Passions flared Tuesday at the City Park Board of Commissioners meeting when more than sixty people gathered to challenge a planned $24.5 million golf course project in the park.

City Park CEO Bob Becker told the crowd that the state has already awarded a bid for the contract, construction has begun, and “golf is really not on our agenda.” But the board still heard more than an hour of comments from citizens who took aim at the role of golf in the park, as well as the board’s process for public involvement in the park’s post-Katrina renovations.

At issue was the footprint of the former East and West courses of the City Park Golf Complex, which were flooded after Hurricane Katrina and sat un-golfed for the last decade. While City Park, the State, FEMA, and a private foundation worked out a plan to create a single 18-hole championship-style golf course on the site, the links became overgrown, and residents began using the old courses for hiking and encountering nature.

Users advocating smarter water use, protection of habitat, and increased low-income access to the park urged the Board of Commissioners yesterday to allow the space to continue its progression to wilderness.

Attorney Kevin McDunn said he regularly bikes and hikes throughout the abandoned golf course. “It provides an incredible opportunity to witness the Louisiana outdoors right in the middle of the city,” he said. “It’s not a Disneyfied version of New Orleans or some type of pre-prepared experience. This place is large enough and diverse enough to experience on your own. What other American city can offer that to their citizens?”

Six people gave comments in support for the high caliber course, which they said would generate tourism and potentially bring the PGA circuit back into the city limits. They recalled their own memories of golfing with relatives in City Park, which opened its first golf course in 1901. The supporters echoed CEO Becker’s emphasis that golf is a central funding source for the park. “Because this park receives no general tax revenue from the city or the state, it is necessary for us to try to look at things that actually do generate revenue to help us maintain all of the rest of the park,” Becker said.

Under Becker’s tenure, which began in 2001, the park’s footprint for golf has been reduced from four courses to two. The South Course was closed in the summer of 2005 and eventually became part of the Big Lake public use walking trail.

In 2009, the park re-opened its North Course – the only City Park course in current operation – and plans were revealed for a $46 million renovation of the East and West Courses as a part of the Championship course plan.

The lack of funding eventually pared down the plan to a single additional 18-hole course, which will be bordered by Wisner, Marconi, Filmore and Harrison. Officials broke ground for the new course on February 12.

Byron Almquist has watched the footprint of golf shrink, but he doesn’t think it’s enough. “Golf is experiencing a downward trend in popularity. New Orleans is going against the national trend,” he said.

Despite Becker’s emphasis that the board has held five public meetings on the Master Plan, Almquist and others contended that the process avoided or ignored or public comment.

Park user Lauren Sullivan agreed. “I felt really blindsided about what’s been going on,” Sullivan said. “It disappoints me that in two days, me and a few other people were able to get this many people out here and involved and informed about what’s going on. I’ve lived in this city since 2008, and I have not once received a notice or read an article about any type of public meeting in City Park.”

The sentiments were echoed on social media, as a campaign took shape in the form of two Facebook groups and an online petition. The City Park for Everyone Coalition and City Park Potential were formed as a way to spread information about the proposed golf course and form a coalition in order to try and stop it.

By Thursday morning, nearly 2,000 people had signed a Change.org petition calling for the cancellation of plans to build the course.

“Local anglers, bicyclists, kayakers/canoers, runners, dog owners, families, birdwatchers, and everyday citizens utilize this area of the park every single day. This area is especially important because it exemplifies the wild beauty inherent to the Louisiana ecosystem. It is also home to many fish, birds and other wildlife that will be forced to feel the pressure of the development,” the petition read. “This area of the park is a refuge to so many people and animals, it is a multi-purpose recreational area available to all New Orleanians regardless of their financial situation, and it would be an absolute shame to lose this, especially to privatization and profit.”

Mid City Neighborhood Organization President Jennifer Farwell also released a statement Tuesday contending that the City Park Master Plan “was created/developed without public input and that the plan to develop a 36-hole private golf course is not in keeping with the original intended purpose of City Park.”

“We urge the City Park Commissioners to call for more public input and consider that input for any future development,” Farwell said.

During the meeting, however, Becker refuted that claim, and said that the Board of Directors had made adjustments to the plans after getting public input. “We feel it was very open. We’ve had five public meetings through the course of these years, and most of them focused on golf,” Becker said. “I think in the public hearings that we had…I would say there was substantial opposition.”

He added: “We did respond to that and did make the area devoted to golf smaller.”