Santa Rosa to reconsider study of Bennett Valley Golf Course’s future

Public outcry from golfers and residents has prompted Santa Rosa to pump the brakes on the city’s planned $150,000 study of the potential redevelopment of the Bennett Valley Golf Course, temporarily shelving any contract with the city’s initial consultant.

Three members of the City Council and a top-ranking city staff member will take a closer look at the scope of a study of the 175-acre golf course complex before the full council votes on a contract for the analysis, Mayor Chris Rogers announced during Tuesday’s council meeting.

Rogers elaborated on his rationale to ensure further study in a Wednesday morning meeting with The Press Democrat’s Editorial Board, which asked the mayor about the golf course and several other topics including homelessness and wildfire preparedness.

“If you’re not regularly checking and you haven’t heard that this issue was coming up, I can absolutely understand how you would feel blindsided by it,” Rogers said Wednesday.

He noted that the issue didn’t become salient until Press Democrat coverage early last month — though city meeting materials showing a Feb. 2 City Council discussion about the golf course were made available to the public as early as Jan. 21.

At that early February meeting, the council favored city staff’s planned outside study in an informal 5-2 vote, with Rogers and Councilman Tom Schwedhelm in the minority.

City Hall wanted to take a closer look at the links after at least two decades of declining use. 2020 brought the COVID-19 pandemic which has coincided with a spike in rounds played at Bennett Valley, but the course remains saddled with $4.5 million in bond debt from a 2005 clubhouse renovation and substantial infrastructure needs. It’s also ripe for study in staff’s eyes due to turnover among contractors — the golf course’s manager is set to retire next year, and the course restaurant closed its doors and terminated its lease early in December, citing the impact of the pandemic.

The 5-2 vote in favor of further study led to a flood of support for the golf course complex, which includes an 18-hole course, a driving range and the clubhouse. In the past month, more than 3,600 members have joined a Facebook page dedicated to “saving” the Bennett Valley Golf Course.

Rogers’ announcement, which he also shared in a Facebook post that was reposted by the Save Bennett Valley Golf Course group, generated support for his move from advocates for keeping the golf course generally as it is.

“We are hopeful that with community input we can devise a plan that meets the needs & wishes of the community, while also ensuring the stability of the golf course & park for generations to come,” wrote Brianne Galvin Murphy, whose grandfather played a key role leading to the opening of the course in 1969.

Some community members have expressed concern about the city’s initial choice of consultant: CBRE, a national real estate firm with extensive development expertise, including on former golf courses. That choice led some to believe that redevelopment of the Bennett Valley course was a foregone conclusion.

Rogers said Wednesday that CBRE is among the city’s prequalified consultants and was the only one to both express interest and showcase familiarity with golf courses when the city was initially looking to study the Bennett Valley links.

He acknowledged that CBRE is not precluded from eventually seeking or receiving a contract with the city to study future uses of the course. But, he said, if CBRE were awarded the study contract and came back to the city with recommendations to redevelop the golf course, it wouldn’t be eligible for a contract to carry out that proposed redevelopment.

Rogers also said he’d heard from “a couple of people” recently who had expressed interest in running the golf course once its current operator’s city contract expires in mid-2022. He declined to share any of those names.

The new golf course contract committee will be chaired by Councilman John Sawyer, whose council district includes Bennett Valley and who already has been persuaded to change his vote, setting up a 4-3 margin in support of the golf course study plan recommended by city staff.

Sawyer said his goal was to bring constituent feedback he’s heard — including opposition to building housing on the golf course site, objections to contracting with CBRE and desires to keep the course intact — to the study process. He said he expected two or three meetings before coming back to the council with recommendations, hinting that the discussions about a consultant may lead to no consultant at all.

“It’s a possibility that the work, depending on the nature of the work, could be done in-house,” Sawyer said.

The other two council members on the committee are Eddie Alvarez and Jack Tibbetts, both of whom have been subject to lobbying by golf course advocates to change their stance.

The trio will work behind closed doors with Jason Nutt, an assistant city manager who oversees public works and recreation, to incorporate the wealth of feedback since the initial Bennett Valley golf course discussion.

Nutt said Wednesday that he hopes to begin meeting with council members within the next week or two with an eye on coming back to the council sometime in May for a vote. That vote would not be to award any specific contract, he said, but would be to approve the scope of work for a study, with an additional council vote on the contract itself coming later in the summer.

It takes time to get an item on the City Council’s agenda, Nutt said, adding that he personally didn’t want to belabor the issue.

“I know that there’s concern from the community that we’re delaying it intentionally,” Nutt said. “That’s certainly not the case.”

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @wsreports.