Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Editorial: Discussion veers on course
A councilman's request for information shouldn't bother the mayor or Countryside advocates.
From the RoundTable blog
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For the better part of an hour Monday, Roanoke City Council members engaged in an impromptu, candid and unscripted dialogue about Countryside Golf Course. How refreshing.
Had Court Rosen, one of the city's newest council members, been more seasoned, his request for more financial information about the long-term impact of Roanoke owning a municipal golf course might have happened out of the public's view. It's better that it didn't.
The discussion at times left members confused and at odds with each other, but this was exactly the kind of deliberation that lends the public insight and assures citizens that council is not rushing into a decision without all the facts.
Contrary to Mayor David Bowers' insistence, a decision hasn't been made regarding the property that was purchased by the city in 2005 with the initial intent of flipping it to a housing developer.
Market conditions soured and have yet to improve, so it makes sense now to keep it a golf course. Whether it is wise to go with a 5- or 10-year management lease is debatable. Also to be considered is Rosen's request to determine if the city could sell it to a private golf course operator.
If Rosen is to be faulted, it is for being inarticulate in the initial phrasing of his request, not for raising questions.
Some of the information Rosen seeks can't be known until proposals come in, but that shouldn't prevent him from asking. What is odd is that Bowers -- who keeps saying he wants a more open government -- would vote against Rosen's request for staff to provide more information.
Equally troubling is Bowers' claim that "the voters" already decided Countryside should remain a golf course.
If the last municipal election had been a referendum on Countryside, then council candidate Valerie Garner, the golf course's most vocal proponent, would be on council.
Plenty of voters and taxpayers don't play golf or have backyards abutting the course. They, like Rosen, may wonder what other uses the city could make of the $472,000 annual debt payments or whether the benefits of having a municipal golf course exceed the subsidy.
The prudent course is to satisfy these questions as best council can before locking into a long-term commitment.
