A Boon for T. Boone (of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth fame)

[marmar]

from In These Times:



News > May 5, 2008
A Boon for T. Boone
By Sanhita SinhaRoy


T Boone Pickens, once known as a corporate raider, is now a billionaire hedge fund investor — and one of the funders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign that attacked Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004. Currently, Pickens is trying to build a reputation as a philanthropist. “I very much want to give and see the results, and not give after I’m gone,” he told The Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2006.

In 2005, Pickens, who turns 80 on May 22, donated $165 million to his alma mater, Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., to build an “athletic village” on campus. The gift is the largest donation ever to a college athletic program.

The complex, in Phase I of construction, sits north of Boone Pickens Stadium — a football complex — and east of the geology department, also named after Pickens, who graduated from the school in 1951 with a degree in geology.

The sprawling athletic complex — estimated cost, $316 million — will house indoor and outdoor practice facilities and a baseball stadium — for use only by the university’s approximately 400 athletes.

Using Pickens’ money, OSU bought hundreds of buildings in the area, in one case invoking eminent domain. That house, owned by two brothers, was bulldozed in November 2007. The university also reportedly used the threat of eminent domain to raze other homes and uproot families, some of whom had lived in the neighborhood for decades.

Under the Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo v. City of New London ruling, eminent domain laws allow government agencies to take property from unwilling sellers on behalf of private developers — including universities — if such land is viewed as promoting the public interest. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3617/a_boon_for_t_boone/