I am thrilled to share exciting new developments about my email on Winter Park Pines. Our Mayor has responded with a public relations piece that contains carefully worded support for both golf courses, claiming they are both “cherished public parks with fairways, deeply woven into the fabric of Winter Park.” Well, not so much in both cases.
The 1995 purchase of the Winter Park 9 was the subject of a voter referendum approving the debt. We knew the Winter Park 9 was likely to lose money when it was purchased with voter approval.
The purchase of Winter Park Pines was the subject of personal preferences of the city commission with no voter input on the $8,000,000 in debt. The Mayor at the time committed that it would not impact our taxes and a commissioner ran for re-election promising “club revenues will pay for the debt service and expenses – so your taxes will not be affected.”
The Mayor’s claim that “development proposals threatened to eliminate this vital greenspace and add congestion to an already stressed area” is completely bogus. Developing Winter Park Pines would have required zoning changes and even now, a future commission can modify the zoning and approve redevelopment and/or sale of some or all of the land. If it had not been purchased, it would still be a privately run golf course that is some else’s responsibility.
The city pro-forma at the time of the purchase claimed the operation of Winter Park Pines would pay for the debt service as well as provide funds for capital improvements. Reality is that the course is costing taxpayers $500,000 a year as well as eating into our capital budget with continual pressure for improvements. Even worse, Winter Park taxpayers (that’s you) are subsidizing thousands of non-residents who play Winter Park Pines.
The purchase of Winter Park Pines was indeed a boondoggle and no amount of lipstick or schmaltz can change that. It is a further example of the spendthrift ways and bad judgment of our Mayor and commissioners whose only fiscal priority seems to be “we have to spend this money.”
So, what do we do? Rather than raise the tax rate to pay for this and other fiscal mistakes, the commission needs to reduce spending. In this case, the city should lease the operation of Winter Park Pines to a professional golf management company to offset the debt service. Many other opportunities exist to demonstrate respect for our taxpayers that I will address in the near future.