Palm Beach Post Opinion columnist Sally Swartz reports that many Audubon of Martin County members can’t make sense of what is happening to their group. On a recent field trip to Palm Beach Zoo, they exchanged rumors.
Sally Swartz
The contract for Executive Director Greg Braun, for decades the face of Audubon in Martin, was not renewed, the story goes, because Audubon is out of money. Mr. Braun’s job included seeking grants, which he did successfully, to supplement the group’s annual income of about $30,000 from a trust. Grants, in fact, paid salaries for some of the people who engineered the ouster of Mr. Braun.
And if Audubon is broke, some wonder, how did the group immediately hire Stacy Ranieri, who has ties to growth industry employees and supporters, to do public relations?
Many of the group’s more than 600 members are snowbirds, who enjoy local programs while they’re in town but don’t get involved.
That has allowed a few people, with ties to or friends in the growth industry, to take over the Martin chapter. Board members sympathetic to the conservation community have been forced out or harassed until they resign.
Martin has enough growth cheerleaders, Sally writes. It can’t afford to lose a group that historically champions conservation causes.
You can read Sally’s full column here.
