San Diego Municipal Golfer's Alliance
Position Statement to the GAC
To the Golf Advisory Committee:
On behalf of the San Diego Municipal Golfer’s Alliance (SDMGA), I submit the following written statement for consideration by all members of the GAC. I plan to present a version of these points orally at your meeting on February 21, 2006. Because time to speak may be limited and because some facts are better presented in writing, I offer this written statement and ask that it be circulated to all members of the GAC so that they can consider the points made prior to voting.
SDMGA is a grassroots, citizen’s alliance. We have gathered 593 signatures and still counting seeking the rejection of the proposed Five Year Business Plan. (A list of signatories is attached). On the basis of this substantial public support, we ask that we be given twenty minutes on the agenda to discuss the Plan and present the views of our constituency. In any case, we submit the following statement and urge the GAC to reject the proposed plan and request that the City Staff present a new plan that is consistent with the mission of municipal golf courses which is providing access to the residents both in terms of affordable greens fees and physical access in the form of our 70% of the tee times throughout every hour of the golfing day. Because the Proposed Plan represents a clear and present danger to the mission of public golf in San Diego, we urge all members of the GAC to reject the Business Plan in its entirety.
There are eight main reasons why we urge rejection of the Proposed Plan: (1) What makes Torrey Pines unique is that it is a municipal golf course with perhaps the world’s most fascinating mix of people from celebrities to bricklayers to seniors who have played the course for its full fifty year life to youngsters just discovering the joys of golf. The Proposed Plan threatens the very existence of the municipal golfers; (2) The basic assumption of the plan – that local resident rates should be benchmarked to market rates at for profit courses – is a poison pill that will debilitate and inevitably kill municipal golf in San Diego; (3) Even assuming the benchmark process were appropriate, the specific benchmarks used are seriously flawed; (4) the financial data provided is simply insufficient to evaluate, much less support the proposed raises; (5) the proposed clubhouse provides virtually no benefit to local golfers and the plans for it were formulated for it without meaningful public input. It is a project that should be scrapped altogether or completely redone from the bottom up by creating a procedure which allows the residents to be included in the architects discussions before the design of the building; (6) The process by which the plan and all actions taken with respect to Torrey since 2001 have been designed to deny public input or so limit it that the public cannot support or trust any actions of the city; (7) The allocation of tee times has been regularly violated the 70-30 ratio promised by the City and this has been done with the active support and connivance of City staff. We need a mechanism not only to assure that local residents get their fair share of the prime tee times, but also to provide monitoring of City staff to assure that the abuse of the process followed for the last five years can be prevented in the future; (8) The public statements of the Golf Operations Manager stating that in computing compliance with the 70-30 ratio, all rounds are equal regardless of whether they begin in time to finish a round and that, it is somehow improper for non-residents to “subsidize” local residents demonstrates that he is so hostile to the interests of resident golfers that he is not in a position to make appropriate policy judgments. The preparation of a new plan should be done by individuals who understand the mission of a municipal golf course and who are not attempting to undermine that mission.
We address each of the points below:
(1) What Makes Torrey Pines Unique. What makes Torrey Pines unique is that fact that it that it is a municipal golf course with perhaps the world’s most fascinating mix of people from celebrities to bricklayers; from seniors who have played the course for its full fifty year life to juniors just starting out. Because I play primarily as a single, I have had the good fortune to experience the variety and texture of the golfing population first hand. I have played with Peter Falk (Columbo) asking me to help him line up puts; bartenders from PB; young Pro Ty Tryon trying to hone his game to keep the spot he won on the PGA tour at 17; old timers like R. C. Bartlett, 93, who has lived in San Diego all his life (except for military service); bricklayers; interns; Hanna Jung when she was just a sophomore in high school; the Chancellor of UCSD, school teachers playing a round after school; retirees, struggling to make ends meet; scientists and engineers from across the street. The list could go on, but the point is clear that there is probably nowhere on earth that you can play a quality golf course that where ordinary folks can rub elbows with almost anyone.
There are countless destination resorts that are far prettier (like Pebble Beach and many of the other courses on the Monterey Peninsula, Kapalua in Hawaii). But there is no place else on earth (with the limited possible exception of Bethpage) where one can find such wonderful mix of people. As discussed below, the current version of the business plan will damage and eventually kill off Torrey’s uniqueness by raising prices to exclude the ordinary guy until all we would have left is another cookie-cutter destination resort where only the rich go to play and is just like every other resort that accommodates wealthy tourists. Such a result would not only destroy the character that makes Torrey Pines unique, but also it would undermine the very purpose of public parkland which is to provide recreational opportunities that are accessible to all residents.
(2) The Proper Role of Enterprise Fund Budgeting
(a) The Proposed Plan’s Approach of Benchmarking Resident Rates to Market Conditions Violates the Purpose of Public Parkland
Access for residents is not only a question of physical access (tee times discussed in 7 below), but fiscal access (affordable greens fees). The poison pill contained in the proposed business plan is the almost innocuous sounding statement buried in the business plan that “The golf system is unique in that it operates like a business in what is known in the municipal sector as an Enterprise Fund.” (p. 1). We all agree that the Golf Enterprise Fund should be run in a fiscally responsible, pay-as-you-go manner, including “not only supporting the daily operational and maintenance costs, but also the long term capital improvement projects”. But the phrase “like a business” can have a very different and much more dangerous meaning – that is to maximize revenues and profits. Unfortunately, by “benchmarking” the rates charged to local citizens to for-profit golf courses, (and virtually ignoring the rates charged by comparable municipal courses); the Proposed Business Plan practices the principle of maximization of revenues not the principle of pay-as-you-go. From this pernicious and hidden assumption, the denial of fiscal access to the golf courses inevitably follows. Once maximization of the revenues becomes the guiding principle of golf operations, the local golfer will inevitably be priced off Torrey Pines. Maximizing revenues means charging all the market will bear. Local golfers who play Torrey regularly cannot hope to compete with tourists who are willing to spend virtually unlimited amounts for a few days of their vacation.
While the amounts of the proposed rate increases at Torrey may sound innocent enough, they would actually wreak havoc on the budgets of ordinary citizens, seniors and juniors: a resident golfer who played twice a week at Torrey North during the week would pay $1,300 more per year to play, if the 2 days were weekends, $1,900 per year more; for the South the figures are $1,800 per year more on weekdays, $2,800 more per year on weekends. Seniors on Torrey North would pay $1550 per year more and have 20% fewer days to use those rates; Juniors would pay $474 more per year. With the costs of fuel, food, health care medication, schooling and other essential items skyrocketing, these kinds of increases effectively deny access to literally thousands of local residents.[1]
For any Business Plan to be approved, it must follow the fundamental principle that the primary purpose of city parklands is to preserve access to those parklands for local residents. The Plan proposed by staff violates this fundamental principle. Its abrogation of this principle (and its apparent contempt for local residents) is clearly embodied in its pricing structure which sets the benchmarked rate at that it purports to calculate from the retail rate charged by “for-profit” courses and then paternalistically offering a “discount” to local golfers from the benchmarked rate. This stands the concept of public access for local golfers on its head. This park belongs to citizens of the City of San Diego and as such we have the right to be its primary users. We do not want to be thrown crumbs by golf course management in the form of “discounts,” as if we are poor relations who the golf course management reluctantly allows the use of the golf course even though we are not paying full freight. What utter nonsense!
(b) The Proper Budgeting Principle is that we, the residents of San Diego are the people for whom golf operations should be run.
Public parkland should be accessible to all; user fees should be set to defray the costs of maintaining the parkland and the goal should be to keep such fees to residents as low as possible. A plan with its priorities in order would look at the expenditures necessary to maintain the golf courses (including a reserve for necessary capital expenditures) and set a pricing structure which meets those needs. It would seek to keep resident rates as low as possible, consistent with meeting expenses with a reasonable reserve. We have no objection to benchmarking rates to non-residents at market rates. Assuming a 70-30 ratio of local to non-resident rounds (we can discuss whether this allows for sufficient local golf at another time) the rates should be set as follows:
· The rates for non-resident golfers should be set at prevailing “market rates”
· The rates for local golfers should be set at levels necessary to maintain a “pay-as-you-go” basis sufficient to cover expenditures not generated from the 30% “market rate” rounds played by non-residents
Under such a system it is doubtful that any increase in fees is necessary.
If the principle of pay-as-you-go is maintained (with a reserve for capital expenditure necessary for stewardship of the golf courses into the future), there is no justification at all for increasing rates for residents, seniors or juniors or eliminating the county rate. The proposed budget shows ample current revenues to cover reasonable capital improvements with a reserve of over $6,354,314 estimated for the end of FY 2005 and an operating surplus of well over $1,000, 000 for FY 2005. How does the staff justify the fee increases on an expenditure rationale? It is justified only by trying to get local golfers to fund a $13,000,000 dollar clubhouse that we do not need or want.
(3) Flaws in the Benchmarking System
(a) The Plan aims at the wrong target and for the wrong purpose.
If a benchmarking system of pricing were used to measure the effectiveness of our fee structure, we submit that a proper plan looks to rates charged by comparable municipal courses. Because the goal should be to keep parkland accessible, we should use those benchmarks to make sure that our rates are at least as low as those of other municipalities. For Torrey South the rates charged by Bethpage Black, the site of the 2002 U.S. Open and a governmentally operated golf course would be an appropriate benchmark; $39 dollars per round for local residents, $49 on weekends. And its sister courses, Bethpage Red, ($34 weekdays, $39 weekends) or the Bethpage Blue ($29 weekdays, $34 weekends), seem good comparisons for the North Course. As does the current rates at Harding Park in San Francisco seem an apt comparison to the South: $35 resident rate, $21 for seniors (the benchmark in the City Plan uses $125 which is the non-resident rate at Harding). Balboa should be benchmarked to Coronado (Everyone/Every day: $25/$40, walk-ride) or Honolulu ($16 weekend or holiday with a card, $42 anytime without a card),
The bias and lack of professionalism of the Staff’s Plan is illustrated by the fact that it does not consider either the pricing mechanism proposed here or benchmarking resident rates to the rates charged by other comparable municipal golf courses. Moreover, it its zeal to generate revenues by charging local residents using market rates it knows they cannot afford, the heartless business plan inflicts unnecessary pain on local seniors and juniors. We have been contacted by seniors who play golf at Balboa nine and who struggle on fixed incomes to pay even the present fees causing them to limit their play even though they love the exercise and companionship that golf provides them in their declining years. Whatever the merits of Torrey rates, do we really need to price these folks off Balboa nine by almost tripling their low rates? Should we quadruple rates for juniors deliberately and wantonly undermining the USGA’s first tee program which has been successful in recruiting inner city kids from disadvantaged homes to participate in junior golf? This will effectively price out the very poor kids the USGA is trying to recruit.
(b) The benchmarks are not fairly or accurately arrived at.
In addition, the bench mark process used by the staff is an advocacy tool which does not attempt to find the facts, but was drafted to justify pre-determined levels of fees. It is flawed in two directions. First, the staff analysis understates the potential of Torrey Pines by ignoring the high rates of $180 charged for Torrey by the Lodge. In some ways the brokered rates which the Lodge is able to charge its wealthy guests seems like the most accurate top-of-the market rate, but City Management does not mention this because it would reveal that Mr. Evans is the largest and most profitable broker in the Torrey tee times business because of his sweetheart deal with the City.
Second the plan greatly overstates the rates by using retail prices that for-profit golf courses charge and while not even considering all the discounted packages that residents receive on those golf courses. These packages include advertised specials in the Union, special resident rates, senior rates starting at age 50, internet rates, J C Card and American Golf Cards, much earlier twilight times at other courses, special daily rates for some days of the week, annual membership rates and a host of other discounts which other courses use to attract business. Any accurate benchmarking system would have taken all of these discounted packages into account before arriving at the proper benchmark and consider whether local residents should, for example, be allowed to pay an annual fee instead of daily greens fees. The Plan also overstates the rates charged on local courses by ignoring the fact that Torrey rates are without an electric golf cart and most of the courses compared include carts in their rates.
(4) The financial data provided are simply insufficient to evaluate, much less support the proposed raises.
The five year plan fails to set specific goals, fails to provide a budget needed to achieve those goals, fails to provide an analysis of the revenue raised from each rate, fails to delineate present or future costs, fails to provide documentation of those costs, fails to specifically identify the work to be done in capital improvements, fails to justify proposed capital improvements by a cost-benefit analysis and utterly fails to provide any rationale for charging residents market rates. A plan with so many key financial facts missing cannot even be evaluated, much less approved. Moreover, given the long history of deception and closed-door dealings (point 6 below), the failure of staff to protect residents’ rights to a fair share of tee times (point 7 below), and the apparent hostility of the Golf Operations Manager to residents’ interests, there needs to be an independent audit of all golf operations and all of the underlying data must be disclosed to the public. Finally, the Enterprise Fund is running at a substantial surplus even after paying $1.6 million to the city in rent (why are local residents paying the city rent for their parkland?); there does not seem to be any justification offered for raising fees other than the unneeded clubhouse discussed below.
(5) The proposed clubhouse provides virtually no benefit to local golfers and the plans for it were formulated for it without meaningful public input; it is a project that should be scrapped altogether or completely redone from the bottom up by creating a procedure which allows the residents to be included in the architects discussions before the design of the building.
The proposed new clubhouse is not built with the local golfer in my mind. One searches the plans for anything in the new clubhouse that is directed at the needs of local residents. After a persistent search, the only thing there aimed at us is an allegedly cut rate lunch room presumably run by Evans management which has the reputation of charging as much as the market will bear. Even assuming that the Evans crew is capable of charging reasonable prices and keeping them there for longer than the vote to approve the clubhouse, this means that local residents are being asked to foot the $13 million dollar bill in order to get a dollar or two off the price of hot dogs! We don’t think that it is a very good investment for us.
It is not surprising that the clubhouse has virtually nothing for local residents. We were excluded from the design process. The Deputy Golf Operations manager stated in a GAC meeting that the building was designed by a committee to which no public members were admitted. If clubhouse is to be placed on public land, the architect should be talking to local resident before designing the building. Residents do not need a new clubhouse and certainly cannot afford a luxury clubhouse aimed at attracting the country club set from around the world. We do have some minor additional needs, particularly meeting rooms. Ironically, the new clubhouse contains no public meeting rooms and only the Century club office building provides these. (We oppose giving away parkland to the Century Club, but the fact that their plans include the one thing (besides a coke machine and other vending machines) that local residents need illustrates how absurd it is to charge local residents to build the proposed clubhouse.
Thus, we oppose the present plan to build a clubhouse. We oppose any plan to encroach on the North Course’s beloved 18th hole to build new facilities and we submit that any clubhouse plan must start with a new committee that represents resident interests in the planning phase working with the architects in the design and purpose of the building. Moreover, the real needs for the golf courses are for better maintenance throughout and for an upgrading of the Balboa 18 hole course and clubhouse. Those projects should be completed before we even think about spending money on a clubhouse.
The real reason why there is push for a new clubhouse at Torrey is to look good on television for the U.S. Open and to appeal to tourists who expect country club or destination resort atmospheres. Even assuming that it were a legitimate purpose for using public parkland, there is no justification for charging local residents to pay for such objectives. If built, a clubhouse should be privately financed and no part of the debt service should be charged to the Enterprise Fund, period.
(6) The process by which the plan and all actions taken with respect to Torrey since 2001 have been designed to deny public input or so limit it that the public cannot support or trust any actions of the city
Like so much that has been done in San Diego lately, almost everything that has happened at Torrey Pines golf course has been done outside the view of the public, in back rooms, in violation of prescribed procedures and ending with deceiving explanations. Here is a summary of some of the low lights of this sorry record:
(a) In 2001, South Course renovations were bought and paid for by private interests, without public notice, in secret negotiations with the Century Club and without public opportunity to comment. The disastrous and costly decision to install the same bent grass greens as had just failed at the Riviera Club was one prominent example of the dangers of closed-door decision making. Even more important, this was the opening salvo in the unannounced scheme to hijack Torrey without ever admitting it.
(b) In 2002, tee times for the Lodge and Hilton were snuck in at City Council level, entirely bypassing the Golf Advisory Committee (GAC), Natural Resources Committee of the City Counsel (NRC) and the public.
(c) In 2002, Golf Operations Manager Jim Allen represented to concerned members of the public and Scott Peters staff that, among other things, greens fees on the North course were frozen until after the U.S. Open under the contract with the USGA. This was apparently a false representation, but Peters’ staff did nothing to correct it.
(d) The negotiations to bring the US Open were conducted in secret. Bill Evans owner of the Torrey Pines Lodge threatened to scuttle the negotiations if his hotel didn’t get extra tee times. City staff caved and gave the Lodge extra tee times bypassing the GAC, NRC and the public. The public never learned of Evans’ greedy threat.
(e) November 2004, Bill Evans’ Torrey Pines Lodge announced the schedule for North Course reservations in glossy brochures long before they were presented to the GAC or the City. Only the forceful efforts of Mike Zucchet allowed for meaningful public impact on this one.
(f) January 2005, new golf operations manager Mark Woodward was hired without known public input.
(g) January 2006, five year “Business Plan” promulgated in January of 2006 with request for approval in two days. The Plan contains the most sweeping policy changes ever proposed buried in a 78-page document; proposals to privatize Torrey and to bench mark resident rates to private for profit rates was proposed. Only the sharp eyes of an interested citizen and the forceful presence of Councilmember Donna Frye prevented this gambit from succeeding.
(h) January 2006, Work on 18 north was snuck onto South Open Renovation Agenda to prevent public input; a gambit again thwarted by Donna Frye.
(i) February 2006. The “Fact Sheet” issued by golf operations is a spin document making seriously misleading statements.
(j) The pattern is clear, the City acting to assist private interests seeking to exploit Torrey for personal profit, has consistently acted to deprive the public of their rights to participate in government meetings and their constitutional right to petition their government for redress of grievances. They will stop at nothing to hide their actions from public view. These actions have destroyed any trust the public had in their public officials.
(7) the allocation of tee times has been regularly violated the 70-30 ratio promised by the City and this has been done with the active support and connivance of City staff. We need a mechanism not only to assure that local residents get their fair share of the prime tee times, but also to provide monitoring of City staff to assure that the abuse of the process followed for the last five years can be prevented in the future.
Everyone knows that it has become increasingly difficult for local residents to get on Torrey Pines. Although we are supposed to be getting 70% of the tee times, the tee times assigned to the Hotels, to tournaments, to the pro shop, and those gained by brokers eat up a disproportionate share of the tee times. A recent study of the first week in January of 2006 by the Union Tribune showed that residents were getting on average less than 30% of the prime tee times and on some days as little as 10%. See http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060117/news1s17golfcol.html. Our analysis of February 2006 suggests that local residents are getting around 40% of prime times this month. Everyone but the Golf Operations Manager knows that this breaks faith with the promise of 70% of tee times for local residents. The system has been abused and is broken. The remedy that seems best to us is to assign 70% of the tee times each hour to the phone lottery and restrict the lottery for those slots to those with a resident card. Any bookings of tournaments which necessitate the taking of resident slots must be compensated for with the inclusion of other prime time tee times on other days so that in any given month (other than during the U.S. Open or the Buick), residents get 70% of ALL prime tee times. The tee time operation must be transparent. This can be accomplished by posting the tee sheets on the web, both before and after the phone lottery. Such a system would go a long way to restoring fairness and trust in the system.
(8) the public statements of the Golf Operations Manager stating that in computing compliance with the 70-30 ratio, all rounds are equal regardless of whether they begin in time to finish a round and that it is somehow improper for non-residents to “subsidize” local residents demonstrates that he is so hostile to the interests of resident golfers that he is not in a position to make appropriate policy judgments. The preparation of a new plan should be done by individuals who understand the mission of a municipal golf course and who are not attempting to undermine that mission.
One only has to read the statements of the Golf Operations Manager published and reiterated in the public press to realize that he has no respect for the interests or the intelligence of the golfing public. He has demonstrated himself to be a lobbyist for private interests, not a public employee trying to promote the interests of local residents for whom the park is supposed to be run. He should have nothing further to do with formulation of policy at our municipal golf courses.
CONCLUSION
The Proposed Plan should be rejected. It directly seeks to radically change the purpose of municipal golf fees from a “pay as you go” system designed to keep golf affordable to local residents to a “revenue driven” model which would price local residents out and privatize the Torrey Pines Golf Complex. This radical change in policy would damage and eventually destroy municipal golf in San Diego by driving fees so high local residents cannot afford them.
The Plan is an unprofessional document which fails to follow an appropriate planning process and fails to justify the fee raises it seeks. It is poorly documented and off target in its view of the purposes of an Enterprise Fund and municipal golf. It fails to explain directly why raises in fees to residents are necessary. The hidden reason appears to be in the effort to make local resident pay for a clubhouse that is not designed for them, is unneeded and unnecessary. Its price structure imposes heartless raises on seniors, juniors and county residents. The Plan does nothing to protect locals from the theft of our tee times and our golf courses by private interests.
We need to start anew with a process in which the public is represented at the outset. There is no emergency which requires the immediate adoption of any plan right now. There is time to do it right.[2] By rejecting this wrongheaded and flawed document, the GAC can send a strong message that we want to preserve municipal golf in San Diego and that we can come up with a workable plan, a balanced plan that allows non-resident golf but preserves the essential purpose of municipal golf – to provide access to all San Diego area citizens. Such a plan would include access for non-residents, the Buick, the U.S. Open and other legitimate uses of the golf course. Let’s work together and get it right this time!
SAN DIEGO MUNICIPAL GOLFERS ALLIANCE
Paul Spiegelman, Co-founder
John Beaver, Co-founder
Joe Burwell, Co-founder
[1]Figures based on initial draft. Figures will be updated in light of minor changes made in the revised plan.
[2] The real reason for the rush is the desire to build the clubhouse for the U.S. Open. Because our position is that the clubhouse is unnecessary, we see no reason for it to drive policy. But we do think that advocates for a clubhouse are entitled to their shot before the City Council. If they produce a plan for private funding at no cost to the taxpayers or the public and if they produce a plan that is arrived at through public input and compensates the public adequately for the intrusion on public land, such an issue could be separated from the Five Year Plan and voted on separately.