MV Golf Course: Better off now? Think again!

The curious President’s Message in the February 7, 2014 MV News discussing the Montgomery Village Golf Course was that of a short timer. Like the Village Citizen group meeting on February 5 and the MVF Golf Course Committee meeting on February 6, the thinking and approaches discussed were timid and full of concession not unlike the MVF position on the Webb Tract that paved the way for the objectionable County plans now unfolding to the disadvantage of East Village. Instead, what is needed is an aggressive and assertive leadership posture like the one that defeated the Watkins Mill Middle School project that threatened to displace Centerway Park.

Dredging up ancient history, the President’s Message asserts that Montgomery Village is better off this time because it’s all about a developer we can work with. This alone is an indictment of the leadership in the Montgomery Village Foundation? But there is more:

1. Why hasn’t the 2030 Vision provided guidance and leadership on the golf course issue?
2. Why do the Village Citizen and the MVF Golf Course Committee frame the issue simply in terms of impact on local HOA’s?
3. One MVF Board member serving on the Golf Course Committee was so smitten with the developer that she would like to see the developer take the lead in the Montgomery Village Shopping Center and Professional Center projects. For this board member it appears that it is all abut the developer’s interests and not about the interests of Montgomery Village and the outcome for residents.
4. All this reveals dysfunction in an MVF committee operation which has shed neither heat nor light on the issue and only serves to insulate the MVF Board from its decision making responsibility.

Of course, it’s easy to work with the developer when MVF has placed no demands on the developer, instead asking for nothing... and getting nothing. Here the issue is not MVF ownership of the golf course; it is keeping Kettler’s commitment to keep the golf course a golf course. Despite that, Village leaders share the following obvious talking points:

1. The golf course needs millions of dollars in deferred maintenance. 
2. The MVF would not purchase the golf course earlier and won’t purchase it now since MVF has a policy of no debt. 
3. The developer owns the golf course. 

It is time to move forward; it is time to unfreeze the stuck committee and stop waiting for its report when it has nothing to say. It is time to frame the issue in terms of what the Village wants and not what the developer wants.

What does the Village want from the developer?

1. The developer should publicly acknowledge the Kettler commitment to retain the golf course, the written documentation to that effect held by purchasers adjacent to the golf course, and the lot premiums paid by those purchasers.
2. The developer should publicly agree to operate the golf course for the next ten years through 2025 and to perform the deferred maintenance needed to renovate the clubhouse.
3. The developer should provide sports fields, sports toilets, and a sports concession stand functionally equivalent to those planned planned for South Valley Park, thereby, returning it to an environmental preserve. 
4. The developer should scale back plans for 550-600 houses to a development of 200-300 homes.

What does the developer want?

1. The developer has expressed interest in becoming part of MVF? The MVF General Counsel indicated that this would require a two-thirds vote of Village homeowners and HOA’s reported that Village election voting ballot turnout were just 10-20% suggesting that the prospect for the Golf Course HOA becoming part of MVF is poor.
2. The developer wants MVF to support acceptance of the Town Sector Zone amendment it needs to build 550-600 houses. Without it, the developer would be limited to the remaining population credits equivalent to eighty homes. Village Citizens is waging a vigorous campaign in opposition to the Town Sector Zone amendment. 

Here’s a news flash! Montgomery Village with its supine posture is not better off on the golf course issues today. Catering to a developer will not deliver the consequential outcome the Village needs. It is time to reverse course and focus on what the Village wants and needs in the long term, not what the developer and short timers want now. Keep the golf course. Oppose the Town Sector Zone amendment.