Friday, August 28, 2009
Editorial: More openness on Countryside
The public cannot comment on what it does not know.
From the RoundTable blog
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Roanoke City Council seems convinced that it will ink a deal to keep Countryside an 18-hole golf course for the next five years. At what cost? Council knows but the public does not.
This is a mistake. Council needs to be more forthcoming with the public before it commits taxpayers to picking up a multimillion-dollar tab on improvements to a course that only a small percentage of them will ever use.
A fuzzy figure of $2 million has been discussed as the amount needed for capital improvements. But no figures have been disclosed as to how much the city will pay yearly to subsidize a course in which the annual debt payment currently exceeds $450,000.
It's not known whether any of the firms wanting to operate the golf course come close to offering enough to offset the costs.
Roanoke operates an extremely secretive process in selecting vendors. Ordinarily, council OKs the request for proposals then leaves it to a committee to sort through the offerings and authorizes the city manager to commit to a contract.
Some council members recognized that it is unwise to blindly cede responsibility for spending large sums of money. So for the Countryside proposals, council injected itself into the process and has been briefed on the bidders and what they plan to offer the city.
The information apparently was enough to turn Councilman Rupert Cutler in favor of the project. He has several times questioned the wisdom of spending large sums and tying up the land when the intent was to develop it and add it to the tax rolls.
Cutler may now be convinced a golf course is preferable to leaving the land fallow while waiting for the real estate market to pick up. But is the public?
If council seeks informed comment during an upcoming capital improvement plan hearing, then it needs to better inform those who would comment.
