What to do?
The auditorium at Riordan Hall was full of people anxious to hear what our POA board of directors had decided about the future of the Kingsdale and Berksdale golf courses. Everyone in the room, audience, as well as board members, had a pre-conceived idea of how best to resolve the flooding problems and what to do with this land in the future.
The board presented figures on how much money we have been spending maintaining these golf courses and the four alternatives for the future. Board members made the point that no decision had yet been made, and they tried to convince the audience that public opinion would influence their decision. However, they have been working on this problem for a year now, and it is inevitable that each board member has subconsciously, whether he or she will admit it or not, made up his or her mind on what should be done.
I think you could tell -- from the presentation, the comments, the timing of the smiles and the body language -- they have decided to eliminate the two golf courses, build a new golf course on the Arkansas/Missouri land we own, and repurpose the Sugar Creek Valley property into a beautiful park along the highway.
Even with all of the problems and complexities that will need to be resolved with this plan, it is the best solution of the options provided.
There is one major caution with this plan, however, and that is with the repurposing of the valley property, you can build biking and walking trails until Walmart runs out of money. And no matter how many parks, playgrounds, pavilions and amphitheaters you build, it will still flood. If you do not dredge Sugar Creek, build up and bolster its banks and straighten out some of the twists and turns, you have not addressed the overall problem of flooding.
If this is our long-term plan, let's make sure it is done right so that we won't be addressing this same flooding issue again for a very long time.
But then ... why not do this and leave the golf courses the way they are? We would eliminate the $7 million needed to build a new golf course, we would eliminate the expense of repurposing the valley property, we would reduce the cost of maintaining these two golf courses, and we would retain the income they provide.
The answer to this goes back to the fact that people come to the table with pre-conceived ideas. Our board likes the idea of five golf courses. You can tell from the pictures they presented and the comments about working with "partners" that they love the idea of developing the valley property into walking trails, parks and amphitheaters.
I like that idea too, but can it be economically justified? Perhaps, in the rarified atmosphere of the "we know best," it can. We will have to wait and see.
Larry Blech
Bella Vista
Editorial on 04/18/2018