Rob Walton has responded to criticism from his fellow members of the Hunterdon County Board of Chosen Freeholders. The freeholders disagree over the future of the county-owned Heron Glen golf course.
To the editor:
My colleagues' response to my letters reveals the fundamental difference in our approach to Heron Glen.
My colleagues state "the only issue before us was how to maintain this asset."
I thought the only issue that was ever before us was what is in the best interest of the taxpayers of Hunterdon County. How can we ask about maintaining this asset unless we first decide if this asset's continued current operation is in the best interests of the taxpayers?
They state "It was not this (Freeholder) Board's task to revisit the wisdom of the county entering the golf business . . ."
But unless you're the first board, isn't the task always to exam the wisdom of past decisions and decide to continue course or change course? In fact we do it every day.
Golf clubhouse discussed at Freeholders meeting
Then we are told there are only three choices: Do nothing which no one suggests; waste more money, which again no one has advised; or "constructing a proper, permanent building to replicate the services we already provide."
This is nonsense. There are lots of other choices. And a "proper, permanent building" need not be a $2.5 million Taj MaHunterdon, it could be smaller. Further, should we not reexamine the wisdom of the "services we already provide?"
Next I am accused of calling the construction cost an "operational loss." "The purchase price of an asset has nothing to do with tallying the operating income it produces" we are told. Except the purchase price drives the debt payment for acquiring it, which when you include that cost, $550,000 per year exposes a fatal flaw in their reasoning and eviscerates their argument.
Put another way, to ignore this cost is the equivalent of a landlord not paying his mortgage but still collecting rent.
The $1.27 million in capital expenditures are mostly for equipment specifically for the golf course, not "improvements to the real estate." The in-kind expenses are anything but "phantom."
Utilities alone for the golf course are over $50,000 per year. Golf carts don't run on hopes and dreams.
Additionally, my colleagues assert "the county budgets for a lawnmower fleet for the entire park system, regardless of where it is directed for use." Sorry but lawnmowers for the fleet aren't used for greens, fairways or any part of Heron Glen for that matter.
There are some more straw men that get torn apart and then finally we are told "We have resolved not to repeat practices . . ."
But wait, I thought they didn't "revisit the wisdom" of the past. I am hopeful that the board will slow down, reconsider and not "repeat practices of short-sighted, politically expedient wastefulness masquerading as" "maintaining this asset."
Robert G. Walton
The writer is a member of the Hunterdon County Board of Chosen Freeholders