The Conservancy Responds

I’d like to thank Leslie Baer and Greg Klein for their comments on my initial post. I’ll post Leslie’s comments below in blue and Greg’s in green, with my comments in black. I won’t edit or change their comments at all, but I will interject my own comments and observations throughout.

The Conservancy’s website lists Leslie as the Chief Communications Officer, so I suspect that she speaks for the organization. She writes:

“All, Leslie Baer here from the Conservancy. We appreciate those of you who have tried to clear up the misinformation being propagated by Pacific Sports, but we thought it was time to chime in. Greg Klein summed it up nicely, but not everyone knows the history and the Conservancy’s position. (Those of you already familiar with the following, please forgive the repetition…)

“The Catalina Marathon was started by Hans Albrecht in 1978, and was run as a fundraiser for the Conservancy and in support of other charities on the Island. The Lions Club of Avalon ran the event for most of its history, and in 1998, contracted with PS to run it for five years. When the contract ended, PS told the Lions Club that it would continue to operate the event without the Lions Club, and that if the Club didn’t like it, “Sue me.” The Lions Club chose not to spend charitable monies on a lawsuit.

It sounds like Leslie is saying that Pacific Sports improperly took the Catalina Marathon from the Lions Club of Avalon after five years of merely managing it. Pacific Sports has put on the event for 14 years, which means that the Conservancy has waited NINE years before raising this as an issue. If the Conservancy had a problem with Pacific Sports, the time to raise the issue was then, not now.

What could they have done? Simple, just refuse to issue PS a permit for an event they didn’t own. That would have saved the Lions Club from “spending charitable monies on a lawsuit.” What did they do? They issued the permit as if nothing had changed. If PS improperly acquired the Catalina Marathon, the Conservancy was complicit then, and has been so for the past NINE years. I suspect enough cash changed hands to assuage any concerns on the part of the Conservancy.

And I don’t read anything anywhere in Leslie’s comments that the Conservancy is planning to give the event back to the Lions Club. From where I sit, it looks like the Conservancy is ending the Catalina Marathon so it can take it over for itself.

Recently, PS repeated this scenario recently with the Catalina Island Chamber of Commerce and the running of the Catalina Island Triathlon (owned by the Chamber of Commerce according to its written agreement with Pacific Sports). A few months before the race, PS canceled the contract with the Chamber claiming “breach of contract,” changed the name of the event to the “Santa Catalina Triathlon,” and ran the event on the same day with the runners who had signed up for the Chamber event. During the triathlon, PS utilized about 70 volunteers from Avalon School and donated a mere $1,700 for their effort. Had this event taken place under the requirements of Conservancy permits, PS would have had to donate nearly $10,000! The PS donation to the school worked out to LESS than minimum wage, and as a for-profit entity, use of volunteers is possibly against California Labor Law. 

OK, this sounds bad, (Pacific Sports, if any of this is true, shame on you. More on this below) but is the Catalina Triathlon held on Conservancy land? I suspect not because it doesn’t sound like it was issued a permit. Why then, is the Conservancy taking a position about an event outside of its jurisdiction? And is the termination of the Catalina Marathon in retaliation? Sounds like it to me.

In July of 2010, the Conservancy advised PS that it would no longer issue permits to their firm for events beyond 2011.

Leslie, has the Conservancy ever denied a permit for an event? Or is it singling out Pacific Sports?  

PS has had written agreements for each event it has run on Conservancy lands negotiated and entered into one event at a time.

Paragraph 84 of the lawsuit (http://www.pacificsportsllc.com/storage/Complaint.pdf) says otherwise. Exhibit A to the complaint is a schedule of user fees and charitable donation to the Conservancy escalating to $19,000 through 2014. Is that real or not?

We want to make clear to the running community that the Conservancy remains committed to quality distance events on its lands that are the best on the circuit, and that benefit the Catalina Island community. We have full confidence in Spectrum Sports to do that. We have announced two events for 2012: The Catalina Island Conservancy Marathon will take place Saturday, March 10, 2012, and the Catalina Island Conservancy Half Marathon will take place Saturday, September 29, 2012.

I’m glad that the Conservancy is committed to quality distance events. The good news is that the Catalina Marathon is a quality distance event. Indeed, it is unique among events I’ve run in that it keeps people coming back year after year. That continuity matters to me, and I hope that the parties will realize that it matters to others. Ending it will destroy that history and set a very dangerous precedent.

For these events, 100% percent of the net proceeds will go toward protecting and restoring the Nature Preserve that makes these races so special, and to other Island charities. This includes protecting the endangered Catalina Island fox, enhancing bald eagle habitat, managing the herd of iconic bison, and protecting the more than 50 plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world that call Catalina Island home.

The fact that the Conservancy is a not-for-profit entity and has a noble mission does not automatically make the actions of its leaders ethical. So I don’t think this is about the foxes and buffalo. I think the forthright explanation is “In 34 runnings, the Catalina Marathon became such a success that we just had to take it over for ourselves. Thank you all for creating such a great event. We hope the runners don’t notice the subtle name change.”

We look forward to welcoming the running community back next year, and hope that this may clear up misinformation.

Thanks, Leslie. You are the communications professional but I think the misinformation is still flowing. Please I wish you’d play it straight.  A careful reading of your post affirms that I got it right up front: Catalina Conservancy is killing my favorite event, replacing it with a substitute, and hoping nobody will notice or care.

Greg Klein’s comment is below:

Having produced events for over 25 years and having worked for many years with Jack Caress at Pacific Sports and with Mike Bone at Spectrum Sports I think I am qualified to chime in here. I have also worked on many of the Catalina Events over the past 15 years. Here is what my experience says and it is quite simple. If jack Caress treated the participants, the sponsors, the municipalities and the volunteers with the same respect he believes he should be being treated by the City of Avalon and the Catalina Conservancy we wouldn't be having these conversations. I am pretty sure Avalon did not have a problem with his production skills as they are quite good, it is his people skills that everyone has grown tired of, including myself which is the main reason I stopped working for him as I did not want to be associated with him.
All this talk about a conspiracy etc. is pure crap.

I googled Greg Klein and see he runs Klein/Clarke Sports, an event production company out of Rancho Mirage. http://www.kleinclarksports.com/index.html I also see that KC Sports puts on the Tram Challenge, which I ran a few years back. Great event, Greg!

Greg’s comment is probably more honest than anything put out by either of the parties. He makes this sound like this whole thing boils down to a personality conflict. And Leslie’s comment about the triathlon points to the same thing. Maybe Jack Caress needs to learn how to play nice and treat people the way they want to be treated. Or at least understand that developing good relationships with community leaders is important. I do see that PS has events in multiple locations as far away as Cleveland, and I don’t know if they are subject to similar rows as this. If so, PS won’t be around long. If not, I think this is unique to Santa Catalina Island.

Also, if any of that stuff about the Triathlon is correct, then maybe the Conservancy is taking a page out of PS’s playbook. If that’s the case, ain’t it true about karma, PS? The thing is that I don’t have a stake in the triathlon. I care about the Catalina Marathon and don’t want to see it end. Shame on you Pacific Sports if you have ruined it by playing hardball politics with the tri. And shame on you Conservancy by letting politics – or money - obscure your mission of looking after the fox and the bison. And with respect, I think it’s the running community that’s being buffaloed here.