Randy Winegard, owner of Spirit Hollow Golf Course, offered to buy the Burlington, Iowa golf course for $200,000 plus 50 percent of proceeds from the land’s sale. The proposal would have closed the course and the bid was unanimously rejected.
The Burlington (Iowa) City Council unanimously decided on September 18 that it won’t sell the Flint Hills Golf Course, the Burlington-based Hawk Eye reported.
The council rejected an offer from the Randy Winegard-owned Spirit Hollow Golf Course, also in Burlington, Iowa, to buy the course for $200,000 plus 50 percent of proceeds from the land’s sale. The proposal would have closed the course, the Hawk Eye reported.
No one on the council took a liking to the offer. Jim Davidson, who earlier in 2017 raised the idea of cutting costs at the course as a budget solution, said this was certainly “not what I had in mind.” Mayor Shane McCampbell said he had heard from other mayors trying with great difficulty to get city-owned golf courses for their communities, the Hawk Eye reported.
Becky Anderson, who was sworn onto the council first thing in the meeting, critiqued the terms of the offer, saying the 50 percent figure was too ambiguous for her, the Hawk Eye reported.
Annie Wilson said she heard from constituents saying the course serves beginners who would be out of their league at Spirit Hollow. Local high school golf teams use Flint Hills, the Hawk Eye reported.
Two council hopefuls in the audience, Michael Elmer and Jon Billups, spoke to discourage the council from taking the deal. Elmer said the course makes money, which City Manager Jim Ferneau corrected. Billups said if they’re going to sell it they need to open the sale to the public, which Ferneau said they would do in a public hearing process, as usual, if the vote passed, the Hawk Eye reported.
The course is in unincorporated Des Moines County, not the city. Putting it back on the tax rolls with a housing or agricultural development would not benefit Burlington’s wallet, the Hawk Eye reported.
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