County Dismisses Golfers’ Complaints Over Extension of Alondra Operator’s Contract

In the most recent development in a nasty, four-year quarrel over management of the Alondra Golf Course, county officials have defended the embattled operator of the busy Lawndale course and their decision to extend his contract.

The Department of Parks and Recreation, in a letter to the Alondra Park Men’s Golf Club, discounts the golfers’ recent complaint that the county quietly extended operator Steve Oh’s contract for eight years in 1987 even though, according to the club, he had not lived up to his obligations under the original 25-year agreement.

Oh, who since 1984 has run Alondra’s 36-hole layout, “has substantially complied with (his) contractual obligations and responsibilities,” parks department Director Ralph S. Cryder concludes in a Feb. 4 letter to the 350-member men’s club.

$456,000 Annual Rent

Under the original contract, Oh agreed to pay the county $456,000 a year in rent or a percentage of revenue if it is higher. He also agreed to build a new clubhouse at his own expense, make course improvements and maintain the course at a high level.

Alondra has prospered since Oh took control, said Bill Harvey, chief of contracts for the parks department.

Paid rounds of golf are up 29% in four years, county profit from the course has increased from about $280,000 to $766,000 annually, and Oh completed the new $1.8-million clubhouse and banquet facility on time in 1986, Harvey said.

The county extended Oh’s contract last year in exchange for his commitment to spend an additional $635,000 for protective fencing and other improvements not included in the original contract, Cryder explained.

But men’s club representatives said this week that the parks department letter is merely a justification of the county’s mishandling of the Alondra lease. It dismisses without resolution a variety of complaints golfers have been making for years, club President Gil Powell said.

Oh, previously the operator of a golf course coffee shop, had no experience in running a course, and that has been a matter of concern since 1984, when the county chose him instead of several more experienced bidders who offered less rent, Powell said.

Representatives of the 100-member Alondra Park Women’s Golf Club also said in recent interviews that they have complained about course conditions and have consistently found it difficult to work with Oh.

“I can’t honestly say I know any golfer who’s happy with the Alondra operation,” Powell said. “But it looks like we’re bucking up against a brick wall at the county.”

The men’s club formally complained to the county Board of Supervisors in December that Oh had “alienated virtually all sectors of the golfing community” by poorly maintaining greens and tees, closing the course coffee shop much earlier than his contract allowed and refusing to discuss concerns about the course with golfers.

Oh also has built a smaller and far different clubhouse than he first proposed, deleting men’s and women’s locker rooms that Alondra’s golf clubs had anxiously awaited but adding a 490-square-foot office and a parking garage for himself, the men’s club said.

The county had approved the design changes, however, and was satisfied with Oh. So in April, 1987, it extended his contract to 33 years, Harvey said.

The move led the men’s club to say in its complaint that the county, perhaps for unspecified “political reasons,” had undercut its own system of competitive bidding in not strictly holding Oh to his contract and then extending it without notifying interested parties.

The club, in letters to all five supervisors, called for an investigation by the county counsel’s office of the contract extension.

Instead, the supervisors referred the matter to the parks department for response. Aides to Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, whose district includes the course, and Supervisor Deane Dana, from whose district Alondra draws many golfers, reviewed the county’s lengthy rebuttal before it was mailed late last week.

In general, the parks department found that Oh has met the terms of the agreement and that he has worked to solve problems when they developed.

Of the controversial clubhouse redesign, parks officials said they had recommended reducing the size of locker rooms because the facilities are rarely used by the majority of golfers.

Although acknowledging that “the course has seen some rough times” under Oh’s management, Cryder concluded that the problems Oh has had with dead greens in the summer are no different than those the county experienced when it ran the course.

The county’s twice-a-month inspections of its most heavily played course--209,000 rounds last fiscal year--show that Oh “has provided generally good maintenance service,” the parks director said. But he said that Oh’s maintenance superintendent does not have the “Class-A” professional certification required by the county, although his experience and expertise qualify him for it.

Oh, president of Global Golf Inc., and his partner, S. H. Choi, “inherited some problems at that course, and they’ve made their best efforts to correct those problems,” Harvey said. “This is a partnership relationship. . . . And we (work with the operator) unless we have someone who obviously can’t perform, and that’s not the case here.”

Bad Course Conditions

But Powell, who said he has played Alondra almost since it opened about 40 years ago, said course conditions last summer were as bad as they’ve ever been. Some greens and tees became little more than dirt patches, and he said he could see scant evidence of routine maintenance that Oh and the county say was done each day.

Aside from course maintenance and operation, golfers say their relationship with Oh may be rocky partly because of the shaky footing on which it began.

When Oh’s contract was being considered by supervisors in February, 1984, a number of golfers, including representatives of the Alondra women’s club, testified that they preferred another operator with whom they were more familiar, a longtime golf pro at Alondra. The men’s club officially took no position.

Oh, a native Korean but an American citizen since 1972, recalls the hearing bitterly. He alleges that the recent criticism of him is just another episode in a pattern of racial harassment that dates back to the bidding period.

“In 1984, they protest. They say, ‘Why you give business to a foreigner?’ ” Oh said angrily this week. County officials asked him if he was a citizen before awarding the contract, Oh said, and he has been forced to respond to county inquiries resulting from golf club complaints at least half a dozen times since then.

“It’s harassment. It’s unbelievable,” he said. “They say, ‘A Korean is running the clubhouse.’ ”

‘Genesis of Problems’

Craig Kessler, who wrote the strongly worded letter of complaint for the men’s club, said he agrees that the 1984 hearing probably “was the genesis of the problems out there.”

But neither the golfers nor the county’s Harvey could remember any comments at the hearing about Oh being from Korea, they said.

“Oh interpreted (the hearing testimony) as a slap in his face. . . . He has an enormous chip on his shoulder,” Kessler said.

Oh did not appreciate the golfers’ preference for the longtime Alondra golf pro, Kessler said. “He didn’t understand that people could have loyalty to someone they’ve known for 18 years. This never would have occurred if Steve Oh had acted more like a human being.”

Powell, of the men’s club, said: “We’re not picking on him because he’s Oriental. If it was any other operator and the course was in this condition, we’d be just as unhappy.”

But Powell also said he has heard people express concern about the county awarding the Alondra contract to a Korean.

“I’ll tell you, it’s not just the men’s club,” Powell said. “I go to the bowling alley or to the market and talk to people, and they can’t understand why they’d lease it to Koreans. It just seems strange they’d do that.”

Two women golfers, both past presidents of the women’s club, said in interviews that they believe Oh does not respect women.

“I have had very harsh words with Mr. Oh,” said Virginia March, women’s club president when Oh took over at Alondra. “It’s not because he’s Korean or otherwise, but I think maybe it’s because he’s male and I’m female. . . . He’s Korean, and I think a lot of the people in the Oriental race, and other races, think we should be in the kitchen.”

Loud Arguments

Both Kessler and March told of going to Oh about problems at the course. They said the discussions ended in loud arguments.

“He refused to discuss the issue, got angry and threw me out of his office,” Kessler said. “He looked at me and said, ‘If you have a complaint, complain to the county.’ And he offered me the phone number.”

Oh said his relationship with members of the golf clubs has not always been cordial because they are seeking special treatment not accorded the average golfer. And he said he resents what he thinks are attempts to dictate how he runs his business.

“It’s, ‘Hey Steve, (do) this,’ ” Oh said. “That’s not the way they (should) talk. They cannot touch my business.”

Speculation by some club members that Mas Fukai, chief deputy of Supervisor Hahn, may have helped steer the Alondra contract to Oh also has fueled the feud. Fukai remarked in an interview: “There’s racism in this, no doubt.”

Fukai, a Japanese-American, and Oh said they are friends, but insisted that Fukai had nothing to do with the contract.

County officials also said Fukai was not involved and that James Duffin, operator of three other county courses, was first offered the Alondra contract.

Duffin confirmed that account, explaining that he backed away because of the large amount of expensive construction the county required. Duffin said he detected no favoritism in the bidding process and still thinks the county got an exceptional deal from Oh.