Club management needs a revamp

After approving a $2-million bailout package for the flailing DeBell Golf Club that was “too big to fail,” the City Council this week handed down more of the same, this time cloaked as reform, by appointing an oversight committee saddled with many of the old guard who let the municipal course languish in the red.

Included in the committee’s membership? The parks director, who by his own admission failed to properly address the bleeding enterprise; parks commissioners who were either in the dark or untrained to question; and a mayor who had his election party at the clubhouse. Oh yeah, the operators of the clubhouse will also sit on the committee.

For a golf course that’s been losing approximately $300,000 annually, we need more than oversight, we need a revamp. And putting the old guard and stakeholders — who now know they can get sweetheart financial bailouts — at the helm isn’t the way to do it.

Bring in a team of outside experts, people who have no stake in the status quo, to do an independent evaluation of the golf club, and go from there. Clearly, the tinkering by current operators and managers has been a losing game for years and it’s costing taxpayers dearly. How many more millions will have to be used on bandages before city leaders decide to operate?