Again, Palm Beach Aggregates-- strangest story of the year, by gimleteye

It is a truism of Florida that wealthy snowbirds mostly give charitable money in their home states, and not in Florida.

But the story of co-owner Michael Klein, of Palm Beach Aggregates sets some kind of record for strangeness.

The company sold part of its land, through an acquisition by the state supported by Jeb Bush, back in 1999. It was a horrendous deal for the public, establishing a cost floor for purchase of private property deemed necessary for environmental purposes. The whole sad story of public corruption, including the use of infrastructure improvements to channel campaign contributions, involving rock mining is wrapped up in the Palm Beach Aggregates deal, that sent a couple of sitting county commissioners to jail.

In its political context, I've written about Palm Beach Aggregates before (see archive: rock mining). But the new story by Bob King, Palm Beach Post environmental writer, must be the strangest story of the year.

Palm Beach Aggregates is a story that keeps giving.

It turns out that Mr. Klein is a full-on radical environmentalist, only not in Florida. He is willing to do just about anything to protect the rainforest, but not the Everglades where at least part of his fortune comes from.

Such a Florida story!

Mining exec an activist himself

By ROBERT P. KING

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, March 03, 2008

He's a vegan, the ultimate Deadhead and a friend of the Earth - the
kind of environmentalist who has gone to jail to save old-growth
forests, built his house from recycled lumber and raised money to send
a socialist to the U.S. Senate.

He might sound like one of those eco-protesters who blockaded the
mining company Palm Beach Aggregates two weeks ago.

But no. Michael Klein is one of the company's owners.

That fact could make Klein one of the most colorful business
executives ever to hold such a major stake in the future of Palm Beach
County. Probably few others here can talk about owning a gourmet
raw-food restaurant near San Francisco, hanging out in Thailand with
Woody Harrelson, marrying the ex-wife of actor Michael Douglas and
hosting the wake for Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia.

But Klein's ecological paradoxes might be his most striking feature.

As a board member and former chairman of the Rainforest Action
Network, he leads a group whose activists have rappelled down
buildings and chained themselves to bank entrances to protest
corporate wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, his company near Loxahatchee is drawing fire from local
environmentalists, who accuse Aggregates of promoting rock mining,
development and a Florida Power & Light Co. plant that will imperil
the Everglades.

Days after the Feb. 18 anti-FPL blockade on Southern Boulevard, the
rain forest group's blog publicized the protesters' cause, including
their pleas for bail money. The Palm Beach Aggregates sign is
prominent in two protest photos on the Web site.

Klein, 52, son of late Aggregates founder Sam Klein, declined to
comment, but his allies say he's sincere in his passion for the
environment. Aggregates co-owner Enrique Tomeu says Klein also has
supported the company's costly efforts to reduce its output of
greenhouse gases.

"He's a committed, passionate environmentalist," Tomeu said. "He's
given millions to environmental causes."

Klein has even gone to jail for his beliefs. In July 2001, he was one
of 20 rain forest activists arrested at a sit-in outside a paper
company's headquarters near Chicago, alongside singer Bonnie Raitt and
John Densmore, drummer for The Doors.

"I think Michael is one of the great conservationists in our country
right now," said Mike Roselle, a former board member of the rain
forest group who was arrested with Klein at the 2001 protest. "He's
been a foot soldier. It's not just about writing checks."

The Rainforest Action Network was not part of the Feb. 18 protest,
which included activists from the radical Earth First! movement. But
it has worked with Earth First! in other protests across the country,
and Roselle said it's one of the few national environmental groups
that makes civil disobedience a prime part of its mission.

"It's hard to find people to support a group that practices civil
disobedience," said Roselle, founder of other eco-protest groups like
the Ruckus Society. "He (Klein) was never concerned about that."

Local Earth First! organizer Panagioti Tsolkas said he'd like to speak
with Klein, if only to find out how much control he has over Palm
Beach Aggregates' activities.

"I think I'd like to touch base and see if he's following what's
going
on down here," said Tsolkas, one of 27 protesters jailed after the
February standoff.

"We're all sort of dependent on the system that we're at the same time
fighting," Tsolkas said of Klein's dual role. "This is maybe a more
blatant example than usual."

Klein, a Harvard Business School graduate and former
telecommunications executive, has been a partner in the Aggregates
mine since 1992, when his father founded the company under the name
GKK Corp. (The two K's stood for "Klein" and "Klein.") He's
been in
business with Tomeu since at least the mid-1990s, when he was a board
member and investor in an environmental cleanup company that Tomeu
headed.

Klein also is the CEO of Modulus Guitars, a California-based
manufacturer of high-end instruments that rely on carbon fiber and
unusual types of wood instead of old-growth forests.

His 15,000-square-foot home in Marin County, Calif., features
construction materials such as recycled wood and compressed soil,
along with two solar energy systems and 3 acres of organic gardens,
according to The New York Times. News accounts say he has used the
home to host Rainforest Action Network retreats and a fund-raiser for
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent who is a
self-described socialist.

That house replaced a previous one in which Klein held Jerry Garcia's
wake in August 1995. One attendee, Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff
Koons, said he was struck by Klein's empathetic, down-to-earth manner,
plus the view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

"It was a surreal moment," said Koons, whose sister Deborah Koons
Garcia is Garcia's widow. "I think Bob Dylan was there."

Klein and his father each owned 25 percent of Palm Beach Aggregates,
as does Tomeu. Sam Klein died in October, potentially leaving his son
with ownership of half of the company, although Tomeu calls that a
private matter.

Speaking under oath last year, Sam Klein said his son was instrumental
in one major decision years ago, when the Fanjul family was seeking
help with an annexation proposal that could have aided development in
western Palm Beach County.

"I said, 'Oh, Michael will kill me if I do this,' " Sam Klein
told a
state investigator in August. He said his son told him: " 'Don't you
dare. They're trying to open that whole area for housing.'

"And so I went back to Mr. Tomeu and said we will not do it," Sam
Klein testified.

Instead, Aggregates agreed to let Wellington annex only a 1,219-acre
swath of company-owned land that did not adjoin the Fanjuls' property.
That annexation failed, but the proposal prompted the county to
approve a vast increase in the development potential of Aggregates'
land.

Tomeu said Michael Klein also supported the company's switch to
electric-powered mining and crushing equipment, including 4 miles of
conveyor belts, to slash its reliance on diesel fuel.

"We basically have made a commitment to lower our carbon footprint,"
Tomeu said. "He was a good part of the driving force behind it. He's
always asking how can we improve the environment."

Tsolkas, of Earth First!, said he would like Klein to help by stopping
the FPL plant, being built on land it bought from Aggregates next
door. Then he would like to see him put a stop to "this rock mining
disaster."

"Maybe we need to get Bonnie Raitt over here," Tsolkas said.