Last updated on February 2, 2024
Now confirmed by the National Chair. The leaders are the Chair and the Vice Chair.
Third Party Watch has learned from a highly reliable source that the LNC leadership intends to move everything in the LNC offices to the basement and rent out the building’s top two floors. The Alexandria staff will apparently not be continued. We are advised that an outside firm has been or will be retained to collect LNC mail and scan any checks that are received.
We have confirmed this report from an LNC member who has not heard details and who did not hear the report directly from the LNC or its leadership.
As of this writing: No announcement of this change has been made. The Agenda for the February LNC meeting does not include this topic.
Readers may find of interest an article from Robert Kraus on our sister publication Independent Political Report. Read it at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2023/06/robert-kraus-speaks-on-selling-lp-headquarters/
In my opinion the Libertarian Party ought to have a building as a headquarters. Whether such a building needs to be in Alexandria or in the DC area is another question.
Being in DC is useful not only for lobbying, but also for networking with politicians, policy wonks, think tank scholars, and journalists — including libertarian, libertarian leaning, and not at all libertarian. It also raises the stature of the party, which can be important for some big donors.
That said, whether or not having that particular building, or being in Alexandria, or being in the DC area was right for the LP a decade ago, it seems clear that moving out of the DC area and getting a headquarters more suited for the party’s needs now could be a good move. I would suggest looking for a headquarters that is very near an airport with low cost flights around the country, perhaps be in a more central location in the country, be near either reliable public transportation or Uber / Lyft to and from that airport, have enough space for in-person meetings (such as LNC meetings, bylaws meetings, and platform meetings), have space for local activists to organize, have high-speed internet, be in a low cost of living area (particularly: low property taxes), and have enough office space for a full staff to work there if future conditions merit working at a location rather than online. It still could make good sense to have a communications director be in the DC area (for access to political journalists) — if we had a communications that was actually interacting with the press and getting us press mentions.
In my opinion, we still should have a headquarters building rather than nixxing it entirely — especially since most of the donations that funded it (including mine) came from a FEC restricted building fund that cannot be used for most other purposes.
Buying a building made more sense, at the time, than continuing to rent at e.g. the Watergate.
A mobile home in Fargo, North Dakota or something of the sort made more sense than an office building in Alexandria, Virginia, even at the time, and continually made more and more sense thereafter, culminating in the Great Work From Home Revolution of 2020.
While the impetus for this move seems to have been the Mises PAC’s abject mismanagement of the party’s affairs, resulting in financial implosion, turning the existing building into a revenue center instead of a nearly useless and entirely excuseless resource drain would have been a good move under any circumstances.
FYI. I think this is one of those emails that went out quickly and got deleted. But MS. HARLOS just send the whole text to the LNC List and I got it. Here it is:
——– Forwarded Message ——–
Subject: Re: [lnc-business] Major Changes Coming to LPHQ
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2024 08:14:56 -0700
From: Secretary LNC
Reply-To: lnc-business@lp.org
To: lnc-business@lp.org
The building is terrible. I support having a building. The decision to buy THAT one was not wise.
___________________________________________________
In Liberty, Caryn Ann Harlos
LNC Secretary and LP Historical Preservation Committee Chair ~ 561.523.2250
On Thu, Feb 1, 2024 at 7:59 AM Angela McArdle wrote:
Hi everyone,
The Vice Chair and I have mulled over this decision with staff on and off for a few months and we’ve decided to rent out the building. *cue screams* Let me explain our decision and Mr. Watkins, who works in real estate, can weigh in if he wants to.
The building is lovely on the outside, but the three-store condo style office building isn’t big enough to hold LNC meetings or events. It’s just too small. We have one employee working in the building right now. Staff is scattered all over the country and we work remotely. Outsourcing mailroom operations costs much less. We’ll be able to redirect those funds towards fundraising, membership cards, and other things that I know our members want and that will generate revenue.
We appreciate all the hard work that our staffer put into mailroom operations and we’ll be sending him off with a bang. He’s been extremely helpful by giving us advice on how to make this transition smoothly.
There is appetite on the LNC to sell the building. I have no interest in trying to sell the building right now (so please don’t agendize it). It is too logistically challenging and we have too many other things going on right now that demand my attention. Instead, we will continue to take care of the building, use the basement for storage, and find a suitable tenant.
Angela McArdle, Chair
Libertarian National Committee
Public confirmation of the reports: https://groups.google.com/a/lp.org/g/lnc-business/c/r0uutjUAwoQ
This is how we honor David Nolan?
Readers should note the question mark in the title. Our sources are highly reliable, but as the LNC has not publicly said anything they might notice that there is a great disturbance in the internet and change course without needing to say that they changed course.
The contract to purchase a permanent national headquarters for the Libertarian Party was signed by Geoff Neale approximately a month before the end of his term as LNC Chair in 2014.
The final payment on the $850,000 mortgage on the building was paid approximately two months after the end of my third term as LNC Chair in 2020.
The plan to terminate all operations at headquarters and rent the space out to cover the overhead was initiated approximately four months from the end of Angela McArdle’s term as LNC Chair.
The Mises Caucus takeover has been an abject failure that has deliberately and systematically destroyed organizational assets, mistreated members and staff, and worked against the best interest of the Libertarian National Committee.
NO, just NO!