Monday, March 17, 2008

City Golf Courses: Per Se "Big Mistakes?"

Libertarian ideology bumps up against the populist principle of promoting "the public good"

Public golf courses were a recent topic of the day over at the Utah blog Gazelem, wherein Travis Grant adopts the libertarian position, i.e., that "city governments should keep their hands out of areas that should be left to the private sector." It's a short article, so we'll incorporate its text in full:

City Golf Courses are Big Mistakes
13 March 2008 — Travis Grant

City governments should keep their hands out of areas that should be left to the private sector. One key example of this is city owned golf courses. Private enterprise has found a lot of success by building golf courses. City governments have hoped to capitalize on the successes of others and have started to build golf course after golf course. This has over inundated the world with golf courses.

Recently Ogden has found that their Golf course is a loser in the financial world. With out some sort of change, it will be a failure. So to whom does the mayor turn to save the golf course? The citizens of citizen of Ogden get to pay the bill.

Although I am not opposed to turning it into a park as suggested in the article, The smartest move would be to sell the property. Either the new owner could turn it into a profitable golf course, or build houses on it, or something.

No matter what the decision, the tax payers lose. Property is selling low right now, so it isn’t a good time to sell, so the citizens lose on the sell. If they turn it into a park, the citizen have to pay tax, to make it so. Or the worst deal of all, would be the renovation to make it more profitable.

Cities need to keep out of the private sector. Whether it is Utopiah, golf courses, or other business. It is destined to fail.

While we do agree with the general proposition that public entities ought to steer clear of activities which directly compete with private business interests, we wonder whether there is any palpable distinction between an ordinary public park and a public golf course, aside from the fact that public golf courses are generally better maintained than public parks, and thus designed to return some revenue to the operating government entity. If we assume from the semi-purist libertarian position that it's OK for public entities to operate ordinary parks as a matter of principle, why not public golf courses?

There also appears the problem which we've discussed earlier here, i.e., taking Boss Godfrey at his word, when he asserts, without a scintilla of evidenciary support so far, that the Mt. Ogden Golf Course is losing the kind of money he says it is.

As an added bonus, we direct our readers' attention to this morning's Standard-Examiner letter, wherein Ogden's Anthony Pena chimes in on the topic.

What say our gentle readers? Anybody want to talk golf courses, and the proper role of government this morning?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The purist libertarian view would also have police and fire provided only to those who can pay for it. As a fan of libertarianism, I can say it is for reasons such as these that there are so few libertarians.

Travis Grant also errs in assuming the Mount Ogden Course needs to be "saved." There is nothing to support this other than the mayor's vague, cooked numbers, and even they do not show a large issue.

The Golf Course is a public asset like Union Station and Marshall White Center. They all "lose money", but that is why we pay taxes - to collectively have things that we want as a society.

What we debate, is where to draw the line on public facilities. Personally, I'd keep the Golf Course and sell the Saloman Center for whatever we can get. It won't be going up in value as time goes by like Mount Ogden golf course will. The Sal Center is at it's peak right now, and dropping.

Anonymous said...

I am leery, on good grounds I think, of all extreme applications of libertarian or statist positions on such matters. Generally, a quick look at history... what has actually happened rather than what this theory or that one says ought to have happened... is instructive.

And our history is that we have for a very long time recognized a public interest in the public's providing some services that also can be, and sometimes are, provided by the private sector. Recreational venues generally fit into this category. There are private softball complexes one can rent for tournaments or team use, but cities still wisely provide soft ball fields via their park systems as a good idea, serving the recreational needs of the general public of all ages and economic backgrounds. Ditto soccer fields, tennis courts, picnic grounds and such like. And golf courses.

Full disclosure: I worked, while a teenager, as a caddy at the Bethpage Golf Course, a public course [with five, count 'em five, separate courses, one of which --- the Black Course --- recently hosted the US Open as I recall]. While doing that job, I noticed two things: (a) golfers are crazy people (b) the Bethpage Golf Course not only served a public interest and recreational need [good courses of a variety of difficulties with, compared to any local private course, low greens fees thus providing access to golf to a part of the population that might otherwise not have had it], it also was a tremendous economic resource for the town and county. Golfers came in every weekend, and on many weekdays, from miles away, from NY City and from other states to "play Bethpage." And it was recognized at the time [and now] as an important economic resource for the community.

I have never seen anything from Ogden City estimating the economic benefit to the larger community of the Mt. Ogden Golf Course. How many additional hotel rooms are filled over the course of a year by people who come here to play the course? How many additional restaurant meals are bought? And so on. We get lots of estimates from the Administration about the presumed future impact of attractions not yet in existence, like the ice tower, but nada on the impact [real and potential] of the Mt. Ogden Golf Course. Of course, such numbers would have to be looked at in light of the fact that the city does nearly no promotion of the course, and in fact has been promoting on its website private courses not located in Ogden ahead of the Mt. Ogden course.And of course the Mayor has for years run the course down, telling the media over and over that it is "not golfer friendly."

Still, it seems odd to me that we have gotten from the Administration so far as I can tell zero information about the broader economic impact of the course --- what it is, and what it might be if properly promoted as a major asset to the city and attraction for visitors.

OgdenLover said...

Considering how close Ogden is to the SLC airport, why hasn't the mayor been trying to advertise Mt Ogden Golf Course nationally?

If the course is so darn difficult, what about trying to attract major tournaments? Golfers travel from all over the country to tourneys held in far less beautiful parts of the country.

The answer is obvious - the Golf Course isn't owned by the Mayor's cronies. Remembering how the paper he signed before the election really isn't binding, I suspect he's still trying to sell the land to Chris Peterson or Gadi Lesham.

Anonymous said...

The entire Mt. Ogden Park complex was dedicated as a public park in the early 1960's. Twenty years later, the city decided to sell off a small portion of the park and use the proceeds to develop a golf course on 2/3 of the remaining acres. Maybe that was the right decision and maybe it wasn't, but it's important to realize that the golf course remains part of a larger park complex--it's not an isolated public asset that can be kept or sold or redesigned without affecting the park as a whole. This lengthy history should also remind us that this is a long-term issue, not a short-term emergency. If changes are to be made, they should be made with an understanding of the full historical context of past commitments and in light of all relevant data on the benefits and costs of operating the golf course.

Mr. Grant's argument would be quite relevant if the city were considering the property acquisition and development of an entirely new public golf course. It would be equally relevant if the city were considering the construction of an entirely new high-adventure recreation center. But in both cases, once the decision is made, you can't suddenly decide to reverse it on the basis of such an abstract principle. You have to look at the context of past commitments.

Even the abstract principle isn't obviously one that many people would want to apply here. As others have pointed out, very few of us are strict libertarians who would privatize everything that conceivably could be privatized. So it becomes a question of where to draw the line. Mr. Grant seems to believe that all golf courses should be private. Does he also feel that all tennis courts, soccer fields, swimming pools, picnic areas, and children's playgrounds should be private? If not, then what exactly is the underlying principle that determines what should be public and what should be private? I would suggest that the government should step in and provide a facility or service whenever there's a significant public demand for it (relative to the cost) and the private sector, for one reason or another, hasn't been able to provide it. Does affordable golf fall into this category? I would say sometimes yes, sometimes no.

But again, this abstract question isn't very relevant after the golf course has already been built.

Anonymous said...

Given his history, trusting the mayor on anything is risky business. He always has a secret agenda and the welfare of the citizens of Ogden is not a part of it. I definitely smell a rat with his new found concern about Mt. Ogden park.

Anonymous said...

Just shut up and give the Golf Course to Republican Chief Senator Greeiner and Republican Mayor Goofey, after all it's "BIG GOVERNMENT"

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