Beyond closing Clapp, city considers blackouts and furloughs for all golf courses

Wichita's golf system is in such dire straits that even if the city closes Clapp Golf Course as expected, there still might be winter blackouts and employee furloughs at the other four courses, the city's parks director said Tuesday.

The Park Board has called a special meeting on Friday to act on a recommendation to close Clapp and sell off part of the site for commercial and residential development. The course, at 4611 E. Harry, has frontages that can be developed on Harry, Oliver and Mount Vernon.

Golf finances are so shaky that even beyond the closure of Clapp, officials are considering rolling closures of the other four courses during the winter months when only the hardiest golfers venture out onto the links.

Employees were informed of that plan at a must-attend meeting last week, said Hoyt Hillman, chairman of the city's Golf Committee.

Hillman attended the meeting and described it as grim.

The plan is to close one or two courses at a time for two weeks at a time, starting in December and continuing into January, said Hillman and Park and Recreation Director Troy Houtman.

"Instead of having four or five courses open with 20 rounds a day, (the idea is to) funnel them all to one golf course that would be operating at 80 to 100 rounds," Houtman said.

Staff would be furloughed when their course was closed for the rolling blackout, Houtman said.

"That's what would save us some money," Houtman said. "That would be a hardship on staff."

Hillman said the employees were told that not only would they lose pay those two weeks, they'd have to pay for their health benefits during the period they weren't working.

"There was some grumbling in the back of the room," Hillman said.

One worker commented "Boy, some Christmas present," he said.

The plan to shut down Clapp passed the Golf Committee on a vote of 3-2 with one abstention, Hillman said.

But closing Clapp, which ran a $235,000 deficit last year, won't get the golf system out of the financial rough.

Rounds played have trended downward since 2001, and the overall golf system ran a deficit in 2017 for the first time in years, according to a city report.

The courses aren't supported by general tax dollars, but from an enterprise fund using money generated from golf course income.

That fund continues to struggle, and one of the biggest pieces is $5.6 million in debt remaining from the development of Auburn Hills Golf Course, the city's newest and most country-club-like course, Hillman said.

"They could sell that, which is what I'd like to see happen, but it's not going to," Hillman said. "There aren't enough votes for that on the Park Board or the City Council."

And making financial matters worse, money generated from selling or leasing the Clapp Golf Course land won't go back to the enterprise fund that pays for golf operations, Hillman said.

He said he's been told it would go to the Park Department to build some other kind of recreational use on whatever remains after parts of Clapp Golf Course are sold off.

A drainage creek runs through the course, and part of the site is flood-plain land that can't be used for commercial or housing development, according to a city report.

Houtman said the site hasn't yet been surveyed to determine how much could be developed and how much would remain as open space.

"The definite intent of staff is seeing that there's some green space there," he said.

The Park Board meeting to consider closing Clapp and the other financial issues is scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday at City Hall, 455 N. Main, Wichita.

This will be the second try at a special meeting.

A special session had been scheduled for June 22 but was called off that morning.

City officials cited scheduling conflicts. There were also multiple complaints that the city was trying to rush the closure of Clapp without a sufficient opportunity for public input from the golfing community.

This story was originally published July 3, 2018 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Beyond closing Clapp, city considers blackouts and furloughs for all golf courses."