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About Illinois Valley news. (Cave City, Oregon) 1937-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2018)
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Continued from A-1 When Oregon lawmakers created the state version of new market tax credits in 2011, they instructed Business Oregon to award the credits as long as certain federal requirements were met, no matter how dubious a project may appear. In a low-income community? Arranged by a federally approved entity? Backed with all the investment dollars required? Ecotrust’s Rough & Ready proposal checked all those boxes, so the taxpayer spigot was turned on. Business Oregon reviewers didn’t spot warning signs because they aren’t allowed to dig deeper than face value, agency spokesman Nathan Buehler said. The reopening drew high public praise from Oregon officials. “Credit goes to Governor Kitzhaber and to Ecotrust for their efforts on this project and on behalf of the Josephine County economy,” said Sen. Ron Wyden. Rep. Greg Walden hailed the project as “good news for working families in southern Oregon.” Kitzhaber promised to help the mill project “in any way I can.” Lawmakers ended the state version of the new market tax credit program in 2016. Congress, however, has repeatedly extended its new market incentive program, allowing project backers to receive $21 billion in tax credits since 2000. Beginning in November 2017, The Oregonian/OregonLive sought public records about Ecotrust’s Rough & Ready deal. It reviewed tax credit applications, emails and documents given to the state by a concerned Ecotrust insider. Those records trace the complex financial web that ultimately provided $8 million under his control. The former governor, who is working to regain career credibility after an influence peddling scandal led him to resign, is now getting help from Ecotrust. It has inked a four-month contract with him to work on an opaque economic development and natural resource management project called Salmon Nation. Ecotrust would say only that the group is paying him “his standard hourly consulting fee.” in federal and $4 million in state taxpayer resources. Following reporters’ inquiry, Business Oregon notified Ecotrust in February of its plans to claw back more than $1 million of the taxpayer incentives due to misspending. Ecotrust has the option to avoid repayment if by May 3 it spends $2.9 million on other allowable projects in rural Oregon. The nonprofit has indicated it will try to do that. WELL-CONNECTED Ecotrust was founded nearly three decades ago to nurture eco-friendly businesses and show companies that they can build wealth while also doing good. Founder Spencer Beebe is pictured on the nonprofit’s website wearing a white hat, an appropriate symbol of its ethos. “Spencer has always creatively leveraged capital to scale a new economy — finding ways to let mission drive money,” the website says. One way it’s paid for that work: winning $114 million in federal and state tax credits. The public-facing nonprofit also sits atop a less-publicized constellation of for-profit subsidiaries that exist to make money. Those for-profit companies own stakes in a handful of other tax credit projects, eco- centric businesses and the ultragreen Ecotrust headquarters in the Pearl District. Ecotrust next plans to use a new helping of federal tax credits, intended to encourage investment in low-income areas, to build a new hub in southeast Portland’s rapidly redeveloping industrial area. Ecotrust officials are accustomed to rubbing shoulders with influential people in Oregon. The city of Portland rented space in its headquarters building. In 2014, Kitzhaber urged that the group be awarded the tax credits — and even tossed in a $1 million largely forgivable loan from a pot of taxpayer money FAILING UP To qualify for the maximum amount of state tax credits, Ecotrust needed to show that upgrading the Rough & Ready sawmill so it could reopen would cost at least $8 million. Ecotrust’s application to Business Oregon showed half that cost would be to acquire land and construct a building — even though the same three-page application showed the mill was already situated on a 300-acre site with an existing 35,000-square-foot sawmill. Acquiring land and buildings from Rough & Ready’s owners only to give them to an entity 99 percent owned by those same people is not an upgrade eligible for a state taxpayer subsidy, Nia Ray, director of Oregon’s Department of Revenue, informed Ecotrust. Tax credits should never have been awarded for that purpose, she said. Yet Business Oregon signed off on the subsidies. Buehler, the spokesman, said Ecotrust’s application didn’t provide enough detail for officials to spot that problem. Adam Lane, Ecotrust’s chief financial officer, defended the companies’ handling of tax credits. The incentives are restricted to helping businesses in census tracts with low median incomes and are intended for projects that wouldn’t be able to secure private financing without taxpayer subsidies. Most have gone ALL Custom jeweLry desiGns & repAirs done in house! Tues - Fri 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM sAT 10 AM - 2 PM sun & Mon Closed 23772 redwood Highway K e r b y , or 541-592-4838 A LL you cAn eAt breAkfAst or order off tHe menu IV GrAnGe 3763 Holland Loop 541-659-3781 or 541-415-1819 LL B A ♥ R ♥ G R E A T F O O D C F U FIRST THREE SUNDAYS OF THE MONTH: 8 AM - 12 PM SI At tHe ♥ L IV E M U to urban projects, but Ecotrust’s credits were designated for rural communities. “One of the key elements of the new markets program, both state and federal, is they are supposed to go to try to fund projects that will create economic and — the way Ecotrust does it — environmental benefits in these rural companies, these needy census tracts,” Lane said. “It is supposed to go to try to fund things that would not otherwise be fundable.” Still, Lane was asking hard questions of other key decision-makers at Ecotrust as little as seven days before the tax credit deal closed. Bettina von Hagen, chief executive of Ecotrust Forest Management, Ecotrust’s for- profit forest management subsidiary, wrote in an internal analysis of the Rough & Ready deal that log supply wouldn’t be a problem because the mill had “resolved supply issues” and could easily secure logs from its previous suppliers. That raised questions for Lane. He wrote in the margins of von Hagen’s memo, “I think more needs to be said about this given that it was the main reason the mill was closed before. What has changed?” Lane had other questions, too: Did Ecotrust have proof that a log shortage really forced the mill to close in 2013? Why wouldn’t a commercial lender pony up money for the project? Had von Hagen verified that a log shortage wouldn’t “kill the company” again after reopening? “Rigorous analysis (i.e. ‘hard questions’) is the expectation we would hold in any project we undertake,” Carolyn Hollard, Ecotrust’s vice president for communications, wrote in an email. “We do not move forward with any transaction until we complete our diligence and questions are answered. SEE LOG ON A-9
