of people who were philosophically opposed to the town’s decision to condemn the Valley Floor did provide financial support to the VFPP once it became clear that SMVC would receive “fair market value” for the land.

At that point, “People were much more willing to be involved,” she said.

If anything the incident may serve to illuminate a Republican Party that is struggling with its identity.

“The party is coming off of two straight election losses,” said Jim DiPeso, policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection, who suggested that the GOP is in the midst of trying to figure out whether it’s the “big tent of Ronald Reagan” or a “straight jacket” where only people who adhere to certain strict ideologies need apply.

“Since when is it not conservative for a Republican to care about land conservation?” he said.

“Conservatives pioneered the conservation of open space,” he continued, noting Republican President Theodore Roosevelt’s role in expanding the national forests, parks and wildlife refuges, and that President Herbert Hoover proclaimed the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument.

“Clearly Teddy Roosevelt knew that the protection of our natural heritage was important for keeping the country strong,” he said.

And not for nothing –Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and also established the Environmental Protection Agency, the REP website notes.

DiPeso suggested that “hard right ideologues” are behind the idea that somehow conservatism and conservation are mutually exclusive.

“They are showing they don’t know the first thing about what being conservative is,” he said.

“I think it’s a non-issue,” San Miguel County Republican Party Chairman Harley Brooke-Hitching said, suggesting that the Whitman controversy is more politically motivated than substantive.