SDMGA: Letter to Union-Tribune in response to Tod Leonard's May 16 article "Zucchet passionate about compromise proposal."
Paul Spiegelman, a co-founder of SDMGA, has written a letter responding to an article appearing in the May 16 edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The response gives some added understanding to the relationship between the SDMGA Proposal and the Zucchet Proposal.
Paul's letter is given below.
_______________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
To: Tod Leonard, The San Diego Union-Tribune Sports
Hi Tod,
Re: Zucchet passionate about compromise proposal, May 16, 2006. You indicate that SDMGA is submitting a separate proposal to the City Council. The two proposals are really one; Zucchet’s supports ours and we support his. The spreadsheet we have submitted to the City Council adopts the same 4% per annum increase proposed by Zucchet and fleshes out Zucchet’s call for the city “to maximize revenues” from non-resident rates by specifying what market rates are right now (based on what hotel guests tell us they are actually paying the Lodge at Torrey Pines). Our spreadsheet shows that the City can generate slightly more revenue than the City now proposes by holding resident increases to 4% a year and charging market rates to visitors. We support market rates for visitors, not because we want to gouge visitors, but because market forces have already driven up the rates visitors pay and the only issue is whether the City and San Diego golf will gain the added revenue or whether it will go into the pockets of the hotels. SDMGA puts San Diegans first by securing that revenue to benefit all of us; the City’s plan puts special interests first by setting non-resident rates below market and letting the hotels broker profits by reselling the tee times they get from the City to their guests at market rates (causing local golfers to subsidize hotel profits by paying the unreasonably higher rates currently proposed for residents by the City). We hope the City Council will join with Mike Zucchet and SDMGA and the united golfing community in keeping municipal golf affordable and accessible to local golfers; our spreadsheet shows this can be done by charging market rates to non-residents.
Paul Spiegelman
San Diego, CA 92122