Finding the best people for the job

In voting to hold off on going straight to a well-known nonprofit to help right the wayward ship of the DeBell Golf Club, the City Council encountered the lingering impact of public distrust.

In recent years, the city-owned golf course has been running hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red, only to require a $2-million bailout package amid a year of citywide budget cutbacks.

City officials, eager to get a professional, independent voice onboard, have been pushing for the city to contract with the National Golf Foundation to get the reform ball rolling. Each month spent searching for a consultant is another month wasted, in terms of trying to turn revenues around.

Certainly, the well-regarded foundation is as qualified as they come, but the public is right to scrutinize the city’s response to a long-simmering problem.

If it takes an additional two months to go through a typical vetting process for multiple consulting proposals, so be it. That’s the price City Hall will have to pay to satiate a skeptical public.

In the end, the National Golf Foundation may very well end up with the contract. But at least then, the public can have every confidence that problem is being fixed right the first time by the best people for the job.