According to attorney Michael Tifft: "It is time for the City of New Orleans to enter this debate. The City Council delegated its authority to the CPIA by ordinance in 1981. It is time for the Council to review that grant of authority and to see to it that the departments of Parkways and Parks and Property Management and the City Planning Commission exercise their Home Rule Charter responsibilities over City Park. At the very least, the Council should hold public hearings on this issue". In addition, "The State Division of Administration has not addressed the applicability of the State’s public bid and public lease laws, which would appear to apply under earlier legal decisions".

We have attached pages from the City of New Orleans' Home Rule Charter that include Sections 2-872 through 2-926, dealing with the lease of public property, and Section 4-1401, dealing with the role of the Department of Property Management in the leasing of immovable property.

The City Park Golf Projections done by Economic Research Associates were downloadable from their website and are also attached here. Assuming the 36-hole plan that keeps the North Course open (since that is likely to be the only one fundable): at year 3, which is the first year both courses are fully open, they're projecting net operating revenues of $3,573,000, net operating expenses of $3,048,000 (including cost of goods sold), and net operating income of only $525,000.

This is basically the same revenues as the old courses pre-Katrina, higher expenses as would be expected, but not a whole lot of improvement in net income to show for it all. At year 5, there is an inexplicable increase in rounds played, which trigger an equally inexplicable but steadily increasing rise in revenues and net income.

However, even these low income figures in year 3 are based on 56,000 rounds of golf being played at City Park, 38,000 at the old North Course and 24,000 at the new championship course! In Louisiana, the average number of rounds per course in 2007 and 2008 was under 22,000/year; even at the TPC Louisiana course, reaching 26,000 rounds in 2007 and 2008 was considered a highly successful number (From a Times-Picayune article of 4-19-09, "Going for the Green").

From where and with whom are these remarkable rounds of golf going to materialize? There is no explanation attached for how these numbers were derived, and they seem absurd... yet we are supposed to believe that the City Park Board has practiced "due diligence" by accepting them?

This so-called "article" reads more like an editorial than a piece of reporting:

"I say all that to say this: When the City Park Board of Commissioners votes Tuesday, it should vote to accept the golfing portion of the park's master plan."

"In my judgment, the plan has been worked over and worked out until indeed it is feasible."

Oh really? Mr. Turner's "About The Author" section comes up blank on nola.com which makes it difficult to determine his qualifications for such editorializing, for those of you who may be skeptical that indeed, "the fix is in", and would like to learn about his qualifications as an economic adviser on matters concerning taxpayer funds.

What does golf have to do with the redevelopment of public housing in New Orleans? Golf-loving former HUD Director Alphonso Jackson made sure they would be connected, when his agency chose the Bayou District Foundation to spearhead the redevelopment of the St. Bernard Housing Development. Bayou Foundation joined forces with Fore Kids Foundation and the Baton Rouge Foundation to help put the project together. For profit Colombia Residential joined the team as the developer.

Bayou District Foundation is, or was, banking on revenue from the proposed PGA-style golf course to fund a host of social services it plans for the St. Bernard site. In a recent City Business Article ( May 18, 2009), it is revealed that there is no money to complete two thirds of the proposed redevelopment. One third of the redevelopment, 466 "mixed income" units will open by November, according to the
article. One-third of those units will be for former residents of the St. Bernard Housing Development, if they qualify, under a host of new rules.

On Bayou District Foundation's website, the site continues to link to a Times Picayune (Nov. 27th, 2007) article stating the Foundation is counting on revenue from the proposed PGA style golf course for City Park. However, City Park CEO Bob Becker in recent public statements has cast doubt on the use of that revenue outside of the park, if and when the golf course is built.

Re: Communication to the Council
City Park Golf Course Expansion and Privatization

Dear Clerk of Council:

Please place this letter on the City Council’s next available agenda and please communicate a copy to each councilmember and the Council’s Chief of Staff, together with my request for an opportunity to address the Council on the issues set forth below.

According to a “confidential” term sheet released in 2007 by the City Park Improvement Association (the CPIA) the CPIA is considering a 90-year lease of 400 to 500 acres of City Park (the actual acreage is a matter of dispute) for the purpose of establishing a golf course concession and expanding the footprint of the pre-Katrina golf courses north of I-610, as currently set forth in the Park’s Master Plan. The action contemplated is part of a larger proposal by the Bayou District Foundation, Columbia Residential of Atlanta (linked to the former HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson scandal), Commercial Properties Realty Trust of Baton Rouge, the Fore!Kids! Foundation and Monarch Real Estate Advisors, Inc., among others, to develop the former site of the St. Bernard Housing Development.

The Bayou District Foundation's plan is to emulate the success of East Lake at the old St Bernard Housing Project, using City Park's public golf courses in place of the private East Lake Golf Club and the public Charlie Yates Golf Club. It would cost almost as much to play at the proposed new City Park Golf Course as it would at the private East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

To make sense of how a simple $21 million renovation of the existing golf courses in City Park morphed into a plan for a private non-profit foundation to take ownership of the public land through a 90-year lease and build a $46 million golf complex instead, one must start at the beginning, with Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club.

In 1993, developer Tom Cousins purchased the derelict East Lake Golf Club adjacent to the notorious East Lake Meadows housing project in Atlanta for $4.5 million, and invested $25 million into its renovation, with Rees Jones as the course architect.

In 1995, Cousins formed the East Lake Community Foundation (ELCF, now called East Lake Foundation) to partner with the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) on the redevelopment of the adjoining housing project into the mixed-income "Villages at East Lake" with the aid of a $33.5 million HUD HOPE VI grant, a public-private partnership similar to what happened here in New Orleans with the St Thomas Housing Project redevelopment in the late 1990's. The ELCF then went on to incorporate a charter school, a YMCA, a pre-school, and a First Tee program for young golfers, held at the Rees Jones designed Charlie Yates Golf Course, a public par 58, 18-hole course opened in 1998, and built within the East Lake community next door to the private East Lake Golf Club.

Below is an excerpt from a recent paper I've written on foundations and NGOs in post-Katrina N.O. It doesn't explain the BDF and FK!F entirely, but make no mistakes, these are not small organizations with limited budgets.

These are very powerful proxies for wealthy developers and other interests. They represent and instrumentally push the agenda of the local growth coalition. BDF is an extension of longstanding foundations with an interest in pushing up real estate values. The link to the Greater New Orleans Foundation (and by extension the Ford Foundation) places BDF in a long lineage of community redevelopment vehicles going all the way back to Chicago in the 1950s.

The Golf is not just about land values. It's a big favorite of the city's tourism and convention's businesses. A major PGA level tournament would mean many millions of dollars. Small tournaments would mean millions more. The cover story that we aren't supposed to mess with is that Fore!Kids will be giving money to little kiddies. But this is chump change. The real money will be generated by all of the hotel and services companies that will be feeding of the golf tournies.

Today's article in the Times Picayune illustrates that the battle to stop the over-development of City Park is far from over. In fact, the paper today seems to suggest that it is virtually a done deal, that City Park will have its TPC style pro golf course, and even declining golf use in the surrounding area will not stop it.

I'll tell what has the only chance of stopping this boondoggle: a grass roots movement that has a belief in egalitarian land use, a belief in smart environmentalism, and a belief that a nature park at City Park could attract monies, and people, and finance itself, and even make money for the park. My definition in egalitarian land use is the belief that public land is for everyone. Golf is not for everyone. One of the problems with the rather weak, opposition to current plans (weak because it isn't yet organized into a bona fide movement; actual opposition to this plan is strong though), is the lack of an alternative, a cohesive vision of what could be at the park.

The current and future visions for the park have been taken over by elite golf and private property interests who will stop at nothing to get the Zurich classic into the city. Take Bayou Foundation, one of the non-profit entities involved in pushing for this deal. Mike Rodrigue is described by the Picayune article as a key member of the Bayou District Foundation and a longtime member of Fore!Kids, which produces the Zurich Classic, currently staged in Marrero. Bayou Foundation pushed for the demolition of the St. Bernard Housing Development, not far from City Park, and it's redevelopment into so-called "mixed income housing". You might ask, what does housing have to do with golf?

In his article "City Park still receiving input on controversy," on 3/19/09, Brian Allee-Walsh accurately notes that "the City Park situation is reminiscent of the one at Audubon Golf Club, which, despite public outcry, underwent a $6 million renovation in 2002," and quotes Audubon golf director Stan Stopa, who refers to "that foolishness" with regard to having "to fight with those people, just to do what we have here now".

Let's be clear on what "we have here now" at Audubon really means. In 2001, Audubon Nature Institute officials claimed their new golf course was necessary to provide operational funds for maintenance of the park, whose poor maintenance was a regular source of complaint by park users. The ANI produced a market study by Golf Resource Associates that projected a positive net cash flow from the new facility of $140,525 in the first year, steadily increasing to $370,141 in year five.

The reality is that the new Audubon Golf Course has been a huge money loser from the outset, including its much-heralded first full year of 2003, when it had an operating loss of $336,300. In its fifth year, 2007, despite being the only public course available in the city at that time, it lost $415,819. In fact, the last year golf made any profit at Audubon was 2000, the year before the new course was begun.

Just like at Audubon in 2001, City Park officials are now justifying this $46 million plan as a way to bring in needed revenue for support of the park. It is exactly because of what happened at Audubon that makes so many people suspicious of City Park's golf plans now.

Developers of "controversial" projects in New Orleans are very fond of claiming that those who oppose their plans are always the same people, and always driven by fear or dislike of "progress". Rarely do they concede that it's the flaws in their plans that create the opposition in the first place.

Debra Howell

The folks who want to turn City Park into a golfer's heaven like to say that before Katrina, golf course acreage occupied 34 percent of City Park, while the new master plan reduces golf course occupancy to only 31 percent, so what is the beef?

As my grandmother always liked to point out, two wrongs do not make a right. The reality is that the master plan proposes to use more than 50 percent of the available green space in the park for golf. Is City Park for all of the people of New Orleans or mostly for privileged golfers?

Like I said, "subject to financing, the Bayou District Plan is a "done deal."

Maybe the financing is a little shaky?

And as far as Stan Stopa's comments about people complaining about being handed a gold bar, I have this to say.

If in this case the gold bar is a $45 million golf complex and the receiver is the Louisiana public golfer, there are some real problems with this transaction.

That's right, City Park is attempting to cover its newly found green spaces with new golf courses.

As a review, here is the link http://neworleanscitypark.com/downloads/nocpgolf.pdf This is the draft of a modification to the City Park master plan for the area north of I 610. Page 18 is the existing conditions although it is difficult to tell that north of Filmore there is an open course and south of Filmore there are no courses. Page 21 is the new plan for the entire area including a multi million clubhouse, a street entering City Park at Mirabeau Avenue and parking lots. And page 37 shows the considerable cut and fill that is needed to accomplish the plan.

A public hearing was held Tuesday evening – March 10th with about 150 people in attendance. Several dozen individuals spoke about the proposal with most being in opposition to the idea of building three new golf courses plus another street, club house and parking lots in City Park north of I 610. All sorts of objections were raised about the proposal. Where will the money come from to complete the project? (There is now about 16 million available but 46 million is estimated to complete the project.) Where are the financial projections of the income? How many rounds will needed to be played at what fees to generate how much income? (No financial data is included in the proposal) Where is the environmental assessment for a project of this magnitude? (The answer was that none had been made). What happens if the income is below expectation, will tax payers be on the hook for that? (One speaker referred to a golf course on the west bank that is now being subsidized by Louisiana taxpayers.) Why are more golf courses being built when nation wide and in Louisiana golf courses are being closed and others in New Orleans have never reopened after Katrina? (No answer was given)

I agree with columnist Peter Finney. An average Josephine myself, I bemoaned the closing of the South Course a few years ago -- it was home to an enjoyable, slower pace of golf. Many older duffers, some women and many learners liked to play this low-fee course where you did not have to contend with rude golfers charging up behind you, hitting into your group and making impolite comments.

It is 2009. Why not plan at least one short course designed to be low fee and walking only (no carts)? Some of us would like to get some walking exercise while we golf.

Building a $46 million golf course during the most disastrous economic period in recent history when most of the country is dealing with loss -- of homes, schools or jobs -- reminds me of the disconnect of a certain French monarch who order officials to "let them eat cake" because the citizens were hungry.

The fact that an environmental impact study has not been done on a project that will use 1 million gallons of water a day is unbelievable.

I was at the meeting Tuesday March 10 discussing the proposal for golfing at City Park and it seems to me the opinions split down three ways: those who endorse the plan as is, those who definitely want to see not as is or as anything, and the majority who see that this proposal as is should not go through. I count myself among that majority and do agree with some of the reasons.