Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
August 31, 2020
Conserve Amelia Now, Inc. is not a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation, according to their spokesman. Chuck Oliva, the corporation’s treasurer, claims it never has been. But as the saying goes, stuff happens.
Paperwork to officially incorporate the organization on April 30, 2019, was filed through IncFile an electronic filing company which states on its website, “We make registering a company as easy as possible, so you can focus on the important things.”
The individuals who filed the application — Oliva, Alfred Laub and Robert Weintraub — apparently thought they were filing to create a regular corporation. In Conserve Amelia Now’s Articles of Incorporation, the purpose of the organization is “To engage in any lawful activity, including those which foster conservation and preservation efforts.” But somehow the application was filed as a 501c3, and despite disclaimers to all inquiries, the status has not yet been corrected on SunBiz, the state’s official listing of incorporations.
According to Oliva, Conserve Amelia Now was never intended to be a 501c3 corporation; no paperwork was ever filed with the IRS to obtain tax exempt status.
With campaign season heating up, and the Fernandina Observer’s publication of donor information, many of our readers questioned the legitimacy of Conserve Amelia Now’s contributions to local candidates. And with the information on the state’s website, you can understand the concerns.
According to language found in the official definition of a 501c3 corporation, “No substantial part of the activities of the corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the corporation shall not participate in, or intervene in including the publishing or distribution of statements) any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”
Oliva acknowledges that the organization needs to get the information on the state website corrected to eliminate the confusion.
It looks like CAN got caught red handed and is now trying to back peddle. It looks like CAN can’t!
With all due respect, I do not understand how you can begin this article by stating that CAN is not a 501c3 non-profit. Clearly, according to the State of Florida, it is. Without question. Whether that was obtained “by accident” or not. This would have been worded better by saying, perhaps, CAN does not wish to be classified as a 501c3 non-profit. Either way, local candidates that illegally received funds from a corporation registered in the State of Florida as a 501c3 non-profit should ethically return these funds until the organization is appropriately registered.
Thanks, Benjamin. I have revised the first paragraph and the title to address concerns you have raised.
Thank you Suanne. I believe CAN’s intentions are good in regards to their desire to influence City elections. But the truth is the way organizations that wish to influence our elections are set up and registered matters. Mistakes happen, but they should have been fixed prior to this election cycle if the organization wished to have its influence heard in this particular race.
Benjamin, you are wrong. Just because you saw “on the internet” that we are a 501c3 does not make it so. Your comment “according to the State of Florida, it is. Without question.” is foolish and wrong. The State of Florida is not empowered to confer 501c3 status. Only the IRS is – upon request. Your comment is filled with statements that seem certain “illegally received funds….,” but are nevertheless, incorrect. I am very surprised that Ms. Thamm altered her article in response to your wild and unfounded accusations.
It should be very easy for your organization to alleviate any perception of impropriety by simply providing the author of this article proof that Conserve Amelia Now is not actually registered with the State of Florida as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. I’m sure Ms. Thamm would gladly update the article accordingly so the public no longer has any reason to question. Thanks, that is all I have to say on the matter.
Benjamin, you are being dense. The fact of the matter – which you are choosing to ignore for your own stubborn purposes – is that the State of florida cannot confer a 501c3 status on a corporation. Only the IRS can. We are not a 501c3, period.
Correct, unless the IRS has approved a request for a 501(c) status, it doesn’t matter from a legal standpoint how the state of FL lists the status of a company other than cause confusion as has happened in this case. If CAN hasn’t received such a status from the IRS they can make political donations all they want within the parameters of the law.
I guess those candidates who received campaign contributions from Conserve Amelia Now should return them. Also, if a candidate accepts a contribution from that or any other organization, that commissioner should recuse herself or himself from any matters involving the organization from whom they received a contribution. Clearly a commissioner would have a conflict of interest.
If Robert Weintraub is involved, it’s leftist leaning. Any mention otherwise is simply not correct.
The headline of this article suggests that there is more confusion than there is. Also, the characterization that we “thought (we) were filing to create a regular corporation” is not accurate. We did, in fact, request to be filed as a regular corporation. We did not “think” that we did. The error belongs to the filing company (Inc File) alone. We never requested to be a 501c3, nor did we ever represent ourselves as such. The 501c3 status can only be conferred by the IRS upon request – and no request was ever made. Sunbiz department of corporations is dramatically understaffed and does not return phone calls. We will get them to remove that erroneous indication as soon as we can, but in the meantime, it is certainly undeniably true that we are not and never have been a 501c3 corporation.
It is interesting that on April 8th 2019 you (Chuck Oliva) made the following post to update members of Conserve Amelia Now on the group’s own Facebook page:
“We are in the process of applying for 501(c)(3) status as a corporation, and we are looking forward to many years of looking out for the people of Amelia Island and protecting their interests against unchecked development” (direct quote).
You clearly did intend to register with the State of Florida as a 501(c)(3). The leadership of this organization is clearly not being transparent, and should not take it out on their fellow residents for justifiably questioning what appears to be obvious deviations from the truth.
This was in the very early days of the organization being formed. We did not know at the time which way we wanted to go – we were aware of the limitations in political speech that a 5-1c3 status places and wanted to leave ourselves open to making contributions — which is ultimately why we filed as a corporation. That said, your dogged animosity is noted.
Chuck, not sure your characterization of the “very early days” is accurate since Benjamin indicates that post was on April 9 and the state received the corporate filing application from IncFile on April 19 – less than 10 days later. Maybe there were just different points of view of the CAN leadership before a final decision was made.
But anyone can examine the filing record itself and see there is nothing on the actual application to indicate the intent to apply for a 501(c)3 status from the IRS. IncFile will have to provide an explanation as to why they included an “information” page about a 501(c)3 corporation in with the application.I wouldn’t think they would do so without some sort of direction from the applicants, but it could have been just a mistake as I am sure they handle many requests.
http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/ConvertTiffToPDF?storagePath=COR%5C2019%5C0514%5C28394731.Tif&documentNumber=N19000004805
Thanks for adding to the conversation, Dave. And, incidentally, April 9th was the early days. These were some of the first conversations about filing and we were still kicking around ideas. But you are right, there was absolutely no intention of filing as a 501c3.
If the error was made by Inc File, isn’t it their responsibility to correct the error? One would think they have better connections with the FL Division of Corporations and they were the ones that included the 501(c)3 page in the application to the state?
My lifetime focus is environment protection, conservation of our few remaining forested land, If that is “leftist” it would indicate that “rightist” is against protecting the environment and in favor of uncontrolled growth that only costs the city more to provide necessary infrastructure. When, in April 2019, CAN was first envisioned, I advised strongly against filing as a 501c3 corporation and my advice was taken. When the filing error was noted, we considered disbanding the corporation and starting fresh, but two attorneys advised us this was unnecessary as 501 status can only be conveyed by the IRS. Since the corporation was formed, we never said we had any 501 status.
I’ve met Chuck on numerous occasions and I am quite sure whatever mixup happened was in error and will be corrected asap. Chuck is a very respectful trustworthy gentleman.