LETTERS
LETTERS The empire strikes back This is to set the record straight on numerous inaccurate statements made in an article by Eric Konigsberg [“Empires of the Sons (and the Friends, and the...
...Our volunteer board of directors sets all AARP policies...
...Price Waterhouse reviewed our loan guarantee program and found our clients substantially more productive in job creation, sales, and growth than equivalent firms not benefitting from SBA assistance...
...Newmont acquired the Quany’s 522 acres from Roy Ash and Chuck Thornton...
...The fact is that during the period of 1990 through 1991, six unfair labor practice charges were filed...
...Contrary to Konigsberg’s assertion, I became assistant attorney general in August 1990, not 1988...
...STACY M. DEBROFF Cambridge, Massachusetts Ms...
...Newmont has already paid the $5-per-acre filing fee for seven of those applications, according to BLM’s field office in Reno, totalling $7,480 for nearly 1,500 acres of public land...
...The second case is pending a decision...
...In an executive order dated February 1991, then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh did in fact give Gurule authorization “to make final decisions concerning whether such grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements are consistent with the established policies and priorities...
...In New England, our guarantee program helps salvage companies that through no fault of their own would otherwise have closed due to bank failures...
...The author replies: James Hill is correct in saying that the majority of Newmont Mining Corporation’s 1990 gold production-1.68 million ounces-was extracted from the Gold Quarry lands in the Carlin Mine Complex in Nevada...
...The fact is that OJP bureau heads are statutorily vested by Congress with final authority over the making of all grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts awarded by their bureaus...
...The Washington Monthly should take its responsibility to provide accurate information to its readers as seriously as we take our responsibility to serve our members...
...Money returned Thanks to Christopher Georges [“Old Money,” June 19921 for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) article...
...In August of 1991, a GAO report on the executive order concluded that “such authority cannot reasonably be implied” from OJP’s statutory framework, and recommended a reversal of the order...
...Had Schulte sought to contact Newmont, your magazine might have avoided a patently erroneous characterization of our property, which unfortunately set the trajectory for the entire article...
...But, as Rowe points out, Kahlenberg’s complaints may have much less to do with Harvard Law than with the current nature of the elite legal education itself...
...September 1992/The Washington Monthly 5...
...The publication of grant guidelines and application forms had been problematic, and the subject of Congressional hearings, before I came to this agency as assistant attorney general...
...AARP, one of 10 national organizations in 50 states that operate the SCSEP, contributes to the cost of the program...
...ALTER A. WILSON Portland, Oregon AARP takes its responsibility to serve its members very seriously...
...We explained this to your reporter but he ignored it...
...Newinont did not buy the land from the federal government for “between $2.50 and $5 an acre,” as your magazine stated...
...Regarding Deets’ defense of the SCSEP jobs program: The D.C...
...But after the deadline had passed...
...In addition to those patents on federal lands that Newmont has already taken into private ownership, it has patent applications pending to take nine more claims, totalling 1,546 acres, private...
...In other words, we did not have to spend $50 million annually in exploration funds for many years to find such a mine, and did not have to start from scratch to employ all the people and facilities to develop one...
...Business reply mail While your article “Empires of the Sons” regurgitated a bit of the U.S...
...Again, these are only a few of the inaccuracies...
...More to the point, however, I opened my article with a discussion of Newmont Mining Corporation’s operations and land ownership in aggregate and made no specific reference to the Gold Quarry site...
...Your intention to do a hatchet job on our association is clearly reflected by your characterization of the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), a jobs program for low-income older Americans that is partially funded by the U.S...
...We strongly supported the standardization of Medicare Supplemental Insurance...
...To correct just a few of the inaccuracies: WAARP is not subsidized by government grants...
...When your “undercover” reporter called, it was entirely appropriate to refer him to the local sponsor...
...We have always supported lower prescription drug prices...
...After reading your article, I wonder whether you take your responsibility to your readers seriously...
...And some of his points about eroding idealism as a result of legal education are well taken...
...I am appalled that Konigsberg lacked the professionalism to verify his statements with me or OJP’s office of congressional and public affairs prior to publishing this article...
...More than 10 percent of the 1992 Harvard Law class accepted public interest jobs upon graduation, and 225 of our students took public interest jobs in the summer of 1992...
...It is ironic that Hill makes mention in his letter of the royalties Newmont pays Ash and Thornton’s heirs...
...Harvard also provides generous financial support through a number of new fellowship programs and through the Low Income Protection Plan, a generous loan-forgiveness program that allows graduates to choose career options that might otherwise have been foreclosed to them due to unmanageable educational loans...
...Efforts like these and others are having a tremendous impact throughout the country on the problems of crime and drugs, and are making our streets safer for law abiding citizens...
...Maybe we have been too trusting...
...Kahlenberg’s disillusionment with law school socialization may be valid...
...In the fall of 1990, one year after Kahlenberg’s graduation, Harvard Law School’s Office of the Public Interest Adviser (OPIA) was created to actively assist students in exploring public interest careers and securing public interest jobs...
...In several interviews and in public testimony, mining industry representatives have said companies would be forced out of business if they were forced to pay the federal government the 5 to 8 percent royalties called for in the House and Senate versions of mining reform bills...
...Newmont has in fact acquired land from the federal government for between $2.50 and $5 an acre, as I reported...
...According to records in Nevada’s Eureka County assessor’s office, Newmont has to date patented a total of 59 mining claims...
...DeUroff is director of public interest advising, Harvard Law School...
...OPIA provides one-on-one counseling, houses one of the most extensive collections of resources on public interest legal opportunities in the country, sponsors panels, and much more...
...To his credit, he did call back...
...In 1988, there were 20 political appointees (not 6) in the OJP...
...Demand for our loan guarantee programs is up 30 percent nationwide...
...OJP has played a major role in implementing the administration’s comprehensive Weed and Seed initiative and in addressing the problem of gangs nationwide...
...Finally, as the grant-making arm of the Department of Justice, OJP’s responsibilities are far more encompassing than “monitoring statistics and grants...
...We also reported, however, what congressional staffers who were closely involved in writing and enacting each piece of legislation told us: that AARP did not fully back the proposals...
...But Kahlenberg tells only half the story...
...Department of Labor...
...area...
...This is yet another inaccurate statement...
...Gold digger Brigid Schulte’s article [“Annie, Get Your Guccis,” July/August] on mining began with an incorrect premise...
...Six of the fourteen have come during Gurule’s 21 months as assistant attorney general, indicating his record on this count to be no better than that of his immediate predecessor, under whose tenure the charges began to pile up...
...We also pay royalties to the Thornton and Ash interests because they sold us the rights to a very large mine already discovered on their private property, which was several hundred yards from an existing Newmont mine and also very close to costly infrastructure already established by Newmont...
...We reported, just as AARP officials informed us, that AARP supported both standardization of Medicare Supplemental Insurance and lower prescription drug prices...
...Newmont Mining Corporation’s 1990 production of gold, which your magazine cited, was from private land in Nevada primarily purchased for $35 nlillion from Chuck Thornton and Roy Ash in 1982...
...Eramian is assistant administrator for public communications at SUA...
...But contrary to Hill’s assertion, a portion of that productive mine sits on lands controlled by the U.S...
...Third, the article claims that throughout my tenure OJP’s “grant guidelines and application forms for discretionary funding have been published so late that two weeks before the deadline, they weren’t available...
...As for the number of appointees, these statistics were provided by a public affairs official at the Department of Justice itself...
...Bureau of Mines and BLM officials in Nevada...
...Regarding Gurule’s point about control over contractmaking, solid evidence to the contrary comes directly from the Justice Department itself...
...OJP’s role is to help state and local units of government more effectively fight violent crime, drug use, and drug trafficking and to improve the operation of the criminal justice system...
...We stand by that statement...
...The author replies: In erroneously stating that Gumle’s appointment began in 1988, and not 1990, I overstat1:d the number of FLRA charges against his office-but not, in fact, the rate at which they have been accumu1a:ed...
...This statement is inaccurate...
...First, Konigsberg states that the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) “has seen its political appointments jump from six to thirty in the past four years...
...The story is filled with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated allegations...
...Four were withdrawn, and no FLRA complaints were issued...
...It calls into question the ethical standards of your publication...
...As we explained to your reporter, AARP operated 108 SCSEP sites around the country, but not in the Washington, D.C...
...Our program for the socially and economically disadvantaged now offers business development assistance to more than 4,000 firms and as of October 1991 had awarded about $4 billion in federal contracting opportunities...
...office we called is (as we stated) AARP’s national headquarters...
...A final point: I am sure Hill is aware that I did make several attempts to reach him by phone and left a number of messages stating the deadline for my story...
...In 1992, four FLRA labor practice charges were filed, and all four have been withdrawn...
...On national health insurance reform, we reported that “elderly advocates question AARP’s motives in failing to support the proposed Canadian-style health insurance reform...
...An accurate and extensive report on the 1982 transaction ran in Fortune magazine...
...That Gurule was given this final say in grant decisionmaking is shameful...
...Second, the article incorrectly indicates that I have “consolidated all [OJP] bureau contract-making” to my office...
...ME Gurule is assistant attorney general, Ojpce of Justice Programs...
...Because of that, we have Icarned their trust...
...Unfair Harvard Regarding Richard Kahlenberg’s Broken Contract reviewed in your June issue [“Loot Court,” Jonathan Rowe]: Kahlenberg paints Harvard Law School as the enemy of public interest idealism and a bastion of corporateminded sell-outs...
...We who belong to the local chapters have been in a state of perplexity as to where the dollars from national membership have gone...
...Hill is vice president in charge of corporate relations for the Newmont Mining Corporation...
...now there are 14 (not 30...
...The question of paying royalties has been a rallying cry for the mining industry ever since the reform movement got off the ground...
...And we’re not the only ones who think so...
...Bureau of Land Management (BLM)-a fact I verified with both the U.S...
...Numerous sources, including AARP insiders and one recently fired AARP director, insist that the association’s lawyers, as well as paid staff members, play a larger role in setting AARP policy than does the volunteer board of directors...
...Small Business Administration’s (SBA) ancient history and centered on tabloid gossip about political appointees, it overlooked what should be the single most important measure of government-effectiveness...
...JIMMY GURULE Washington, D.C...
...LETTERS The empire strikes back This is to set the record straight on numerous inaccurate statements made in an article by Eric Konigsberg [“Empires of the Sons (and the Friends, and the Mistresses),” June...
...Concerning the issue of grant (ipplication procedures, I interviewed numerous congressional staffers who work with Gurule’s office and who complained that the publication of application forms during his rule continues to be delayed...
...Yet Newmont pays Ash and Thornton 18 percent royalties and will continue to do so for the life of their 99-year lease agreement, according to the 1982 Fortune article Hill mentions...
...if SCSEP were eliminated we would save money...
...We have stated publicly numerous times that we would forgo revenue from our Group Health Insurance Program for comprehensive national health care reform...
...Fourth, Konigsberg states that OJP union members have “filed 14 unfair labor practice charges with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) since Gurule took over in 1988...
...However, under my watch, all grant guidelines and application forms have been published in a very timely manner, allowing ample opportunity for interested parties to respond-generally 90 days for competitive programs, and 30 to 60 days for noncompetitive programs...
...While AARP may not operate a local SCSEP branch in this area, we believe it’s reasonable to expect that an official in the senior employment office at AARP’s national headquarters would be able to do more than refer a caller seeking information to “the phone book under the senior citizens section” and to other elderly advocacy groups...
...JAMES E HILL Denver, Colorado Mr...
...Here are some of SBA’s accomplishments in just the past year: )The agency launched a microloan program that makes business loans available, ranging from less than $100 to $25,000, to promote entry-level entrepreneurship...
...The role of the assistant attorney general is to establish policies and priorities, and manage and coordinate the activities of the OJP bureaus...
...While the FLRA issued two complaints, in one case the FLRA found that OJP had not committed the alleged unfair labor practice of withholding information from the union, and found instead that the only minor violation was not quickly informing the union that the information it requested did not exist...
...DANIEL ERAMIAN Washington, D.C...
...HORACE B. DEETS Washington, D.C...
...FLRA did not issue complaints...
...MK Deets is the executive director of AARP The author replies: In response to the “inaccuracies” listed by Deets: >That AARP receives approximately $75 million from the federal government to run a pair of job placement programs was verified by both AARP officials and the Department of Labor, which provides the funds...
Vol. 24 • September 1992 • No. 9
