Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 56

56 SYDNEY SCHANBERG A Profitable Appraisal for the Raceway thus blocked them from putting it to its most profitable use which was real estate development On Page 13 of the appraisal Bits the following sentence: a use real estate development is legally and economically prohibited for the next 25 years fay the terms of the bonds andor the But this is the exact opposite of what the State Commission of Investigation concluded in its re-' port based on those same bond and lease contracts The SIC said flatly that when the owners decided to close the track pay off the outstanding bonds and move into real estate development in the bond or lease agreements prevented them from doing Let me repeat "nothing prevented The SIC report also said flatly on Page 6 that they could have gone into real estate development at any time after they took over the track All they had to do the SIC said was give 30 notice that they were going to pay off the bonds This was the loophole in the deal a loophole the public was never told about So this is how we know that the appraisal was false For it cannot be that the owners were from real estate development if prevented The appraisal was false because it was based on false information (the rubbish) And this false information was apparent ly provided to AAA by the track owners A leading critic of the whole raceway deal John Duffy former president of the ticket clerks union says a law enforcement official acknowledged to him in 1988 after the track dosed that the owners had indeed the appraiser in order to obtain the distorted land value He says the official was Cliff Brock an assistant district attorney in the office of Nassau County DA Denis Dillon Like the SIC after him Dillon whitewashed the raceway scandal in a report in 1990 Another telling piece of evidence: At the time AAA submitted its appraisal to the new owners saying they were legally barred for 25 years from tumingthe property into a real estate development those new owners had already entered into negotiations with a Manhattan company Eastdil Realty to sell part or all of the land for development Early on Duffy and other critics induding State Sen Eugene Gold brought the distorted figures and their tax consequences to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service and the state Tax Department But no action been taken Perhaps the tax authorities missed the AAA appraisal Though the $326-million land figure was public because it appeared in the annual statements the false appraisal on which it was based was not a public document It came to light because the SIC subpoenaed it and used one page as an exhibit (an innocuous page not one of the several that contained the false information) I obtained the full document through a Freedom of Information Act request I cannot fathom why so many official agencies have overlooked this and all the other shady tricks involved in this ongoing scandal Perhaps because of all the powerful figures who were involved in it ranging from Sen Alfonse down to the Long Island political machine whence he came But whatever the reasons for the coverup it would seem that there are a lot of people just hoping the scandal will fade away so they can get on with their land bonanza It effect of out the the stark America it pretend title to this have been making of but that plain with the But much Battlmore writer Thm Sun WAS TAX FRAUD committed by the owners of Roosevelt Raceway? And if bo why did the State Commission of Investigation choose to look the other way in its recent report whitewashing the raceway scandal? Out of the fiasco of the SIC inquiry has emerged a damaging document that raises nuyor tax evasion questions The document is an appraisal of the 172-acre property which the owners commissioned when they bought the track from Gulf Western in July 1984 They bought it with tax-free bonds given them by the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency on the basis of their pledge to keep the trade running But as we shall see that pledge had a huge loophole Back to the appraisal The company that prepared it was a Milwaukee-based firm called American Appraisal Associates AAA in affixing value to the various components of the property dramatically reduced the value of the land while correspondingly inflating the value of the buildings and equipment The key here is that land cannot be depreciated for tax purposes but buildings and equipment can The AAA appraisal allowed the track owners to take huge depreciation deductions on their tax returns The appraisal set the value of the land at just over $3 million The track owners immediately began using this figure as the basis for their annual financial reports and presumably their personal tax returns Their first financial report came at the end of 1984 It gave $326 million as the land value and this is the figure they used until they shut down the harness track after four years They are now moving openly to make a killing with the land on the real estate market The $3-million appraisal leaps off the page because just six months before the sale the previous owners Gulf Western in their 1983 year-end report had given the land value as $225 million AAA said it had to devalue the land because the terms under which the raceway was purchased required the new owners to keep running it as a track and Haley The What kind Haley be this century? Haley will to completion A black had given family history There is noted that traditions Kinte burst POINTORVIEW different about the was the cultural resonance After his book wiped prevailing myth about divide between blacks in and their African relatives was no longer possible to that blacks held no fair land of the free Blacks significant actors in the America since its beginning Haley breathed life into fact Much has been lost passing of Alex Haley was gained by his life Garland Thompaon a Sun adttorlal Illuminated Role of Blacks of book will a new Alex writing about the turn of Too bad the original not be around to push It journalist reacting to death said that American blacks the they had never had truth to that but it must be many families kept long many years before Kunta into the national consciousness What was truly NEWS DAY FRIDAY FEBRUARY 21 1992 VIEWPOINTS ELLEN GOODMAN Seriousness Is What the Voters Want PAUL TSONGAS TAKES some getting used to There is his name Tsongas as in the poster at a New Hampshire pool: for There is Iris humor It runs the gamut from droll to dry to wry There is also his appearance Dour And his defining life-changing experience Cancer Then there is his prescription to cure the economy It sounds like the economic equivalent of a bone-marrow transplant Pretty grim Great if it works The people of New Hampshire had the time to get used to the man from Lowell Mass They got over the slight speech impediment and the gray affect and the Speedo swimsuit Somewhere along the line they stopped thinking of him as another Greek from Massachusetts He became the plain direct straight-ahead guy who said clearly what was wrong and said dearly what he would do about it Again and again He convinced the voters that he wasn't Santa Claus and might not be a star but he knew what he was talking about This morning-after-the-election-night-before a replay of the Iraqi desert song can change reality There is a strong sense across the country that as the world changes we are mired in a backwater of nostalgia and economic decay want the truth and I am giving it to said Tsongas Humility is not the strong suit of this self-declared truth-teller But clarity is And so is persistence He doggedly presented him-' self as the offering pain and perestroika and a pamphlet of economic ideas Somewhere in New Hampshire Bob persona blurred around the edges and Tom Harkin played to the past and Jerry Brown became as jarring as an 800 number on automatic redial What brought the former senator to the front of the pack was his ability to state the problem and offer a plan And what stopped Bill slide into oblivion was not his charm or even his cool under fire It was persistent and confident answers to question after question about what we should da This campaign may degenerate into sound-bites and back-biting By September we may be back to red white and blue What is worth noting is that the campaign began in New Hampshire with voters looking for the guy who can tell them how to get out of the rut The first round went to Tciti-zens for Tsongas The message is that getting serious at last some will tell you that Tsongas won because New England is his turf Local boy makes good Some will tell you that hie van Clinton lost To Gennifer to the draft board to the media Or maybe Bay that Clinton won because he survived Some will tell you that Tsongas is just a Bate place to put your vote until the real star of the party takes the stage Some will tell you that have his slightly balding head handed to him in the South and the West That he much for pressing the flesh and has a bit too much arrogance and too little cash And there is some truth in all of this But watching this primary unfold over weeks and months in ads and debates in the marathon testing of men and messages it looks like Tsongas took hold for one reason He was the one Democrat who said best what people know in their gut The whole world is changing under our feet we better start catching up Credit Patrick Buchanan for the most effective Bush-bashing But the Democrats in New Hampshire were sending a message as well: George Bush is history in the literal sense World War II The Cold War The No bragging about how we won the Cold War no rousing choruses of number not even Ellen Goodman is a syndicated columnist based at the Boston Globe.