It’s Sunday- and we didn’t get around to taping until 5 pm. Topic of the day- city owned golf courses.
Should your tax dollars fund ice rinks, skate parks, swimming pools or golf courses? And of course, we end up with a regional spin.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvcFAO4IJw[/youtube]You can read more about this in the Dayton Daily [1]– but, this was our discussion. Enjoy.
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If it’s profitable then keep it. If it’s losing money and has to be subsidized sell it to the private sector. Really not that hard to figure out from a business perspective.
This is interesting…. here is an important thing to think about. A lot of public golf courses will go under in the next ten years, so it would be smart for Dayton to hang onto the 3 facilities (6 courses) because the supply will cut by 15-20% in the next ten years so demand will increase at these 3 locations.
Golfing, although a real good time, is not the most popular thing in the world. We lose more golfers everyday compared to getting new golfers. It is not exactly dieing, but cost and time constraints make it real hard to play golf on a regular basis. I say 5 Rivers Metro Parks take them over… eventually. They are good for a lot of things.
@Gene – how much money would it cost to run them or maintain them in a salable condition over a ten year horizon? How does that balance next to the profit from selling them now? or selling them later? or if the city was to develop some of these courses into commercial/business/residential ventures?
Swimming pools keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. I lived It’s a CRIME that the City of Dayton closes pools like the Bomberger. Nobody wants to live in a city that doesn’t even good parks and rec. Dayton’s Parks and Rec. department is low-rent. Five Rivers would be a great next step in regionalism, and take over the City of Dayton parks, that for a large part, suck, but could be MUCH better.
There problem with selling them is their value is so low do to the saturation of golf courses. Unless, of course, you could build homes on them (meaning eliminating the golf course.)
Sure they cost a lot to run. But the fact remains the do bring in revenue and provide jobs. There are plenty of parks that produce zero revenue and still require laborers. So under any scenario it would be best to eliminate that kind of land first, if we are talking “business.”
I am specifically talking about the Dayton run facilities (Community(2), Madden(1) and Kitty Hawk(3)) If these course can last another ten years they will eventually become more valuable as golf course are disappearing.
I play golf. If they need to actually sell them then I suggest they do. But from what I know they don’t. Not sure about other faciltities.
Regionalism sounds like a planned economy the way you put it. Instead of Fraze and Island park, we could have just Island park. Granted, it is mediocre, but we are regional!
I strongly disagree with subsidizing golf courses.
When talking about the City of Dayton Golf courses, It’s my understanding that the Water Department ownes the land that the Golf courses are on, for an example, the Kitty Hawk is a system of recharge lagoons (water hazards) for the ground water. I do not know where the DDN gets it numbers from but there is more to the story.
Swimming pools keep kids off the streets and out of trouble. I lived It’s a CRIME that the City of Dayton closes pools like the Bomberger. Nobody wants to live in a city that doesn’t even good parks and rec. Dayton’s Parks and Rec. department is low-rent. Five Rivers would be a great next step in regionalism, and take over the City of Dayton parks, that for a large part, suck, but could be MUCH better.
This was discussed a bit at Dayton Most Metro last year or the year before last, but reasons were found why this wasn’t a good idea, one being the Five Rivers didn’t want to take over the city parks (I think Cooper Park was the example). I think Five Rivers operates as sort of a glorified forest preserve district like the one in Cook County (suburban Chicago), rather than as a park district.
To do what DD suggests is to do what happened in Louisville in the 1960s, were the city and county parks merged (the county also operated a big forest preserve). The system does have public golf courses, too (I used to work at one), but this is seen as a legit form of public recreation, and the system had sufficient economy of scale to operate multiple courses. I know they charge green fees and cart rentals (rentals are a concession) and run little pro shops and snack bars, but I’m not sure if they break even.
I heard from a reliable local source…all the City… golf courses..loose..money every year. $millions$) They can`t even get back their capital improvements monies that they spend on maintenance.
I wonder how much fertilizer and herbicide is dumped on the..aquifer.. by the golf course..??
Golfers are 1% of the population…(??)
I… wonder if… people… who type… like… this also… talk… like this. If they do, I’m being bad for making fun of a stutterer.