Adam's Mark Hotel and AIC Annual Meeting

As you may already know, the courts are reviewing a suit brought by
the Justice Department against the Adam's Mark Hotels. The charges
refer to alleged racial discrimination in the hotel's business
practices. AIC has been following this issue quite closely, as have
many other professional organizations that use the hotel chain for
meetings and conventions. We know that this will be of concern to
the AIC membership since our annual meeting in June is being held at
the Adam's Mark in Philadelphia. We encourage you to follow this
issue. See:
<URL:http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1999/December/601cr.htm>, which is
the Justice Department's site;
<URL:http://www.adamsmark.com/invest.htm>, which is the Adam's Mark
site; and
<URL:http://www.naacp.org/president/releases/Adam's%20Mark%20Lawsuit.htm>,
which is the NAACP site.

The allegations will not be resolved for some time. Considering the
timing of the review and the contract AIC has already signed, the
AIC Board has decided to continue its plans to hold the annual
meeting at the Adam's Mark Hotel. This decision was made in
consideration of a broad range of issues; however, there were two
important facts that influenced the Board:

    It  would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to arrange
    another venue in time for the June annual meeting, which is an
    essential part of the AIC activities and the professional lives
    of our members.

    The cancellation fees that AIC would have to pay to the Adam's
    Mark would be approximately $125,000. This would place an
    enormous financial burden on our organization, directly
    affecting our ability to continue services to the membership
    through committees, task forces, and initiatives next year and
    for some time to come.

AIC will be joining other professional organizations, such as SAA,
AAM, and OAH in expressing our concern to the Adam's Mark Hotels
regarding this investigation and our hopes that the hotel will do
everything it can to resolve the issue fairly. Penny Jones attended
a meeting with Fred Kummer, the CEO of Adam's Mark, along with
representatives of other organizations on February 11 to learn more
about the case and hotel chain's plans. We will keep the AIC
membership regularly appraised of the situation and will be
following up with a mailing to the membership and postings on
AIC-ANNOUNCE as well as the AIC web site regarding the details of our
decisions and further considerations. Should you have any questions
please feel free to call the AIC office at 202-452-9545.

Jerry Podany
AIC President

Elizabeth F. "Penny" Jones
AIC Executive Director





                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:44
               Distributed: Wednesday, February 16, 2000
                       Message Id: cdl-13-44-036
                                  ***