Aurora Planned Parenthood: Rats in the zone
In yesterday’s autumn 2007 Aurora Borealis, the City of Aurora’s quarterly newsletter, Mayor Tom Weisner rationalized allowing Planned Parenthood to lie its way into his city by saying he investigated PP from every angle for naught.
But all along, pro-lifers smelled a rat, particularly since the mayor’s current chief of staff, Bill Wiet, admitted knowing PP was coming to town beforehand.
So while Weisner ramrodded an investigation of PP that ended with the verdict pro-lifers suspected Weisner wanted, pro-lifers called for an investigation of Weisner, which to date has not been conducted.
Against that backdrop, OpenLineBlog today caught Clintonspeak in the mayor’s newsletter….
“Entire building”? This can only mean someone in “the city” knew beforehand that PP was planning to inhabit at least part of the building. More than ever an investigation is called for to learn what Weisner and/or city officials knew when they knew it, and whether/how they greased PP’s skids into Aurora.
This also confirms it was entirely inappropriate – although certainly understandable – for Weisner to oversee the investigation of PP and unilaterally decide to let it open its doors.
Other PP Aurora news
We’ve asked the highly respected law firm of Mauk and Baker to come on board with the case, and they’re eager to be a part of this historic case.
I confirmed with Eric that funding has not yet been secured. Recall their fee will be $180-360k, with 30% down needed. Eric reported the Aurora Zoning Board of Appeals has finally scheduled a hearing date for November 28.
[HT on newsletter: anonymous Aurora friend and Vince Tessitore]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Did the plans Gemini submitted show how the building would be subdivided into separate units for separate tenants with separate entrances and separate exits, separate electrical and water meters and so on?
A building designed for multiple occupants would have to be laid out differently from one that is just for one, I assume.
If it is designed for just one tenant, how could PP occupy only a part?
More to the point, who cares?
Somg,
What if a for profit built a church that doesn’t pay tax and didn’t tell the city?
The city would expect to be able to tax the tenant, but now they can’t.
It is misrepresentation and it costs the city money.
What if city officials knew it was a church but pretended they didn’t? What if they later said they thought only part of the building would have a church as a tenant?
Some people would say who cares, we like the church.
However others might say it was not right for the congregation to come in like that.
Some business owners who do pay tax might also feel it is unfair for the non profit to take up space in the business zone. Different people feel differently.
I don’t think that a Planned Parenthood medical clinic, whether it is operated for profit or not for profit, is exempt from taxes.
From the post:
“Thanks to all who expressed interest in helping fund the zoning attorney I mentioned in a previous post. Thomas More Society, a 501(c)3 tax deductible law firm, is fielding donations and has created the ability to donate online as well as by check. Go here for info.”
I hope you’re not trying to suggest to your readers that any donations to the pursuit of legal action on this issue are tax deductible, because they aren’t.
FOCA is coming.
Argh. I should clarify what I meant above. The PP organization may be exempt from federal income tax, but as far as I understand it, the clinics aren’t exempt from local property taxes.
Foca will not change zoning rules or reduce a city’s authority to regulate businesses.
Carol, yes they most certainly are.
SOMG asked, “who cares” re: whether city officials thought PP was going to occupy part or all of the building. I agree. The mayor is simply parsing.
Churches are exempt from property taxes where we live. Also many cities have other taxes on income or sales that vary. I don’t live in Illinois but I doubt the local authorities tax donations. As for taxes on sales of good and services, I don’t know what they do in Illinois.
I do know that a church in our town did have to get special permission to buy and build on an adjacent lot that was not zoned for a non profit and the issue was the loss of revenue to the city. I no longer live in that city.
Mayor Tom Weisner -> scum
Wait a minute…
A recent FAUX news story showed two protesters in front of the Aurora Planned Parenthood. A poster on this board said that there are often none at all.
Patients and clients, on the other hand, stream in all day during during the clinic’s open hours.
Clearly the people of Aurora are happy to have planned Parenthood in their town. They have spoken with their feet and you lost.
Yup, just like in Kansas, the voters decided, and they decided against the right-to-lifers.
Laura,
thats “Fox” news, they report, you decide. Not like PMSNBC.
Yup, just like in Kansas, the voters decided, and they decided against the right-to-lifers.
Posted by: SoMG at November 6, 2007 6:19 PM
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Not to mention South Dakota, where the pro-lifers went down in flames.
If the people of Aurora didn’t want the clinic there, it would have taken about two nanoseconds to raise the $180,000 to $360,000 for legal fees.
Heck, Planned Parenthood didn’t break a sweat coming up with 6-7 million for the project, and NOW or NARAL could have raised that much with a single mass-mailing.
The people of Aurora WANT Planned Parenthood.
Laura,
I just saw on the Families Against PP blog that someone who is regularly at the clinic reports seeing license plates from many other states. The Aurora PP is also the “feeder” for any PP Expresses in the area. Their patients are coming from all over. This is not a reflection on the determination of Aurora’s citizens.
EH
Laura,
thats “Fox” news, they report, you decide. Not like PMSNBC.
Posted by: jasper at November 6, 2007 6:22 PM
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Please…
MSNBC is the fastest-growing news media outlet in the business, and they have OLBERMANN. Hot, smokin’ OLBERMANN.
(Not Loofah Boy, OLBERMANN!)
I liked Olbermann when he was on Sportscenter and he would host it with that guy who ended up being the first person to host the Daily Show. What was that guy’s name?
Laura,
If the people of Aurora wanted Planned Parenthood so badly, why all the secrecy? Why not simply announce their impending arrival as new businesses do all the time? And please don’t give that excuse that they were concerned about pro-life demonstrators. They knew darned well they’d be around once the facility was built. Being PP has such strong support, they would not have had to worry about contractors or construction workers refusing to work on the building either, right?
Also, before you and SOMG crow too loudly, check out the NARAL website where you’ll find that the nation’s grade on reproductive rights “remains a dismal D-“.
NARAL has their own agenda, they want their readers to send them $ so they exaggerate certain problems.
When was the last time you heard of a woman in the USA being forced to grow a pregnancy because she couldn’t get an abortion she wanted? Never. The American abortion industry meets 100% of demand. That means the lowest grade you can give it is a B.
The maternal mortality rate from abortion in the USA is less than one per hundred thousand. That merits an A.
SOMG,
Live in your fantasy world concerning NARAL exaggerating certain problems if you must.
How do you know for absolute certain the unavailability of abortion hasn’t stopped a woman from getting one? Because you haven’t heard of something personally doesn’t mean it has never happened. The abortion industry, as you so accurately put it, sees only those women who can reach it.
Laura,
If they went by on a Monday PP is closed that day. I go out on Mondays. I was there today at 1pm today and there were 6 people there. On average there are at least 4 sometimes up to 10 people there each hour. But even if there were just 2 so what. Many people come during their lunch hour, before work, after work and on weekends.
How about the 1000 that showed up on October 27th? You can’t judge what is happening in Aurora based on one day!
Every time I go out to the Aurora PP there are at least 5-10 people there. There are usually also some people on the main street near by with signs. And, last time I was there (last Tuesday) there was only one car in the parking lot for 2 hours. So I guess it all depends on when you are looking, eh?
Renee, So people WERE there, correct?
I don’t know about any FOX News stories, but I was at the pp Aurora abortion mill all day on Saturday Nov. 3, and there were many people there throughout the day: praying for the girls inside having their babies dismembered, praying for the clinic workers, praying for this place to close, and making reparation to Our Lord for the outrage of the murder of His precious infants.
Late in the afternoon, an old, silver minivan rolled up to the pp entrance. The driver, a young, disheveled man went inside and came out, then drove the van around the back to the employee parking lot. He went in the employee entrance and after a few minutes came out with a large, RED PLASTIC BAG. The young security guard came out with him and they chatted for a while, before the driver put the RED PLASTIC BAG into the back of the old, silver minivan and drove off.
I said a prayer for the babies whose mortal remains were in the RED PLASTIC BAG. This was the only semblance of a funeral these poor babies would have.
Paul,
God help us.
Recall their fee will be $180-360k, with 30% down needed.
Wow, what a waste. Imagine how many poor families you could help with that kind of money. You could save lots of babies with that, but you’d rather throw it away on some futile attempt to close down a perfectly legal charity clinic that prevents dozens of abortions every day.
It has been estimated that Aurora pp will kill 9,000 babies a year. If they kill them 5 days every week, that’s about 250 days a year of baby-killing (accounting for about 10 days closed for holidays). That equals 37 babies killed every day.
PP does nothing whatsoever to prevent abortions. The pills they push, condoms, promiscuous sex to teens, all of that promotes more pregnancies than it ever could prevent.
Pregnancy, that is the conception of a baby, comes from sexual intercourse, that is, copulation, between a male and a female. The only sure fire way to prevent a baby from being conceived is by not having sexual intercourse.
The problem is that people think that having sexual intercourse is just for “fun and games”. That is not the purpose of sexual intercourse. Even a junior high student can tell you that.
But the purpose of organizations like pp is to change the definition and purpose of sex.
From the post:
“Thanks to all who expressed interest in helping fund the zoning attorney I mentioned in a previous post. Thomas More Society, a 501(c)3 tax deductible law firm, is fielding donations and has created the ability to donate online as well as by check. Go here for info.”
I hope you’re not trying to suggest to your readers that any donations to the pursuit of legal action on this issue are tax deductible, because they aren’t.
Posted by: Carol at November 6, 2007 5:00 PM
Carol, yes they most certainly are.
Posted by: Jill Stanek at November 6, 2007 5:10 PM
I think that you were responding to the post above. If so, no, the donations to the legal fund are not tax deductible. Why? Because the donations aren’t actually going to the Thomas More Society. While TMS may indeed be a 501(c), TMS is just serving as a way station of sorts for the money, which is going to pay the legal bills of Mauck & Baker, which is NOT a charitable organization (btw, you spelled “Mauck” wrong in your post).
In other words, just because TMS is touching the money briefly, it doesn’t make the money tax deductible. That would be WAY too big of a loophole in the tax code. I could set up a 501(c)3 and funnel all my bill-paying through it as tax deductible donations if what you are saying is true.
Btw, that was me above.
The mayor should be investigated. Pro-Choicers of Aurora should also be on board with an investigation of the Mayor. If the PP situation is a window to how he operates what’s next?
Why would anyone want a city run by a Mayor who did not follow the proper protocol.
Didn’t I tell you the city knew what was going in there? If anyone is “tricking” you, it’s them. A lot of people don’t know how businesses work with the city to get built, which is why this is such a big shock. Maybe if people actually paid attention to politics (other than abortion issues) they would realize there are a lot of tricky business deals going on.
But who cares? Right?
And Tara, PP usually doesn’t take clients on Monday. They’re not closed, they just do other business.
For every 3 women who go to PP for an abortion, 97 women go there for another reason – to get health care – and that involves access to contraceptives. PP helps prevent pregnancies and that means they help prevent the need for abortion. This is a fact antichoicers refuse to face. That they would cheerfully deny 97 women access to health care to make it more difficult for 3 to have an abortion shows the typical disregard antichoicers have for the welfare of women.
Carol, check your tax code again. 501(c)(3) organizations are perfectly capable and able to hire outside contractors to perform services. No one is contending that Thomas More Society exists to enrich Mauck & Baker, so there is no private benefit. By this logic, Planned Parenthood could be attacked for “funneling” $150k to Perkins Coie, according to PP’s last 990 (and over $600k to their former “medical director”, Dr. Murray Pelta!). All legal, no danger to the 501(c)(3) status.
—
From the post:
I think that you were responding to the post above. If so, no, the donations to the legal fund are not tax deductible. Why? Because the donations aren’t actually going to the Thomas More Society. While TMS may indeed be a 501(c), TMS is just serving as a way station of sorts for the money, which is going to pay the legal bills of Mauck & Baker, which is NOT a charitable organization (btw, you spelled “Mauck” wrong in your post).
In other words, just because TMS is touching the money briefly, it doesn’t make the money tax deductible. That would be WAY too big of a loophole in the tax code. I could set up a 501(c)3 and funnel all my bill-paying through it as tax deductible donations if what you are saying is true.
Sandy, good point. Why would they?
Hello to “Response to [me]”. I agree that there is nothing stopping a 501(c)3 org from hiring outside contractors and paying them, to the extent that the services being performed are the services that qualify the 501(c)3 for tax-exempt status to begin with.
Where we part company on agreement is whether the legal services being provided by Mauck & Baker qualify. I’m pretty certain that they don’t. This isn’t a “charitable” endeavor, for instance, like the defense that TMS provided to Joe Scheidler.
Carol, I appreciate your enthusiasm and your thinking that you somehow have legally handcuffed the pro-life community. It’s very cute.
I’m afraid, however, that you are exhibiting a misunderstanding of tax law. The money donated to TMS can go almost wherever TMS wants it to. I think the Perkins Coie example is a good representation of this. When people donate to Planned Parenthood, that money is tax exempt. It doesn’t matter that they spend it to represent their legal interests.
I urge you to check out the Alliance Defense Fund or other similar 501c3 organizations for more info.
Oh joy. Thanks for the condescending note Alex. I “appreciate” your enthusiasm.
I don’t think that I have “handcuffed” anyone. I just happen to disagree that donations to a pro-life charity that aren’t actually for the purpose of pursuing pro-life charitable interests are tax deductible.
You may have noticed that this is a zoning dispute, and not the defense of actual pro-life interests or pursuit of pro-life rights. Property rights only are involved, meaning that this is outside the scope of TMS’s tax-exempt status.