Last night, there was a meeting in Broomfield about future oil and gas development because activists, including everyone’s favorite environmental activist and son of Broomfield City Councilwoman Merrily Mazza, Cliff Willmeng, have targeted the City and County of Broomfield for its next fracking moratorium. A pro-oil and gas activist sent us a photo of a flyer handed out by a group of mineral owners in the Wildgrass neighborhood, who do not want to develop their minerals through fracking or any other means. The flyer shows a photo of these homeowners, but the photo credit points to Ted Wood of The Story Group (see photo below).
The Story Group is composed of environmental “journalists” Ted Wood and Daniel Glick, who seem almost entirely focused on promoting a pro-climate change message. According to its website, The Story Group “is available for assignments and commissions, specializing in environmental and natural resource stories in the Western U.S. and abroad. We maintain a stock footage and photography library, available for licensing.”
Interestingly, The Story Group “is funded entirely through grants, donations and commissions from non-profits, foundations and individuals.” The Story Group requires you to send a donation to a third group, Conservation Ink, so one can give a tax-deductible donation. See below.
Conservation Ink has not filed a Form 990 since 2010, according to GuideStar, the charity watchdog organization. A Form 990 is what the IRS requires of 501c3 nonprofits. Of course, there are carve outs, say, if the nonprofit has basically no revenue. But here is a translation of what it sounds like The Story Group is saying, “We’re for hire. You can pay us with a tax deductible ‘donation’ by laundering the money through Conservation Ink, which has a 501c3 tax deductible charitable status because we do not have a c3 status.”
Since we’re not tax lawyers, we don’t know if this is legal, but it sure sounds shady.
Then, there’s the involvement of radical environmentalist lawyer Matt Sura, who has been pulling environmental groups’ strings here, here, here, and here, with blocking Wildgrass fracking.
All of this adds up to Wildgrass looking a lot less like a genuine group of concerned citizens and, at the very least, a group that’s either been duped by radical environmentalists or even a group intentionally misleading the public through radical environmentalists.