On a single day in the summer of 2013, at one of the nation’s best-known golf courses, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown was looking to raise more than $100,000 for an organization that is inconspicuous in every respect except for its close affiliation with the Jacksonville congresswoman.
Pledges to the group, One Door for Education – Amy Anderson Scholarship Foundation, poured in from a mix of prominent figures in politics, business and government, many of whom were in Jacksonville that week for a major transportation conference.
About 120 golfers planned to play — the entry fee was $250 — while overall pledges came to about $103,000, according to detailed notes compiled by event organizers. A prominent Jacksonville businessman and his wife pledged $6,475 worth of silent auction items.
This story originally appeared on the Florida Times-Union.
Brown, who touted One Door to donors as a charitable nonprofit, said the real winners of the golf tournament would be deserving children who stood to benefit from the substantial proceeds.
It didn’t seem to matter that many of the potential donors and event organizers had never heard of One Door, which is based out of a single-family home more than 700 miles away in Leesburg, Virginia.
If they had looked, they would have found red flags.
One Door lacks the tax-exempt status held by traditional charities, according to IRS records. And, months before the July 2013 golf tournament, Virginia state officials had terminated One Door’s articles of incorporation for failing to file routine paperwork.
It’s not clear what happened to the golf tournament donations.
An outside scholarship fund that Brown said would benefit from the One Door tournament donations can’t say whether that money ever came. One Door, which does not file detailed public reports legally required of nonprofits, has not responded to multiple Times-Union phone calls and emails for weeks.
And Brown has refused to discuss her relationship with One Door or any of the work the group has done.
One Door’s obscurity, however, didn’t seem to dampen the success of the 2013 tournament or deter high-profile donors and assistance.
Besides Brown, there were at last three members of Congress at the tournament – her district neighbor, Republican Ander Crenshaw, and Democrats James Clyburn of South Carolina and Cedric Richmond of Louisiana.
Early plans had envisioned seven members of congress would attend.
Jacksonville Transportation Authority contractors helped Brown organize the event, and the assistant for the agency’s chief executive officer, Nathaniel Ford, sent out invitations to play or sponsor in the tournament. Several JTA contractors were set to sponsor the event.
“On tournament day, volunteers associated with JTA were not compensated for attending or working at the tournament,” Ford said in a written statement, provided in response to a request for an interview about JTA’s involvement with the tournament.
“The JTA has no direct knowledge about how the golf tournament proceeds were spent,” he said. “Any further questions about the golf tournament should be directed to the golf tournament organizer.”
It’s not clear if Ford was referring to Brown or the JTA contractors who helped organize the event, none of whom would comment or could be reached. If JTA did have any questions or uncertainty about One Door, they weren’t enough to stop the agency from helping Brown organize another golf tournament, sponsored by One Door, in 2014 — plans for that tournament ultimately fell through.
Last month, the Times-Union detailed Brown’s unusually close relationship with One Door, discovered reviewing her campaign finance reports after federal agents served her with a subpoena and visited one of her longtime aides.
Federal authorities won’t say what they’re investigating or if One Door is related to the probe.
Investigators are, however, interested in charitable giving tied to Brown, according to federal subpoenas recently issued to another organization and obtained by the Times-Union. Those subpoenas require the Community Rehabilitation Center Inc. and its affiliated foundation to turn over records to a federal grand jury about any gifts, cash or checks that Brown provided between 2009 and 2014. It’s unclear if that is related to Brown’s subpoena.
The partnership between One Door and Brown is nonetheless notable because of the group’s unusually mysterious profile, difficulties finding evidence of some of the charitable work One Door claims to have done, the lengths to which Brown has intertwined herself with the group and her refusal to discuss anything about it.
Asked, for example, if Brown or anyone in her office would discuss the 2013 golf tournament for One Door, Brown issued a statement saying, “I have no comment on an ongoing investigation.” Asked to clarify whether the golf tournament or One Door were part of an investigation, Brown responded, “I have no comment.”
Plans for Brown’s 2013 golf tournament at the posh TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach — uncovered in public records, including JTA emails and detailed notes kept by one of the agency’s contractors — offer a rare look at One Door and Brown’s significance to the obscure organization’s finances, which is otherwise hard to decipher. The records include notes that kept tabs on money organizers had collected in advance of the tournament and from whom, as well as money that had been pledged but not yet received.
Some of the pledged donations may have never ultimately materialized, but the records suggest Brown’s tournament was on track to be lucrative.
“Please note the material was used for planning the event only; I did not update the materials at the time of the event or after its completion,” one of the organizers said in a written statement when providing the records. “Therefore, all information should be considered preliminary ... ln fact, I do not know who finally provided sponsorship. My point is simply that the transmitted material needs to be viewed as a planning tool and used carefully.”
THE TOURNAMENT
The golf tournament kicked off a five-day annual gathering of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials, a well-known professional organization for minorities in the transportation industry.
Brown — who holds a senior spot on an influential House transportation committee — had been an important force in bringing COMTO’s conference to Jacksonville, touting the city the year before as an ideal spot to bring its 500 conference-goers.
“I am committed to the overall success of this event,” she wrote in a May 2013 letter to COMTO’s national organization. Brown said she had “committed to fully support the conference and have taken steps to ensure a variety of both educational and entertainment venues for participants.”
In that same letter, Brown noted that the golf tournament was to be a part of that, a $250-per-player fundraiser billed as benefitting COMTO’s Jacksonville chapter and other unspecified nonprofits. An attachment to the letter listed One Door as the tournament sponsor and Brown as its chairwoman.
Participants were told to make checks out to One Door.
On the day of the tournament — a typically muggy July day, with a high of 89 degrees — players ate a continental breakfast before their shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. Golfers competed for sterling silver cuff links and crystal glassware.
They broke for a “Happy Days” lunch buffet that included beef brisket, pork sliders, macaroni and cheese and the “Commissioner’s Bread Pudding.”
Silent auction items — scheduled to be donated by Jacksonville businessman Willard Payne — included Beyoncé tickets, a condominium stay and golf outing worth $2,000 and a weekend to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
BIG NAMES
The tournament — coinciding with the COMTO conference — was well positioned to attract big figures in transportation including CSX CEO Michael Ward, JTA CEO Nat Ford and the former chairman of Atlanta’s MARTA transit system.
Ward’s charity, the Michael and Kim Ward Foundation, were listed as a $10,000 “birdie sponsor” of the event, although the foundation’s tax record for 2013 doesn’t reflect a payment to One Door.
“I make personal donations and donations via my Foundation, but generally don’t share information publicly about specific organizations,” Ward said in a written statement.
Also scheduled to play was a mix of other notable business and civic leaders, including City Councilman Reginald Gaffney, who wasn’t in office at the time; Rick Mullaney, a former general counsel for the city of Jacksonville and former mayoral candidate; and cable executive Marva Johnson, who last year became chair of the State Board of Education. Florida Senator Audrey Gibson was scheduled to attend the luncheon and asked to ride in the beverage cart.
JTA, meanwhile, was a presence beyond the size of its logo on tournament banners. At least six JTA staffers were scheduled as volunteer “ambassadors” at the tournament, along with former JTA board member Cynthia Austin, JEA interns, three of Brown’s congressional aides and her reliable supporters.
Ivan Rodriguez, JTA’s government relations officer, paid $250 to play in the tournament and said in emails at the time that he would seek reimbursement from the agency for his expense. It’s not clear if JTA ever reimbursed him. Ford’s statement about the tournament did not address the issue.
Maruti Transit, the company that operates JTA’s paratransit service for disabled passengers, paid $10,000 to become a “birdie sponsor,” according to notes from organizers.
GreenPointe Holdings, the development business led by former JTA Chairman Ed Burr, was listed as a $5,000 “par sponsor.”
So were JTA-contracted engineers RS&H; the Fiorentino Group, lobbyists the agency used to lay groundwork for a regional transportation authority; and Broad and Cassel, a statewide law firm whose partners include JTA General Counsel Richard Milian.
The night before the tournament, Broad and Cassel had scheduled a reception in Brown’s honor at the Sawgrass Marriott.
CDM Smith, a JTA contractor and international engineering firm with a Jacksonville office, was a $1,500 “green sponsor.”
WHO IS ONE DOOR?
Although Brown’s golf tournament was part and parcel of the COMTO conference — and the One Door proceeds were touted as benefitting COMTO’s scholarship fund — officials in the local and national chapters were puzzled by One Door’s involvement.
“Who is the One Door Education Foundation?” COMTO’s former Jacksonville chapter president wrote in an April 2013 email to Von Alexander, a JTA contractor and sometimes-Brown spokeswoman.
The question was on other minds, too.
“As we discussed, members of the COMTO Board have expressed interest in knowing more about the organization and we are not able to find any on-line/web info,” COMTO’s national president, Julie Cunningham, emailed Alexander the next day.
“You indicated that the organization’s website will be up soon. Please let me know when it is so that I can share the info with the others.”
It’s not clear how much the tournament actually yielded for charities.
A sheet labeled as a tournament budget proposal lists a $28,000 expenditure for a “Comto Golf Outing Contract,” but that contract wasn’t among event organizers’ papers that JTA released through public records requests. It’s not clear if that document represents a finalized agreement with COMTO for a fixed price. The budget proposal listed total expenditures of $48,100.
The president of COMTO’s Jacksonville chapter, Endya Freeman, referred questions about money from the tournament to national president Mioshi Moses, who took over the post last year. Moses said she didn’t know and had little information about the group’s finances in 2013.
The group’s tax forms for 2013 say COMTO collected $439,700 from the national conference in 2013, about $50,000 less than the year before. The conference was partly underwritten by local government agencies, with donations coming from JTA ($30,000); JEA ($10,000); the Jacksonville Port Authority ($10,000); and the Jacksonville Aviation Authority ($5,000).
NEXT YEAR
JTA’s help didn’t end in 2013.
Agency officials began helping Brown’s office put together another golf tournament in 2014 to raise money for One Door. Unlike the previous year, this tournament wouldn’t have been tied to a days-long COMTO conference.
“In other news, we (Von, Cheryl and I) have started to play around with some ideas for the golf tournament,” Rodriguez, the JTA government relations officer, wrote in a March 2014 email to Brown’s chief of staff, Ronnie Simmons. Cheryl Freeman, an employee at RS&H, handles work on a case-by-case basis for JTA and was heavily involved in planning the 2013 tournament.
The 2014 tournament never took place, though it’s unclear why. Ford’s statement did not address the 2014 tournament.
But event organizers were ambitious at the time. They had hoped a top official in the Obama administration — U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx — would be able to attend.
“Very important to add, if there are dates that are locked up with TPC, we have to get it into Secretary Foxx’s calandar ASAP, so at least his Assistant can block it,” Rodriguez wrote to Simmons.
“Having him there would go a very long way to attract players and donations to the foundation ...”
