An article from the old Hollywood Independent Dated February 10, 1977, the story covers the purchase of the Cedars of Lebanon hospital in Los Angeles for $5,000.000.
This facility became the Pac Base aka the Complex aka Big Blue.
Over at the Underground Bunker, Skip Press said that Rick Merwin told him back then the purchase price was $13,000,000.
Any hard data on the actual purchase price of the Cedars of Lebanon hospital in Los Angeles is appreciated. Please e-mail to scienowriter@gmail.com
Categories: The Scientology Money Project
Rev Jeff Dubron adding the religious cloaking spin to the story
“…where parishioners can pursue all the all facets of Scientology seminary work… ”
What a joke.
“…result of a building fund drive” Interesting. To my knowledge, fundraising was not being done at the time. The ‘drive’ was the 5% building funds that came from each org. They were used like they were supposed to be. This would have been an accumulation over years by all the involved orgs so could have amounted to the 5M without a fundraising drive.
One thing I know AOLA was made to pay (.5M?) for their share of the ‘Complex’. Then of course after the Corp sort-out May 1985 (Church of Scientology of California xfered it’s assets to Church of Scientology WUS) AOLA had to pay nearly 3,000 a week for BIC (Building Investment Committee) rent. When I (as Treas Sec) queried this, I was told it was to maintain legal rudiments. My suggestion was that the 10% to management be compensated by this amount by paying that much less 10%. When I orders queried it, I was sent to sec checks. Five years later I became the FBO and when I refused to pay it again, more sec checks but this time over at the HGB.
I’m starting to understand why in 1996 when Jennie De Vocht came to AOLA she already had me on a X list and I was ousted even before she briefed the AOLA Captain on her mission. These past ‘incidents’ staff went thru can not be understood without the truth of what was going on. One understood the in-justice dissolves and it gets humorous. Like the church was really concerned about legal rudiments while it’s funneling suitcases of money to LRH. Course that may have been his royalties from AIS I suppose and until I speak to Al Koch (Treas Sec AIS and possibly Barbara Griffin Treas Sec RTC) I don’t know what the suitcases of cash represented. My suspicion is more money to management over the 10% was DMs idea. I know when I took over FBO (’90 IIRC) the Finance accounts were in the hole due to amounts being spent over and above the proper %. I added up the account holes and amounts of %s due plus the public owed (because both their credit card and the check they brought in to replace it were banked) added to over 300K. I have that list in DOS 🙁
The Church lies are different depending on what level you worked at. Perhaps 13M was a shore story and there was fundraising going on and 8M was collected over and above the price or it included renovations. At AOLA, I was told it was 2.5M for the Complex. Go figure. Warrior has more of the story I think.
Was there fundraising going on back then – ’77?
My father , Allan Henderson toured the building within days of purchase, and told me he was told 7 million dollars, cash. He found a mason jar in the pharmacy on a top shelf that contained cocaine, and Cedars sent an armored car for it. True story.
I saw that jar of cocaine, Mike.
I see a reference to a “building fund drive” in the February 10, 1977 Hollywood Independent article. Funny. I don’t recall ASHO having a Building Fund Account (because we didn’t). We had lots of accounts: FBO #1 Account, FBO #2 Account, Main Account, HCO Book Account, Reserve Account, Reserve Account #2, Claims Verification Board Account, FSM Account, and SCA Account. Prior to the purchase of the Complex, Sea Org staff at ASHO were not told we were saving for a new building. I suspect the funds used to purchase Cedars of Lebanon came from Sea Org Reserves. When I was in ASHO Treasury (1975-1981) we never had a Building Fund Account. At no time did I ever transfer to or pay any funds into an account named the Building Fund Account.
Now, there is a policy in the first printing of the OEC Volume III about the “building fund account” but at no time from 1975 forward (through December of 1981 when I left finance) did ASHO have any such account. If there ever had been any such account at ASHO, it would have been closed before my time in Treasury.
A key series consisting of several Board Policy Letters were issued in 1975 titled “The Financial Management Standardization Series”. During this same period in 1975 there were ten BPLs called “The Accounts Audit Series” also issued. To this day I still have all of them in my “hat pack”. These BPLs delineate the names, purposes, and signatories on all of the accounts listed above.
Additionally, there were accounts held and controlled by the Guardian Office at various leves (local, US, and WW) — the ASHO GO Main Account, the USGO Reserve Account, the USGO Defense Account, and the Trustee Account World Wide. As part of my weekly finance duties, I transferred amounts of money that represented percentages of ASHO’s CGI (Corrected Gross Income) to these Guardian Office accounts. The check to the Trustee Account World Wide (5% of ASHO’s CGI) I personally mailed to the Guardian Finance Office WW (in East Grinstead, Sussex) every Friday and reported compliance when it was mailed.