CASE-COASTAL-AWARD-CHAIR — Executive Source Material: Coastal Futures Foundation Award

EXECUTIVE SOURCE MATERIAL

Matter: Coastal Futures Foundation award To: Corporate Communications; Foundation Relations; Coastal Affairs Recommended disposition: Destroy after citation approval Current status: Hold conflict

Stop acting embarrassed that we funded them. Put the entire relationship in the citation.

All six cycles. Right up front.

If we hide the money, every reporter gets to call the award purchased. If the Foundation discloses the money itself, raises the conflict itself, and then explains why the conflict does not affect its judgment, the same money becomes evidence of independence. That paragraph is worth more than the fucking plaque.

They retain methodological control. Fine. We never needed to control the method. We funded a regional survey covering every contamination source on that coastline, and they publish findings only after the question has been widened enough to become scientifically responsible. That is what the funding was for.

Hold the ceremony on the Schlitt Platform during renewal. I want the equipment working, the campus residents present, and the Foundation standing physically on the ground it is honoring us for creating. Anybody who wants to call the Platform a failure can do it while accepting our hospitality on top of it.

Do not let them move this to a hotel because somebody is nervous about the beach. The beach is the argument.

Foundation Relations has handled this extremely well. They have given us outside validation without asking anyone to pretend the relationship does not exist. That is more durable than secrecy and much harder to attack.

And remember what the award recognizes. Children sleep on dry ground tonight because Schlitt placed it beneath them. The Foundation is not helping us conceal that fact. It is finally helping other people notice it.

Get the citation approved and get the photographers positioned.