HOW MUCH DID YTURRIA'S "GIFT" TO OCELOTS COST?

By Juan Montoya

Homer was right.

The Greek bard warned us to "beware of Greeks bearing gifts." In the case of rancher and robber-baron heir Frank Yturria "setting aside" 1,300 acres for endangered cats, the same advice might serve us well.

This is not the first time the Yrurrias have "set aside" some of the land their ancestors stripped from local Mexican-American families in concert with the Kings and Mifflins. There have been other "gifts" made to protect local endangered species on their behalf.

In every case, neither the Yturrias nor the Nature Conservancy that purchased these tracts of land were willing to disclose the amount that was paid the philantrophic rancher for "setting aside" land that is only nominally good only for grazing his cattle and hunting leases.

This time it involved 1,300 acres of an easement on the San Francisco Ranch, property located less than 15 miles inland from the Laguna Madre.

The Associated Press reported that Yturria had stopped clearing the land of the native thick brush of mesquite, huisache and other thorny plants and cacti when he "realized ocelots lived there."

While this may make us feel warm and fuzzy for the "little cats," without knowing much more about the price paid for the scrub land that was obviously not feasible for agriculture or any other quick-buck use, it is reasonable for some of us to be just a mite skeptical about Frank's altruism.

Other than stating that he sold the easement at "a bargain price," Yturria said he will claim the difference between the selling price and the appraised value as a charitable donation. In other words, he will get a tax credit from the government on the deal.

What the true price was we'll probably never know.

But that is about par for the course for these type of donations. Yturria, now 86, is probably looking at polishing up his legacy by making these types of transactions. Inheriting a namesake that is identified locally as one that allied itself with the likes of King, Mifflin, Kleberg, Stillman, and other Robber Barons to dispossess local Mexican-Americans of their land through guile and fraud must be tough on Frank.

He even commissioned a whitewash of a book on his great-grandfather Francisco "Don Pancho" Yturria – the Patriarch – which made him out to be a pillar of goodness and virtue. This was the same man who worked hand in hand with Charles Stillman and Richard King to amass a huge fortune by speculating in the cotton trade and in shady real estate dealings.

One story has "Don Pancho" riding out to the destitute ranches and paying a pittance to desperately poor Mexican-American families for their land titles. For his work, Yturria got his share of the spoils and the Yturria ranch was born.

In fact, one of Frank's ancestors was sent East to be raised and educated by the Stillmans and indoctrinated in the finer subterfuges of banking. Frank's book does not indicate if that Yturria ever came back to the farm or if he stayed on with the Stillmans as a surrogate son.

After that, when some families returned after the war to claim their land, they were met by King's Texas Rangers who violently prevented them from reclaiming their land. Yturria was a direct beneficiary of that armed force.

In September, 2001, Frank's brother Fausto applied for a zoning change to allow the construction of 800 apartment units at a 34.4-acre site, across a resaca from the Hanna High School. That was the scene of the Battle of Resaca de La Palma that took place one day after the Battle of Palo Alto in May, 1846.

Nearby residents complained and the commission denied the move. Local historians were horrified that the empty land would be filled with apartments and the historically-significant site would be lost forever.
Fausto then set aside his plans for the apartments and used the historians' outcry to sell the 34 acres for $2.5 million to the city – a steal at more than $72,674 an acre.
More recently, Fausto hired some of our friends to clear about 30 acres of land for which he was getting paid thousands by the USDA "set aside" program (they set a side a lot of things, these Yturrias) for not planting anything on it.

Fausto's land had been overgrown by large salt cedar stands and he was in danger of becoming ineligible for the payments because a person could not reasonably claim that crops would grow on it. For years, this overgrown property had been the source of a sizable income for Fausto.

Our friends worked to clear the land of the cedar, only to find out when they got paid for a part of their labor, that the land was really more than 35-40 acres, and that if they finished the job, they would have been making a "gift" of labor of between 5 to 10 acres to Yturria.

George Bush, John Cornyn, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and other Republican candidates have all been the beneficiaries of the Yturria largess between 2000 and 2008. The brothers have donated thousands of dollars to these candidates to protect their land and investments.

As in all their transactions, these gifts were made with the Yturrias expecting to get something in return. In the case of the ocelots, it may be the good PR and a burnished legacy they seek.

Yet, their personal relationship is strained by a bitter animosity after a dispute over rights concerning the Yturria name. Neither speaks to the other as a result.