Editor’s note: This commentary is by John Echeverria, of Strafford, who is a professor at Vermont Law School and a member of the Alliance for Vermont Communities, which opposes NewVistas.
[T]he Valley News reports that David Hall “said he would be happy to return the land to the NewVistas Foundation if he could,” and quotes him as stating, “if the citizens in the area can help me to get it reversed back to that, that’s great” (“NewVistas Owner Disputes Claims”).
The mechanics of reversing the transfers of Vermont lands by the NewVistas Foundation, a Utah nonprofit corporation, to Windsorange LLC, a for-profit company owned by Hall, are relatively straightforward.
The transfers were accomplished by deeds executed by a legal representative of the foundation and subsequently recorded in the clerks’ offices in Royalton, Sharon, Strafford and Tunbridge. To reverse these transactions, Hall, as the owner of Windsorange, can appoint a legal representative for the company to prepare and execute new deeds transferring the properties from Windsorange back to NewVistas, and then record these new deeds in the clerks’ offices. Once this is accomplished, the first property transfers, which I have argued are improper, will be effectively erased.
Going forward, the NewVistas Foundation will have options for managing the lands consistent with state charitable laws and its current status as a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
The foundation could sell the lands to third parties in arm’s-length transactions and use the proceeds to advance the foundation’s charitable aims.
Or the foundation could retain the lands indefinitely, and might work with the Vermont Land Trust or the Upper Valley Land Trust to ensure that the lands are conserved and not further subdivided in the future.
Finally, the foundation might consider donating some of the land to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial and has been an excellent land steward in this region for many years.
