You lie to the IRS only at your peril, so when the Charlestown Land Trust tells the Internal Revenue Service how it determines the worth of conservation easements, that is probably the real and true value.
It's different from what the Charlestown Land Trust told the gullible Charlestown Town Council, who paid – on YOUR behalf and with YOUR money – $475,000 for a "conservation easement" on the YMCA Campground (a.k.a. the village of Greater Sonquipaugia).
Charlestown Land Trust Treasurer Russ Ricci stood before the Town Council in February and said the $475,000 was a bargain – a fifty cents on the dollar deal because for the town's $475,000, we would see another $367,000 come in from the state. Ricci's math doesn't work, but that's small stuff in comparison to a much bigger misrepresentation.
How does the Charlestown Land Trust actually peg a value to conservation easement? Let's see what the Land Trust told the IRS in their most recent tax return, filed on October 24, 2011:
Only worth $1 because it actually "constitutes a liability?"
Was CLT Treasurer Russ Ricci aware this is the way his own organization pegs a value to conservation easements when he spoke before the Town Council in February, just four months later? How did a conservation easement that is nominally priced at $1 because it is actually a liability, become a "bargain" for Charlestown taxpayers at $475,000?
Let's go back to the same IRS tax return to see who swore under penalty of perjury that the statements in the tax return were true:
Unless the signature is a forgery, that sure looks like the same Russ Ricci who testified before the Charlestown Town Council..
So what is the true value of the conservation easement the Land Trust sold to Charlestown taxpayers? Is is $475,000? Or is it $1 but really a "liability" that could end up costing town taxpayers even more?
This is not the first instance that Russ Ricci stood before the Charlestown Town Council and made statements that were contradicted by the actual documents.
He also told the Town Council the $475,000 Conservation Easement he was selling the town would buy residents "unlimited access, dawn to dusk."
However, that is not what the Conservation Easement – the one worth a nominal dollar but sold to taxpayers for $475,000 – actually buys the town. This is what the Easement says (note: the town is the "Grantee"):
And let's not forget the assessment that was based on assumptions "known to be false."
