Councilor urges city of Tulsa to privatize golf courses
His statements came Tuesday as Budget Manager Pat Connelly explained the need to appropriate $211,000 for increased operating expenses, material and services, and shortfalls in revenue from golf fees at the city’s two golf courses, Page Belcher Golf Course and Mohawk Park Golf Course.
The citizens of Tulsa are not in the golf course business, said Sullivan, who did not seek re-election this year. Here we have no street lighting, no swimming pools, but we have golf courses that continue to lose money.
Mary Ann Summerfield, director of the city park and recreation department, said the courses also have faced higher water costs due to the drought.
Noting this was roughly the eighth year the city has endured such results, Connelly pinned the long-term troubles on the increasing number of golf courses in the Tulsa area, all newer than the city facilities.
A Web search revealed five public courses in the Tulsa area and seven private clubs.
There’s a lot more competition, Connelly said.
Sullivan suggested the city privatize the golf courses when the six-year operating contract with Tulsa Golf Inc. comes up in June. But Summerfield noted that the contract for scheduling services was actually renewed earlier this year. It will expire in September 2009.
Summerfield said the bottom line for the courses would look much better if the department didn’t have to pay $500,000 each year on a note for past construction.
That’s the issue, she said. If we didn’t have to make that payment, we’d be in good shape.
She also noted that most courses don’t generate much profit.
They truly don’t, she said. They’re usually subsidized.
Page Belcher is a 36-hole facility and home to the Tulsa Golf School. It features a driving range, putting green, and a short- game area. The original course opened for play in June 1977, followed a decade later by Stone Creek.
Mohawk Park Golf Course also offers 36 holes, including the First Tee of Tulsa Course on the front nine of the Pecan Valley Course.
The golf courses stand among the 140 parks managed by the city of Tulsa over 6,000 acres, including nature centers, 21 swimming pools, 156 sports fields, 115 playgrounds, 123 tennis courts, 25 water playgrounds, 60 picnic shelters, 14 community centers, fitness facilities, gymnasiums, The River SkatePark, the Tulsa Zoo and Living Museum, and the Tulsa Garden Center.
To operate all that, Summerfield said the city budgeted $16.1 million this fiscal year, down 18.4 percent since 2002.