SDMGA sends the Coastal Commission a Supplemental Statement in opposition to the Torrey Pines Projects
Since filing of the original SDMGA Appeal to the Coastal Commission on May 10, 2006 the City of San Diego has ignored citizen concerns and implemented plans which favor the affluent in access to coastal recreation in violation of the Coastal Act. This action by the City has created an atmosphere of ever increasing concern for the ability of the average resident golfer to access the San Diego Municipal Golfing facilities, especially Torrey Pines. Because of this situation the SDMGA prepared a supplemental statement to its appeal forthrightly explaining its opposition to the planned Torrey Pines Projects. The statement was sent to the Coastal Commission on December 6, 2006.
The full text of the Supplemental Statement is given below. The references follow the main body of the text. The references are linked so to quickly access them click on the reference number. To return to your spot in the main body of the statement click on the number in the references.
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SAN DIEGO MUNICIPAL GOLFERS ALLIANCE[1] SUPPLEMENTAL STATEMENT
OPPOSING TORREY PINES PROJECTS
(1) Since the filing of this appeal, the City of San Diego has ignored citizen concerns and implemented plans which favor the affluent in access to coastal recreation in violation of the Coastal Act. Shortly after this appeal was filed, on May 16, 2006, the University City Planning Group became the second citizens’ advisory panel to reject the construction plans now under review by this Commission.[2] On May 17, 2006, the Natural Resources Committee of the San Diego City Council voted to remove the proposed Torrey Pines Clubhouse from the capital budget and put the project in a separate fund. Committee Chair Donna Frye noted the relationship between the funding of the clubhouse project and golf fees: “Frye said it's possible the rate structure will be altered, and fees lowered, if it's determined that the extra clubhouse money was part of the original cost calculations.”[3] Nonetheless, five weeks later, Mayor Jerry Sanders strong-armed his plan to radically raise fees to local golfers through an ill-prepared
and confused City Council;[4] the clubhouse was not to be built immediately, but the fees to fund it were being charged anyway.
As discussed in point (3) below, that fee structure imposes costs which are pricing local golfers off Torrey Pines in order to pay for construction projects which are of little benefit to local resident golfers. The fee structure imposed favors those with the means to lay out thousands of additional dollars to play on Torrey Pines. This distribution of coastal recreational facilities by wealth violates the Coastal Act’s mandate in support of low-cost coastal recreation.
(2) Approval of the projects by the City flies in the face of virtually unanimous opposition of the community and the two citizen advisory panels which rejected the projects. .
The City projects have been rejected by the two citizen advisory panels who considered them: the Golf Advisory Council voted 8 to 3 to reject the City plan on February 21, 2006[5] and as noted above, the UCPG voted down the projects 8 to 1 on May 16, 2006. At public meetings held on January 12, 2006, February 21, 2006, March 1, 2006, March 8, 2006, May 17, 2006 and June 26, 2006, hundreds attended and local residents were unanimous in their opposition to the new clubhouse. Of all of the speakers at all of the meetings, every citizen-golfer spoke against the clubhouse (literally hundreds of citizens); the speakers in favor of the Clubhouse were almost all members of the Century Club (an organization whose membership requires personal wealth and which promotes professional golf tournaments) and others who had a business interest in golf. Tom Wornham, listed as vice president of the Century Club and a confidant of the Mayor, advocated that the sacrifice of the recreational interests of resident golfers was necessary to provide economic stimulus for the City as a whole: “the greater good for 1,300,000 San Diegans vs. 10,000 golfers …. Torrey Pines belongs to all San Diegans, not just those who golf.”[6] It should be noted that Mr. Wornham was not advocating converting Torrey Pines into a free public park which all San Diegans could use, but only using Torrey for more professional golf tournaments which he assumed would be of economic benefit to the City economy[7] Nor did what he advocated make much sense: the building of the clubhouse and/or the Tournament Support building are unnecessary to attracting professional golf tournaments;[8] he was presenting a false choice designed to get what the Century Club wanted and without regard to the welfare of the community. Mayor Sanders and the City Council ignored their constituents and citizen advisory boards and opted for a chimerical financial gain at the cost of public parkland. As Union Tribune Columnist Tim Sullivan put it, "The encroachment of private interests and elitist pricing on Torrey Pines is antithetical to the idea of a public park. Next thing you know, Jerry Sanders will be authorizing condo conversions at Balboa Park.[9]
(3) Because the golf courses are funded by an Enterprise Fund, and not from general revenues of the City, the necessary effect of the projects will be to increase green fees at Torrey Pines, reducing access to less affluent golfers.
The cost of the project -- $14 million will be paid out of the Enterprise Fund[10], -- amounts to an average $17.50 more per round over five years. Although that may not sound like a great sum, it accumulates over time to a surprising sum for the regular golfer: A local city resident who plays once a week at Torrey would pay $4,375 more over the next five years in greens fees to fund these projects; a twice-a-week player would pay $8,750 more over the next five years.[11]
The impact of the fee structure is already apparent. City Golf Manager Mark Woodward recently confirmed that the fee structure has had the effect of reducing access; according to Woodard, “rounds played have been down slightly at Torrey Pines this fall, but revenue is up…. helped, ...by the new advance reservation system, which charges residents $25 and out-of-towners $35 [per person in addition to green fees] to make tee times from 8 to 90 days in advance.”[12] It should be noted that this advance reservation system would cost the once-a-week resident golfer $1,250 more per year or $6,250 more over five years.
Thus, what is at stake in this permit application is the affordability of golf for local residents. Approval of the projects for which permits are requested will raise golf fees an average of $17.50 per round which amounts to thousands of dollars in increased fees for locals who have lived in San Diego, paid their taxes and had reasonable expectations that their municipal golf course would remain affordable. In terms of the policies of the Coastal Act, the permits would have the effect of raising the cost of golf to San Diego residents, financially deterring us from playing Torrey in violation of the Coastal Act policy protecting low cost coastal recreation. Torrey Pines is a unique municipal facility which heretofore had low enough rates to allow local golfers to play there regularly; because of its proximity to the ocean, the climate is mild and allows seniors and others to walk the course year round, even when temperatures soar away from the coast. Building the structures proposed will inevitably raise the cost of golf at the coast, financially deter many locals from playing and thereby decrease local access to this fine coastal facility.
(4). The Tournament Support Building creates unneeded locker facilities from which the general public is excluded; cedes public parkland to an organization whose membership is restricted to the affluent and which has facilitated the diversion of $3.5 million in U.S. Open revenues from the City to the individual members of the Friends of Torrey Pines, all the more troubling because of extensive ties between the Century Club, The USGA and the Friends of Torrey Pines; the Tournament Support Building will increase the costs of golf to public golfers with no benefit to us.
SDMGA vigorously opposes the Tournament Support Building as (a) an unnecessary intrusion of building on open space parkland; (b) the donation of public park land to the Century Club of San Diego, an organization whose membership is restricted to the wealthy and with serous conflicts of interest; and (c) the inappropriate imposition of costs of the facility on local golfers.
(a) Tournament Support Facilities Unnecessary. The primary reason used to justify building the Tournament Support facility is to provide locker rooms and other amenities for professional golfers when they visit the facility for a one-week golf tournament. Currently, whatever such facilities are necessary are provided by tents which are constructed for the tournament and removed when it is over. The idea that world class golfers, all of whom stay in nearby hotels or private homes would use the locker facilities to shower or change clothes seems fanciful (does the Century Club really believe that Tiger Woods would be taking showers in a public locker room?). But these facilities will be permanently on the golf course taking up what was formally open space in a public park. Would the lockers be available to the general public? No! Only tournament players would be allowed to use the facility. While the definition of “tournament player” might be expanded to include use by non-professionals who compete in amateur tournaments, the daily public golfer would be barred from the locker facility.
The Tournament Support Facility does plan to create a large meeting room for use by the general public. There is limited meeting room available in the current facilities. So this is a potential benefit to local golfers. However, renovation of the current clubhouse could provide adequate facilities.
A major portion of the Tournament Support Building would be allocated to Century Club’s offices and would include some space the Century Club’s junior golf administration and some limited space for junior golfers. For an operation that is focused primarily on two one-week golf tournaments per year, there is no need for it to have a permanent home on the Torrey Pines Golf Course. Its offices in Mission Valley or other office space off the golf course is perfectly adequate. What ever small benefits for junior golf[13] are afforded in the new facility are hardly a justification for this intrusion on open space and only represent a small portion of the facility.
(b) The Century Club is a Restricted Membership Organization and a Power Broker with Conflicts of Interest that Should Preclude it From Being on Public Land
The Century Club website is silent about its membership criteria, other than to note that “The Century Club was so named because individual memberships were initially priced at $100 each” (http://www.centuryclubofsandiego.org/), but it announces that it has 65 regular members, 5 provisional members, 11 associate members and 28 honorary members. What is clear is that although literally hundreds of ordinary citizens pay money to help out with the Buick Invitational Golf Tournament, none of these volunteers are invited to be members of the Century Club. Century Club membership is reserved for the wealthy high-rollers who have the power and connections to advance the Club’s hidden agendas.
According to the Century Club website, proceeds from the Buick Invitational have over the years gone to support junior golf in San Diego and with the success of the golf tournament have expanded to support other worthwhile charities. Although no audit is provided, there seems little reason to doubt that the Century Club has been the conduit for some substantial funds going to local charities. What the website does not describe are some of the more questionable activities of the Club. Clearly the most troubling is its role and that of its offshoot, the Friends of Torrey Pines, to divert millions of dollars funds that should be going to the City of San Diego from the U.S. Open into the pockets of individual members of the Friends of Torrey Pines.
The Century Club website, http://www.centuryclubofsandiego.org/city_sd.php. tells the beginning
of the story:
"In 2002, the Friends of Torrey Pines, a group of interested citizens and avid golfers led by Century
Club members raised over $3 million to have the South Course at Torrey Pines restored by noted
golf course architect Rees Jones with no cost to the City."
But what the Century Club does not say is that the maintenance of the South Course is claimed by the City to be more than double what it costs to maintain the North Course and that golfers, not the Century Club or the Friends of Torrey Pines, are paying for that maintenance. Even more significantly the Friends of Torrey Pines “led by Century Club members,” negotiated the contract with the U.S.G.A to bring the U.S. Open to Torrey in 2008 and that it diverted $3.5 million in revenues that would normally go to the City to the pockets of the members of the Friends of Torrey Pines. Under the contract with the U.S.G.A., the City of San Diego gets only $500,000 in compensation for its use of the two Torrey golf courses during the U.S. Open and the Friends of Torrey Pines receive up to $3,500,000 in proceeds from corporate tent sales. (It appears that the compensation for the host course at U.S. Open is normally around $4 to $5 million; thus the money taken by the “Friends” appears to come directly out of the City’s share.) When questioned by SDMGA about this unsavory arrangement, Richard Gillette of the Friends stated at a meeting in Mayor Sanders office that the money was being returned to the individual members of the Friends and that there was a plan to contribute up to $325,000 to facilities at Balboa. (Meeting on April 5, 2006 at Mayor Sanders’ Office; SDMGA Co-Founder and Attorney Paul Spiegelman in attendance).
The diversion of the money that should go to the City is particularly troubling because the corporate tents at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot in New York during the 2006 U.S. Open did substantial damage to the East Course at Winged Foot (roads were cut into the golf course for 18-wheel trucks to construct and service the tents) and similar damage can be anticipated here.[14] The City stands to lose substantial revenue during the period that it takes to repair the damage done by the tents (even if the U.S. Open pays for the repairs, which is by no means clear.)
The arrangement is one which cries out for relief from the U.S.G.A. but Century Club members are so well positioned at the U.S.G.A that it is in serious conflict of interest in hearing requests by the City to right this wrong. Here is listing of the interlocking relationships between the Century Club and the U.S.G.A. and the City:
Cameron Jay Rains – Century Club member; USGA Executive Committee, Point man for “Friends of Torrey Pines” who put up money for South Renovation and engineered 2008 open bid.
Dean Knuth – Century Club member, former USGA Senior Director Handicap Department
Dirk Kingma – Century Club member, USGA Committeeman for Regional Affairs
Ray Knowles – Century Club member, USGA Committeeman for Senior Amateur
Scott Peters – “Honorary” Century Club member, President San Diego City Council (honorary members of CC get this title for “distinguished support”
Barbara Warden – Century Club member, former San Diego City Council member, lobbyist for Mayor Sanders
Richard Gillette, Century Club Member and San Diego Chair 2008 U.S. Open.[15]
The bottom line is that the Century Club’s restricted membership, its dubious role in the diversion of $3.5 million U.S. Open proceeds from the City of San Diego and its posture as a partisan against San Diego municipal golfers make it a wholly inappropriate permanent presence on the Torrey Pines parkland. Allowing it on Torrey Pines will inevitably lead to near-total privatization as it pursues its own hidden agenda to favor the affluent while clothing itself in philanthropic garb.
(c.) Cost of facility will be borne by golfers
That Tournament Support Building is being financed through a dubious funding gimmick. As a matter of public relations, the City and the Century Club are claiming that the Century Club is paying for the construction of the facility. In fact, while the Century Club is advancing the funds for construction of the facility, it is seeking rent credits for its construction costs so that it may never pay rent on the office space it is gaining at Torrey through this gimmick. The Enterprise Fund will also bear the costs of maintenance, utilities and other running expenses of the Tournament Support Building, a structure which is of little benefit to the local public golfer. The City has not budgeted any of the operating costs of either the new clubhouse or the Tournament Support Building; thus, the additional costs for local golfers of these facilities is not known. The Tournament Support Building should not be permitted to be constructed in a way that its costs are borne by local public golfers.
(5). The parking renovations are in major part a subsidy to the Lodge at Torrey Pines and will be paid for by increased greens fees to the local resident golfer.
The Lodge’s design encroaches on golf parking by placing its truck delivery entrance in the current parking lot and whose guests use golf parking to avoid paying parking fees to the Lodge; remediation of the flaws in the Lodge’s design should be at the expense of the Lodge, and not at the expense of local golfers as the permit application proposes. Ironically, the Lodge was supposed to provide additional parking for golfers, but it has assigned spots on the roof of its facility which are impractical for local golfers with bags and push carts who have to exit through the hotel or wind their way through five stories of ramps in the parking facility. Local golfers simply do not use these spaces, but innumerable Lodge guests use golf facility parking. Finally, whatever improvements are needed to the parking lot, this is not a $5,000,000 problem and can be accomplished without increasing the amount of impervious surface in violation of the UC Plan p.101.
(6) Although SDMGA believes that the Coastal Commission should deny the permit application in its entirety, we submit that if the Commission is inclined to approve any portion of the projects, it should impose the following conditions to protect low-cost access to coastal recreational facilities:
a. that the proposed clubhouse be funded in ways that do not raise local golfers’ fees by
(i) rolling back resident golf rates to the FY 2005 level (plus a 4% COLA adjustment per annum) (ii) restoring weekday rates for seniors and other residents on Fridays;
(iii) restoring county rates so that local golfers who do not live in the City are not priced off of
Torrey Pines;
(iv) eliminating the advance reservation system for residents[16] which allows local golfers to
pay $25 more per round to get preferential tee times (or reducing the program from 12% of the
tee times down to 4% of tee times);
b. that residents be afforded access to 70% of the finishable golf rounds without paying premium
rates;
c. that tee times be restored to the Torrey Pines Men’s and Women’s Clubs to insure low-cost
access to amateur tournament play which has been the practice at Torrey for the past 50 years; [17]
d. that the portion of any parking lot improvements attributable to improving access to the Lodge
at Torrey Pines delivery entrance be paid by the Lodge and not golfers;
e. that the Century Club not be allowed to be a tenant in the Tournament Support Building unless it
removes wealth restrictions from its membership requirements and allows full voting
membership to volunteers and other members of the public
f. if the Century Club meets condition (e), above, that it be allowed to be a tenant only if it pays
full market rents for this office space without any rent credits for construction costs.
g. that the cost of construction of the Tournament Support Building not be borne by golfers and
that rents for such building be set at levels that cover the full cost of maintaining the building.
h. that locker facilities and other amenities of the Tournament Support Building be made
available to the general public golfer when the facilities are not in use for scheduled golf
tournaments.
(7). Action by the Coastal Commission is needed to protect the access of local citizens because the San Diego City government is directed by a Mayor and City Council who have demonstrated a penchant to accommodate developers, campaign contributors and power brokers, but not ordinary citizens and have used strong-arm tactics and deceptive statements to do so.
(a) Backroom, Strong-arm tactics. The history of the process by which the City handled the issues at Torrey Pines demonstrates that the Coastal Commission action is necessary to protect the Coastal Zone and low coast recreational facilities. From its initiation, the day the City tried to push its plan through without public notice,[18] to the ignoring of unanimous public opposition without a single substantive response, to the way Mayor Sanders invoked his powers as strong Mayor to take the issue out of the public process, to the disinformation campaign engaged in by the Mayor’s office to disguise the true nature of his plan to move inexorably toward privatization of Torrey Pines, to the back-room, strong-arm tactics the Mayor used to preclude the City Council members from a real debate on the issues, and to the to the one-sided solutions which neither acknowledged or addressed public concerns, the City government has made it clear that its actions are not entitled to deference.
Union Tribune columnist Tim Sullivan described the tactics used by the Mayor’s office in pushing through its plan as follows:
"The way Sanders' five-year golf plan was shoved down the throats of the city's most avid golfers, it's a wonder every local duffer doesn't need dentures. Maybe the mayor is more than a caddie for the Century Club, and certainly there's a case to be made for reducing tee time entitlements at a public course, but the whole initiative was conducted so clumsily that it's probably best that Sanders recuses himself from airport and stadium issues. A really strong mayor is not the one who makes up his mind and then ducks out of the room during dissent. He's the one who rules by reason rather than by the arm-twisting of his aides. Jerry Sanders pledged transparency during his campaign, but what he delivered last week was standard back-room politics.[19] "
(b) Deceptive Statements Have Been Used to Justify the City Plan.
In seeking public and City Council support for City’s Plan, Mayor Sanders made a number of representations which were either inaccurate or highly misleading:
(i) Clubhouse shelved, but paid for by golfers. First, the Mayor announced that the City would not seek to build the clubhouse until after the U.S. Open, but did not say that the fees necessary to build the clubhouse were part of his plan.
(ii) Plan reduces, it does add not to, rounds available to daily public golfer. Second, the Mayor claimed that the plan added 15,000 rounds per year for local golfers by cutting tee times to “vested interests, such as hotels, clubs and brokers.”[20] What he did not mention was that all of the tee times taken from hotels, the pro shop and brokers were put into an advance reservation system which reserved 19,320 preferential tee times for non-residents and that the 6,700 tee times taken from the Torrey Pines Women’s and Men’s club tournaments were put into a another preferential pool of 19,320 tee times for which local golfers would have to pay $25 more per round ($6,250 over five years for the once-a-week golfer) to gain a preference over other local golfers who cannot afford the extra money. Thus the claim of additional tee times was false: no new tee times were made available to the public and indeed there was a net loss of 12,620 tee times to the daily public lottery from which golfers who could not pay a premium get their times.
(iii) City stonewalls local golfers’ pleas for fair share of finishable rounds. Third, the Mayor accurately stated that the plan would have a 70 percent to 30 percent split of resident and nonresident tee times; what he did not say was that the issue the public golfer had been raising was that with all the preferences given to hotels and affluent non-residents, local golfers were not getting on the course at times when they could finish a round (under the City plan the 70-30 ratio included rounds started in the late afternoon where only a few holes could be played as a round of golf and counted the same as rounds started in prime time when the customary, 18-hole round of golf could be completed.) The City totally rebuffed the community’s call for our share of the prime times and refused to provide accessible data for auditing compliance, but the Mayor trumpeted this stonewalling of our requests and interests as a benefit to local golfers!
(iv) Local Golfers are Funding Clubhouse Projects. But perhaps the most misleading and disingenuous of the City claims has been that the fees charged to local golfers only represented “what golf operations says it costs to prepare the courses for a round of golf” and that therefore none of the fees charged local golfers are paying for the facilities to be built under this permit application.[21] A close look at this claim demonstrates that it is both false and misleading for the following reasons:
a. Local golfers are paying for the projects for which permits are being sought. Beneath the surface of all the number-crunching, one common sense fact makes the complex easy to understand: Golf operations are funded by an Enterprise Fund; as long as the Fund covers the costs of golf (including necessary capital improvements), its mission is accomplished. Thus, if the costs of the unnecessary projects for which permits are sought are eliminated, the money saved really has only one place to go – to lower fees for golfers. Thus, any argument by the City that the local residents do not pay for capital improvements is specious.
b. Prior to the radical increases in greens fees, the Enterprise Fund was running a huge surplus. In Fiscal 2006, the Enterprise Fund paid a fictitious $1,621,792 “rent” to the city for the use of the land on which the Torrey Pines and Balboa golf courses sit as well as making bond encumbrance payments (for bonds taken out by the city for projects having nothing to do with the golf courses) of $891,629, but still ran an estimated surplus estimated $11,472,696.[22] Thus, prior to the rate increases instituted by the City, golf was subsidizing the City. More significantly, even paying this subsidy, the Enterprise fund was making a large profit after also not only paying operating expenses, but also capital improvements. Thus, the need for fee raises was occasioned largely by the costs of the projects for which a permit is being sought.
c. The radically increased fees were clearly motivated by the need to fund the capital improvements which are the subject matter of this application. Given the surpluses being run prior to the increases, the conclusion is inescapable that the fee increases were motivated by the need to pay for these capital improvements. Indeed, the City engaged a consultant “for the purpose of providing the Mayor, City Council and potential investors with information needed to make informed decisions with respect to the adequacy of revenues to develop the Torrey Pines Clubhouse and related projects.” [23]. The rationale that the fees being charged locals were set to cover the cost of a round of golf surfaced only after the Golf Advisory Council rejected the City’s Plan in large part because resident fees were raised in relation to benchmarking to fees at privately owned golf courses.
d. The concept of the average cost of a round is an accounting fiction devoid of much practical meaning. The City defines a round of golf as any time an individual initiates a round of golf, regardless of how many holes he plays. A person who tees off in the afternoon and plays nine holes counts the same as one who tees off in the morning and plays 18 holes. But the average cost of round is a fraction whose denominator is the total number of all these rounds initiated regardless of their length. The rate schedule for the golf courses is a complex of resident and non-resident fees, weekday and weekend rates, senior and junior rates and regular and twilight rates based on market conditions, fairness and policy.[24] The City’s rhetoric has never even stated which resident rate it is comparing to its calculation of the average cost of a round of golf.
e. Assuming that the City is referring to the resident rate for a full round of golf, the fees charged residents under the City plan are not in fact geared to the cost of a round of golf. For example, the City claims that it costs $27.91 to produce a round of golf on Torrey North, but would charge far more for the weekday resident golfer -- $40 per round by 2011 (and would charge the weekend resident golfer $50 at that time; similarly, the weekday resident golfer on Torrey would pay $76 in 2011 for a round of golf that the city claims would cost $56.50 to produce.[25] In contrast, at Balboa, the fee set by the plan is $27 in FY 2007 and $32 in FY 2011, all below the $35.21 cost of a round claimed by the City. Thus, even a cursory examination of the fees being charged shows that the claims that fees are being charged to reflect the average cost of a round played are not true.
f. The factual support for what it costs to produce a round of golf is insufficient. The City, because of scandals involving false representations of its financial condition, has been unable to produce an audit of its finances since 2002. Yet its sole back up for its claims is in an opaque, un-audited, one-page sheet[26] that is impossible to decipher; requests for detailed itemizations or accountings have been rebuffed. Without itemization and accounting data, the City’s claims are simply unsubstantiated. As has been discussed, the City has shown itself capable of spinning its dissemination of information to support its position even when this distorts reality. As the City’s pension scandal illustrates, financial data is subject to a wide variety of manipulations. The City’s supporting data for its claim here is simply not a credible basis for its assertions.
g. The bottom line is that the fees for local golfers have been raised to pay for the projects under appeal. The City has made a policy decision to make Torrey Pines more upscale at the cost and with the purpose of interfering with a low-cost recreational facility and moving Torrey Pines toward a private, affluent-only destination. Its attempts to disguise this choice with accounting rhetoric are unconvincing. This Commission has the authority and the duty to protect low-cost recreational facilities. If this Commission turns down the projects, the inevitable result will be lower costs for golfers on Torrey Pines.
CONCLUSIONThe issue of whether it is permissible to transform a dedicated public park on the coast which offers low-cost recreational facilities into what is claimed will become a revenue center[27] for a financially mismanaged city deserved more careful consideration than Mayor Sanders allowed. Reasoned discussion would have revealed that it was possible to preserve the municipal character of Torrey Pines without sacrificing the ability to hold occasional professional golf tournaments there and without unnecessary buildings eating up scarce open space; SDMGA even suggested a fee structure that would have generated the revenue the City sought while preserving affordable rates for City residents, county residents, juniors and seniors.[28] And the claims that building new facilities were necessary to attract golf tournaments are demonstrably false.
Normally, it is for the City to determine its policies on running municipal facilities. But when those decisions are made in violation of the Coastal Act and by a process so flawed and so dominated by cronyism, special interests and the disregard of the interests of ordinary citizens, the Coastal Commission must intercede to protect the policies of the Coastal Act and the rights of ordinary citizens to fair and reasonable use of public parklands in the Coastal Zone. The proposed projects violate the Coastal Act, threaten a historic public park with privatization and should be rejected in their entirety by the Commission.
Respectfully Submitted,
Paul J. Spiegelman, Co-Founder SDMGA
On behalf of myself and as Attorney for:
SDMGA, John Beaver, Ellsworth Burwell and Paul J. Spiegelman
December 6, 2006
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REFERENCES:
[1] SDMGA is an alliance of more than 1,353 local golfers who joined together to oppose the City’s plans to dramatically raise golf fees in large measure to pay for the projects that are the subject of this appeal. Our website collects relevant news on San Diego golf issues and is located at http://www.sdmga.com//news.htm
[2] (See Tillman, University City Planning Group Digs Up Old Issues, Golden Triangle News, May 25, 2006 http://www.sdnews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/06/05/25/44762bbbc1751.)
[3] T. Leonard, Council members request more time for golf proposals, San Diego Union Tribune, May 18, 2006, http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/golf/20060518-9999-1s18torrey.html
[4]See T. Sullivan, Give City a Bogey on Torrey. San Diego Union Tribune, July 4, 2006, http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/sullivan/20060704-9999-1s4sullivan.html
[5]T. Leonard, GAC’s rejection of contentious Torrey Plan might be only a prelude, San Diego Union Tribune, February 23, 2006, http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060223/news_1s23citygolf.html
[6] Century Club Vice President Tom Wornham appears to be a contributing author of Mayor Sanders’ plan to postpone the construction of the new clubhouse, but charge the higher greens fees necessary to pay for it in advance.
See appeal exhibit 7d(2) Email of March 24, 2006 from Tom Wornham to Julie Dubick .
[7] See D. Bauder, Fat Cats Bully Commoners, San Diego Reader, October 19 2006, http://www.sdreader.com/php/cityshow.php?id=1483 (Claims of economic benefits for major sports events are wildly inflated, yielding only about one-tenth of the benefits claimed).
[8] T. Leonard, Clubhouse no must to stage U.S. Open, San Diego Union Tribune, March 7, 2006; http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/golf/20060307-9999-lz1s7clubhous.html
[9] T. Sullivan, Give City a Bogey on Torrey. San Diego Union Tribune, July 4, 2006, http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/sullivan/20060704-9999-1s4sullivan.html
[10] The City’s Five-Year Golf Plan lists capital expenditures for the clubhouse project as follows: FY 2006: 2.5 million; FY 2007: $5 million; FY 2009: $6.5 million; this is a total of $14 million. Golf Operations Business Plan, June 2006, p. 76 http://clerkdoc.sannet.gov/RightSite/getcontent/local.pdf?DMW_OBJECTID=09001451800e0950
[11] These figures are based on averages. Actual financial impact on particular individuals depends on the complex greens fees structure and what days a resident plays. For example, a senior golfer who played once a week on Fridays pays $25 more per round in 2007 (and up from there each year) because the City Plan started charging weekend rates on Fridays and there are no senior rates on weekends. This senior would pay more than $6,250 more just to play on Friday! An even more extreme case is that of the San Diego County Golfer. Prior to the new plan, County Golfers were paying $65 per round on weekends on the South Course. Under the City Plan, they will be paying $229 per round by 2011, a difference $164 per round. A once-a-week county golfer who could afford to pay these rates would pay close to $41,000 more over a five-year period. The real effect of the elimination of county rates is to deny access to all but the most affluent county golfers. The fee schedule for the golf courses for 2007 through 2011 is set out in the Golf Operations Business Plan, June 2006, pp. 39 (Torrey North) and 42 (Torrey South). http://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation/pdf/golfbusinessplanwithstrikeout.pdf
[12] T. Leonard, $4.8 million proposal goes to City Council, San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 21, 2006 http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/golf/20061121-9999-lz1s21locgolf.html
[13] Despite the Century Club’s claimed support of junior golf, the Century Club voted to approve the original Golf Business Plan which would have tripled junior greens fees at Torrey and would have prevented all but affluent students from participating in school golf teams. See A. Tillman, Golfers demand fees freeze at Torrey Pines; Residents ask for more access, hammer plan for new clubhouse. La Jolla Village News, March 3, 2006. http://www.sdnews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/03/03/4409394ede642. This ill-advised plan was averted only by advocacy from the public and the SDMGA with no support from the Century Club which was actively lobbying for buildings, but not for fees that would allow juniors on Torrey.
[14] Century Club Director Tom Wilson concedes that the corporate tents will damage the North Course, but claims, without explaining how the Winged Foot Problems will be avoided, that the damage will only take a few weeks to be repaired with no more than 10 days interruption at the North Course after the Open. See D. Bauder, Fat Cats Bully Commoners, supra, note 7.
[15] See http://www.buickinvitational.com/cc_members.php?menu_id=7; The SCGA 2006 directory of golf page 69; http://www.usga.org/aboutus/leadership/executive_committee.html
[16] SDMGA has no objection to the advance reservation system for non-residents which allows tourists to pre-book golf times fit their vacation plans.
[17] See N. Canepa, Mayor is huge handicap to crowd of upset golfers, San Diego Union Tribune, June 27, 2006. http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/canepa/20060627-9999-1s27canepa.html
[18] T Leonard, Plans for city golf courses due for review at meeting, San Diego Union Tribune, January 12, 2006, http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060112/news_1s12citygolf.html
[19] T. Sullivan, Give City a Bogey on Torrey. San Diego Union Tribune, July 4, 2006, supra note 2, http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/sullivan/20060704-9999-1s4sullivan.html
[20] T. Leonard, Mayor promotes golf plan, San Diego Union Tribune, June 24, 2006 http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060624/news_1s24mayor.html
[21] In the City’s scenario, only non-residents who pay substantially higher greens fees than local residents, are paying for the new facilities.
[22] See National Golf Foundation Consulting, Operational Review and Recommendations For City of San Diego Golf Operations, February 2006, p.153. http://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation/pdf/golfdraftreport.pdf
[23] See Memorandum of March 6, 2006, to Natural Resources and Culture Committee from Christine Ruess (attached as Exhibit A to non-electronic copy)
[24] See Golf Operations Five Year Business Plan, p 29. http://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation/pdf/golfbusinessplanwithstrikeout.pdf
[25] See Golf Operations Five Year Business Plan, p.72 for the City’s presentation of the cost of a round on Torrey Pines; p. 70 for its estimates of the cost of a round on Balboa. Fees schedule is on p. 32; Torrey North Fee Schedule on p.39 and Torrey South Fee Schedule on p. 42. http://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation/pdf/golfbusinessplanwithstrikeout.pdf
[26] See Golf Operations Business Plan, supra note 24, p. 73. http://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation/pdf/golfbusinessplanwithstrikeout.pdf
[27] Recall that the revenue is not golf operations revenue, but general economic activity generated by major sports events and that promoters’ claims about the magnitude of such activity are inflated ten-fold (D. Bauder, note 6, supra), and that the clubhouse projects are unnecessary to attract the golf tournaments that are claimed to generate this revenue. See T. Leonard, Clubhouse no must to stage U.S. Open, note 7, supra
[28] See e.g. SDMGA: Comparison of City's 5 year Golf Plan and SDMGA Golf Plan Projected Annualized Revenues. http://www.sdmga.com//revenuecompare.htm