With a tentative budget on the table that would raise property taxes by 8 percent and instate a number of cuts, one debate that has already started in the Town of Bethlehem is whether the Colonial Acres Golf Course should be closed or kept open.
Some residents have said operating the golf course has become an unnecessary burden on the town, while others have called it a valuable resource. Internally, the debate is much the same.
The town projects the nine-hole, par-three course to run at an annual loss of $40,000, and scheduled capital improvement projects there could add up to $270,000 in the coming years. But Golf Course Superintendent Patrick Blum said he feels Colonial Acres is being leveraged as a budgetary quick fix, when in reality there isn’t much money to be saved.
“The course is being vilified,” he said. “The numbers presented are inflated or not necessary at all.”
The Bethlehem Town Board first agreed to lease Colonial Acres Golf Course in 2008 for $1 per year from the Open Space Conservancy. The five-year agreement called for Bethlehem to maintain the 43-acre Colonial Acres property. The course takes up approximately 30 of those 43 acres.
The lease expired in August, but is now functioning on a month-to-month basis until the town decides the way forward.
Blum said he thinks the town is misrepresenting what could be saved by closing the course. Town officials estimate a $150,000 investmentis needed for new sewer lines, bathrooms and a clubhouse to make Colonial Acres profitable, and $120,000 is needed for a new irrigation system and foot bridge.
“All of the roads in this town will one day need to be repaved too, but that doesn’t mean you account for $50 million worth of savings in the budget if it doesn’t get done,” Blum said.
Blum, who has worked at the golf course since 1994, thinks Colonial Acres could continue to exist as a minimalist course. He said it has always operated without the need of a clubhouse or indoor bathrooms, and he argued a new footbridge could be built in-house for far less then estimated. He also said the need to upgrade the sewer and irrigations systems is a number of years away.
“We’ve been operating about $2,800 below our budget each year, and we’ve cut about $5,400 from next year’s operating budget,” he said. “Maintenance will suffer a bit and the course will go from A grade to B or C, but we’ll do it if it’s needed.”
Bethlehem Supervisor John Clarkson has suggested the possibility of creating a nonprofit to continue running the course if an outside agency didn’t wish to take over the job. Blum said he doesn’t feel that would work.
“We’re currently supposed to be self sustaining,” he said. “The point of the partnership was so that the town was essentially our nonprofit. If it’s not working now, why would it work if someone else took it over?”
Town Comptroller Mike Cohen said the figures included within the tentative budget were estimates generated by the Parks and Recreation Department. The only actual savings accounted for by closing the golf course is the estimated $40,000 annual loss. Cohen said he felt more should have been included as savings, like the time town employees outside the golf course spend on maintenance or the need for equipment upgrades.
“Projected life of equipment is an asset,” he said. “Every time you utilize it, you are extracting life from it. We could hypothetically sell it. It’s not my point that we should sell the equipment, but that is part of the golf course that is not factored in yet.”
Blum said he feels the timing is wrong to talk about closing the course. Colonial Acres has won more than 12 state and national environmental awards for sustainability and is currently in the final round to potentially win the New York State Environmental Excellence Award. A profile of the golf course on “extreme maintenance” was also released last month through the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.
“We are at the point where we’re getting national recognition for our efforts and now they’re talking about closing. It’s ironic,” he said.
Blum said he feels the town should be doing more to help market the golf course and has suggested some minor improvements like giving a cheaper usage fee to residents and separate portable toilets for men and women. He felt those small changes would bring in more golfers.
The tentative budget also includes other cuts in the Parks and Recreation Department totaling $20,000, including the elimination of a night ranger job, reducing pool staffing early and late in the season and increasing field maintenance fees.
Budget workshops begin on Oct.1, with a workshop devoted to Colonial Acres scheduled for Monday, Oct. 29, at 6 p.m. at the Town Hall. Adoption of the budget is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov.14.