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About This Series
Quotes and historical references are drawn from letters, board minutes, memos and statements and tape recordings made during the 1970s and 1980s. The material is housed in the UFW archives at the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Part four: A UFW success story — but not in the fields.
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The financing was set and the plans were drawn, dotted yellow lines showing just where the morning and afternoon sun would shine on the 53 homes for lower-income families.
Almost a decade after the National Farm Workers Service Center had bought vacant land at a Fresno crossroads, the charity was ready to break ground on the affordable housing project called La Estancia.
Then the plans were abruptly scrapped.
Paul Chavez, president of the Service Center, decided the plot had appreciated so much it made more sense to sell. He did not have to look far for a willing buyer: Emilio Huerta, the Service Center's lawyer, worked in the office next door.
FOR THE RECORD:
UFW —A series last month on the United Farm Workers contained three factual errors about the history of the labor union and its related organizations. Health clinics operated during the 1970s were run by the UFW-affiliated nonprofit National Farm Workers Health Group, not the union directly, as reported Jan. 8. UFW officials said that a Fresno developer who partnered with Cesar Chavez to build for-profit housing donated his services and did not split the profits from the developments, as reported Jan. 9. And UFW officials said a school bus abandoned in a back field at union headquarters was not one of the buses used to transport boycott volunteers across the country in the 1970s, as stated in the Jan. 9 article, but was left by a peace activist who never returned to claim it. In addition, the Jan. 8 article reported that the UFW "board deleted all specific references in the UFW constitution to agricultural workers, including the preamble." To clarify: The board deleted the entire preamble and amended the constitution to include all categories of workers, so that the UFW constitution no longer applied only to agricultural workers and related laborers.
In May 2004, Huerta formed a private corporation called Landmark Residential. Three months later, Landmark bought the Fresno parcel from the Service Center for $1.8 million.
The day they closed the sale, Huerta and his partners had already agreed to sell the land for $2.9 million to a local developer, according to county records — reaping a profit of $1.1 million.
The insider deal is one example of how leaders of the UFW and the groups they call the Farm Worker Movement have steered money to friends and relatives at the expense of the charities they serve.
Some other recent transactions illustrate their penchant for doing business with their friends:
• A UFW-related charity rented space last fall in a building owned by UFW Secretary/Treasurer Tanis Ybarra, who also sits on the charity's board. Ybarra said he leases the building, in Parlier near Fresno, to his son Arturo.
The charity's executive director, Nora Benavides, said she sent her staff to talk with Arturo Ybarra because he was well-connected in the area, and he offered to make space alongside his mother Martha's tax preparation business. Benavides said it is convenient for the community organizing group's clients: "We say, hey, listen, there's Martha here who's preparing taxes if you need it…. We don't push it, we just let people know it is available."
Benavides said she formalized the rental arrangement to avoid any conflicts of interest. The move was never discussed by the charity's board, which Tanis Ybarra said doesn't "micromanage" such decisions.
• The Service Center sold the UFW a Craftsman-style house in West Los Angeles that once housed dozens of boycott volunteers during the height of the union's organizing activity. The UFW allowed friends to live there rent free, then sold it in 2004 to a daughter of UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta for $200,000 — about half the market price for comparable houses at the time, according to county records.
Huerta said that when she heard the UFW was going to sell the house, she asked to buy it because of its historic significance to the movement and her family. Because she had not taken a salary or received a pension during her years working for the UFW, the union gave her a break on the price, she and UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said.
Charities, exempt from paying taxes because they serve a public good, have a legal responsibility to obtain the best possible deal. They are required to disclose transactions with related groups or individuals and to be able to defend such decisions as cost-effective.
In the case of La Estancia, Paul Chavez said Landmark matched a competitor's bid and was ready to pay the full $1.8 million in cash. He said he was unaware that Landmark flipped the property at a significant profit.
"What you have is a deal in which the charity obviously was paid a million dollars less than what the property was worth," said Marcus Owens, an attorney who formerly headed the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees tax-exempt groups. "That's a lot of money."
The Players
Emilio Huerta and Paul Chavez have been friends since childhood, when they roamed the grounds around the building where they now work — the compound in the Tehachapi Mountains where Paul's father, Cesar, and Emilio's mother, Dolores, built the United Farm Workers union.
Almost a decade after the National Farm Workers Service Center had bought vacant land at a Fresno crossroads, the charity was ready to break ground on the affordable housing project called La Estancia.
Then the plans were abruptly scrapped.
Paul Chavez, president of the Service Center, decided the plot had appreciated so much it made more sense to sell. He did not have to look far for a willing buyer: Emilio Huerta, the Service Center's lawyer, worked in the office next door.
FOR THE RECORD:
UFW —A series last month on the United Farm Workers contained three factual errors about the history of the labor union and its related organizations. Health clinics operated during the 1970s were run by the UFW-affiliated nonprofit National Farm Workers Health Group, not the union directly, as reported Jan. 8. UFW officials said that a Fresno developer who partnered with Cesar Chavez to build for-profit housing donated his services and did not split the profits from the developments, as reported Jan. 9. And UFW officials said a school bus abandoned in a back field at union headquarters was not one of the buses used to transport boycott volunteers across the country in the 1970s, as stated in the Jan. 9 article, but was left by a peace activist who never returned to claim it. In addition, the Jan. 8 article reported that the UFW "board deleted all specific references in the UFW constitution to agricultural workers, including the preamble." To clarify: The board deleted the entire preamble and amended the constitution to include all categories of workers, so that the UFW constitution no longer applied only to agricultural workers and related laborers.
In May 2004, Huerta formed a private corporation called Landmark Residential. Three months later, Landmark bought the Fresno parcel from the Service Center for $1.8 million.
The day they closed the sale, Huerta and his partners had already agreed to sell the land for $2.9 million to a local developer, according to county records — reaping a profit of $1.1 million.
The insider deal is one example of how leaders of the UFW and the groups they call the Farm Worker Movement have steered money to friends and relatives at the expense of the charities they serve.
Some other recent transactions illustrate their penchant for doing business with their friends:
• A UFW-related charity rented space last fall in a building owned by UFW Secretary/Treasurer Tanis Ybarra, who also sits on the charity's board. Ybarra said he leases the building, in Parlier near Fresno, to his son Arturo.
The charity's executive director, Nora Benavides, said she sent her staff to talk with Arturo Ybarra because he was well-connected in the area, and he offered to make space alongside his mother Martha's tax preparation business. Benavides said it is convenient for the community organizing group's clients: "We say, hey, listen, there's Martha here who's preparing taxes if you need it…. We don't push it, we just let people know it is available."
Benavides said she formalized the rental arrangement to avoid any conflicts of interest. The move was never discussed by the charity's board, which Tanis Ybarra said doesn't "micromanage" such decisions.
• The Service Center sold the UFW a Craftsman-style house in West Los Angeles that once housed dozens of boycott volunteers during the height of the union's organizing activity. The UFW allowed friends to live there rent free, then sold it in 2004 to a daughter of UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta for $200,000 — about half the market price for comparable houses at the time, according to county records.
Huerta said that when she heard the UFW was going to sell the house, she asked to buy it because of its historic significance to the movement and her family. Because she had not taken a salary or received a pension during her years working for the UFW, the union gave her a break on the price, she and UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said.
Charities, exempt from paying taxes because they serve a public good, have a legal responsibility to obtain the best possible deal. They are required to disclose transactions with related groups or individuals and to be able to defend such decisions as cost-effective.
In the case of La Estancia, Paul Chavez said Landmark matched a competitor's bid and was ready to pay the full $1.8 million in cash. He said he was unaware that Landmark flipped the property at a significant profit.
"What you have is a deal in which the charity obviously was paid a million dollars less than what the property was worth," said Marcus Owens, an attorney who formerly headed the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees tax-exempt groups. "That's a lot of money."
The Players
Emilio Huerta and Paul Chavez have been friends since childhood, when they roamed the grounds around the building where they now work — the compound in the Tehachapi Mountains where Paul's father, Cesar, and Emilio's mother, Dolores, built the United Farm Workers union.
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