SIMI VALLEY : Members of Wood Ranch Form Panel

Angered by surprising news of a planned public auction of Wood Ranch Golf Course, the private club’s members have formed a committee to investigate how to protect their $25,000 memberships in the exclusive Simi Valley club.

More than 200 of the club’s estimated 350 members crammed into the club’s dining room for a two-hour meeting Sunday, said member George Dallas, to vent frustrations over being kept in the dark and discuss options in light of the sale.

“The basic bottom line was that we needed to get a committee, a representative committee, together,” Dallas said. “We were a little concerned that we weren’t brought up to date a little bit quicker.”

Word began to spread through the membership last week that Olympia & York Developments, the club’s owner, had defaulted on a $15-million loan, prompting creditor Wells Fargo Bank to schedule a public auction of the golf course and about a dozen Wood Ranch home sites on Dec. 3.

Although rumors of a possible sale of the club had been circulating for more than a year, members expressed surprise at the sudden development and called Sunday’s meeting to assess the situation.

At the meeting, golfers were most upset, Dallas said, that “we’ve been paying our monthly dues in good faith, and that people knew about this for a long time and were not communicating that with us.”

Some members last week spoke of trying to join forces and buy the golf course and club, but Dallas said that was not discussed at great length at the meeting.

“I think that has always been an option, but my judgment is that it’s not a serious option,” he said.

The eight- or nine-person special committee was given the task of determining members’ legal rights and informing them of their options. The committee was asked to report to the rest of the membership quickly with a list of possible actions, Dallas said.

“Probably the most important thing was do we, or can we, or should we stop the auction?” he said.