The discussion is timely. The courses have racked up $2.2 million in accumulated debt, according to the city, and were projected to lose $108,000 in 2018. Their maintenance hasn’t kept up, according to golfers. In addition, city leaders and others have started floating ideas to improve the courses’ financial standings, everything from closing them entirely to selling them to converting some of their holes to condos to adding housing, restaurants, and other amenities alongside fairways and greens.
The discussion is important to every taxpayer of Duluth. And it’s about to be more relevant to all of us.
Findings of fact that had been expected to be presented to the Duluth City Council in December are now on track for release later this month or in early February, Jim Filby Williams, the city’s director of public administration, told the News Tribune Opinion page this past week.
Charged with charting a financially sustainable course for the courses, a nine-person advisory committee — including current and former Duluth Parks Commission presidents, leaders of the grassroots Friends of Duluth Golf group, City Councilor Gary Anderson, a business-community representative, and city staff — will follow the release of findings with specific recommendations for the public to debate and consider.
“The general expectation is that the city and the golfer group will likely present separate recommendations,” Filby Williams said.
While there may be two sets of recommendations, encouragingly, by all accounts, discussions and the process leading to the recommendations have been cooperative, inclusive, and respectful. The city, golfers, and others have been meeting twice a month since March.
“We haven’t had golfers as part of this process in the past. … I believe they’re willing to hear us,” golfer Chris Stevens, president of the 365-member Friends of Duluth Public Golf group, said in an interview in November with the News Tribune Editorial Board. “We’re bringing our side of the story. There is another narrative here other than the $2.2 million (debt). We as golfers want to pay our fair share. So we’re working with them. … Our consideration ultimately is making sure that we have opportunities for our citizens to play public golf that’s affordable. Not everyone has that opportunity.”
“I think we want the same thing,” Mayor Emily Larson said in a separate sit-down with editorial board members. “I don’t know how Lester Park ends. I don’t think it ends with us being able to sustain 27 holes of golf there. I hesitate to say that, because it sounds like a foregone conclusion. I’ve looked at these numbers for a few years. We keep loaning (the golf courses) money from the general fund. … We’re looking at what can be done.”
There’s a lot for the public to consider and debate.
Doesn’t it make sense to convert some of Duluth’s abundance of public lands to the tax rolls?
The city has an obligation to maintain amenities it long ago committed to maintaining. Yet the push recently has been on adding new amenities like bike trails and kayaking and canoeing opportunities. Are established city features like the golf courses being pushed aside?
How much public subsidy is appropriate so Duluth can be a place with a zoo and an aquarium and public golf and other features?
Could the courses become home to other activities, too, like cross country or disc golf, to increase their use and revenue and to improve their prospect of self-sustainability?
Why don’t the courses receive a share of tourism taxes so they can market themselves to visitors. And why don’t they get any of the city’s parks-levy tax proceeds?
“How do we sustain public golf here in this city?” Friends of Duluth Public Golf member Tim Strom asked.
For nearly a year, Duluth golfers, city officials, and others have been working well together to find answers to that basic yet complicated question. That cooperation and respect can continue when the process involves all of us. There’ll be no mulligans for Duluth taxpayers who choose not to be engaged.
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