Young Coconut Road Supporters Aren’t Giving Up $10 MillionDespite a reported FBI investigation and the surrounding controversy, developers in Florida really want to hang on to their hard-earned $10 million Coconut Road earmark from Rep. Don Young (R-AK). And yet everything seems to come back to Young one way or the other.
Real estate developers, led by Daniel Aronoff, who raised $40,000 in campaign contributions for Young are pushing the Metropolitan Planning Organization in Lee County to overturn a recent vote to send the money back to Congress in hopes of having it reallocated for a more popular project. The MPO vote came after it learned that the earmark had been changed after Congress voted on the bill. A new vote could take place at an MPO meeting today.
Florida consultant Joe Mazurkiewicz, a Young campaign contributor and outspoken proponent of the Coconut Road project, emailed the MPO yesterday a memo drafted by a Washington lawyer named Jack Schenendorf. The memo plays down the significance of the Coconut Road earmark change, pointing to another section of the 1,200 page bill where “Jacksonville” was changed to “Jacksonville, FL.” (As we’ve already reported, there were no edits of any of the other 6,000 earmarks in the bill that would have changed where money was directed, aside from Coconut Road.)
The email and memo leave the impression that Schenendorf is a disinterested observer:
Attached you will find a Bio and Statement by Jack Schenehdorf, an attorney with Covington and Burling covering the I 75 Coconut Road Interchange Project. This man’s experience and reputation is without equal regarding Federal transportation issues and funding.
It turns out that Agripartners, a company owned by the same Daniel Aronoff, hired Schenendorf to write the memo, which Agripartners acknowledged in a statement issued last night. Schenendorf is a former chief of staff of the House Transportation Committee which Young is now a member and once chaired and has contributed to Young’s campaign fun (albeit only $1,500).
Update: The MPO just voted to reject the Young earmark again.