Corrections: misidentification and full obituary
Editor’s note: QSJ Journal misidentified the subject of Mitchell Rales’s lawsuit in 2015 and corrects the obituary of William L. "Bill" Hodgkins which was cut short. Both articles are republished here.
Rich and powerful peddle influence away from their MDI summer edens
NORTHEAST HARBOR, Feb. 5, 2022 - There is a “Federalist” among us and that’s making some folks a little uneasy.
QSJ received a letter from a reader urging me to write about Leonard Leo, the pro-life operative who has been credited with placing most of the current conservative justices on the Supreme Court.
Leo and his wife bought a nice “cottage” at 46 South Shore Road here in 2018.
He is the longtime executive vice president of the Federalist Society whom the Washington Post described as Donald Trump’s “unofficial judicial advisor.”
The rich and powerful who summer here tend not to make much news on the island (not since Brooke Astor). They are low-key and almost somnolent - except Martha Stewart, or unless you get into a squabble with a neighbor. They sprinkle some largesse among the polite charities and non-profits, but not nearly what they spend back home.
And they run the full political spectrum.
The richest MDI summer resident, Thomas Peterffy (not counting Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson, whose parents own a lake house on Long Pond) spent almost $10 million of his own money buying TV ads in 2012 warning against socialism.
“If 4 years from now if more than 50% of voters are on government support… it is all done and finished,” Peterffy told the Wall Street Journal. “Citizens will lose motivation and the country will grow poorer as a result, he argues, citing his childhood in Hungary and similar scenarios that he maintains have played out in other Eastern European countries and in Cuba.”
Ten years after his treatise, the country is poorer, but not economically.
In 2017, Money Magazine wrote, “Meet the Richest Man in Florida, a Hungarian Immigrant Who Hates Socialism and Hangs Out at Mar-a-Lago.”
On MDI, Peterffy and his girl friend quietly doled out a a few bucks from his petty cash drawer for Friends of Acadia, the favorite among the summer glitterati for its political androgyny and environmental chops. (see Petterffy’s gift below).
But back home, in Palm Beach, Peterffy is embroiled in a massive controversy involving a road project which would benefit land he owns, according to press reports.
Besides being a Mar-a-Lago Club member, Peterffy is also a major donor to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as being a member of DeSantis’ campaign finance team, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Seven years ago, Peterffy bought 561,000 acres of developable land in the rural Lafayette, Dixie and Taylor counties. They are three of the counties affected by the proposed new toll roads.
Peterffy told the Tampa Bay Times that he had nothing to do with the state’s idea to build the toll roads in such a helpful way to his property investment.
“And I want to believe him. I do. It’s all just a coincidence,” wrote Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino sarcastically. “Peterffy can step up. He could say that for the good of Florida’s precious environmental resources — not to mention saving $1 billion in taxpayer dollars that could be spent on education, health care and other pressing needs — we should be adopting the ‘no build’ option the task force said was necessary to consider.
“Sure, it won’t add a few more crumbs to Peterffy’s $17.2 billion net worth. But somehow, he’ll get by,” Cerabino wrote in October 2020.
The project has been cut back since, but Peterffy still stands to benefit greatly with what’s remaining of the roads project in what is known as Florida’s Nature Coast, said Michael McGrath of the Florida Sierra Club.
Now meet Peterffy’s unlikely bookend on MDI, Charles Butt, the Texas supermarket titan who is fighting for voting rights in his home state.
In a homage to Butt in 2021, the Texas Monthly wrote, “After Attorney General Ken Paxton tried to limit Texans’ access to mail-in voting, Butt’s was the rare voice of opposition among Texas’s wealthy and powerful. He wielded his clout to urge the Texas Supreme Court to allow that option to all eligible voters as a public safety measure.
“Though the court ultimately ruled against the expansion, Butt’s bracing defense of our most essential right held our state’s highest-ranking officials to account. At 82, Charles Butt continues to set a civic example for business executives everywhere.”
Butt did make news here once. In 2003, he caused a 10-hour traffic jam when he had transported a massive apple tree from Ellsworth to his home in Northeast Harbor for which he apologized in ads in four newspapers. https://www.myplainview.com/news/article/Texan-to-run-ads-apologizing-for-10-hour-traffic-8873342.php
Off the rails in 2015
Another time a billionaire made the local news was in 2015 when Mitchell Rales sued descendants of Charles Eliot, who help found Acadia National Park, and other neighbors for making too much noise on his private beach. The suit was settled in 2016.
Otherwise, Rales has been quiet and private. But back in Montgomery County, MD, he was a vocal and forceful supporter of Democrats, including two-time governor Martin O’Malley. Rales’s brother Joshua ran unsuccessfully for governor as a Democrat.
Locally, Rales is the principal supporter of MDI 365, which is trying to build affordable housing in Mount Desert. Mitchell Rales has expressed a strong desire to spend his money philanthropically, saying to the Washington Post in 2018, "When we go, there's not going to be money bestowed on children and grandchildren in any meaningful way. This is about reallocating the money we had the good fortune of making to other causes."
“Reallocating wealth.” Just the sound of those words must rattle Leo and Petterffy’s inner timber.
The District of Columbia is where Leo has hung his shingle and earned the animus of Progressives.
Citizensforethics.org reported in October 2020 that Leo “is the sole trustee of a mysterious group that brought in more than $80 million in 2018, according to a previously unreported tax return.
“The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo and provides new details about his role in a secretive firm that was responsible for one of the largest donations received by President Trump’s inaugural committee.”
The New Yorker wrote this profile in 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-to-the-supreme-court
So you can see the contours of this mismatch. Don’t invite Leo, Petterffy, Butt and Rales to the same garden party!
QSJ can’t imagine having a beer with Leonard Leo anytime soon. That would be fine with this Chinese immigrant with a Jewish name who was educated in a Catholic missionary school. Hard to see how I would fit into Leo’s “originalism” vision of America.
But if I get shut out of Copita on a Saturday night because he grabbed the last reservation? Now that would be reason for an uprising the likes of Jan. 6, 2021.
TRIBUTE: William L. "Bill" Hodgkins
1951 - 2022
NORTHEAST HARBOR - William “Bill” Ludolph Hodgkins, 71, died peacefully, on January 19, 2022, at Woodlands Senior Living Center in Rockland after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. He was born January 19, 1951, in Bangor the son of Earl L. and Martha (Page) Hodgkins.
Bill was educated at Orrington Schools in Orrington, Brewer High in Brewer, ME, and graduated from Newburg Free Academy in Newburg, NY in 1969. While in New York he earned his pilot’s license in 1968. Bill graduated in 1974 from the University of Maine with a BS in education. In 1981 he received an Associate Degree and FFC licenses from Washington County Vocational/Technical Institute.
Bill was a teacher at the K-8 Longfellow School on Great Cranberry Island. He also taught at several other schools including the 7&8 grade and later 5th grade at Mt. Desert Elementary School. Bill returned in later years as a Groundskeeper/ custodian at the Mt. Desert Elementary School.
After teaching, Bill was an electronics technician who owned and operated Curved Tree Communications/Hodgkins Marine for 33 years. Bill also worked as Assistant to the Harbormaster in Northeast Harbor.
In the early years Bill was involved with Boy Scout troop 44, Orrington, and went from bobcat to Eagle Scout. He was a Ham Radio Operator WB0YSU.
Bill served as treasurer of the Audubon Society in Southwest Harbor, a Board member at the Mt. Desert Nursery School and a member of the Northeast Harbor Fire Company and Northeast Harbor Fire Rescue Association, where Bill was a trained EMT, Bill also served as their treasurer for years. Bill enjoyed sports and was the score/timekeeper for the following: Soccer, basketball, baseball, (MDES) and softball (Adult Women’s and Co-ed leagues). Bill dearly loved his time keeping time/score at the Great Harbor Shootout every year.
He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Susan Parnell Hodgkins, Northeast Harbor; daughter Elean J. Mitchell and husband John of Bass Harbor, his three sons Christopher L. Hodgkins of Frenchboro, Daniel A. Hodgkins and wife Mary Buffler, of Trenton, and Corey J. Hodgkins and wife Katie, of Ellsworth, his sister Ann Rice and husband Richard and family, in Prescott Valley, AZ and Florida grandchildren Jake and Ryan Mitchell, Hannah and Heidi Hodgkins, and Braden and Caspar Hodgkins. He was predeceased by his parents.
Services will be announced in the spring with burial at Forest Hill in Northeast Harbor.
Those who desire may make contributions in Bill’s memory to the Northeast Harbor Ambulance Service, P.O. Box 122, Northeast Harbor, 04662, the Mount Desert Fire Rescue Department or the Mt. Desert Police Department, P.O. Box 248, Northeast Harbor, 04662.
Arrangements in care of Jordan-Fernald, 1139 Main St. Mt. Desert. Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com