Letter to the Editor,
I
would like to bring to your readers’ attention a feature article in the November
15th issue of Sports Illustrated. The title of the
piece is “If you build
it, they won’t necessarily come”. The context of this informational
story from the authoritative national sports magazine is that the golf course
industry has grossly overbuilt. This is exactly one of the points we grassroots
activists here in Clayton County, Iowa have been trying to get across to our
elected officials. For over four years we have pointed out their questionable
publicly financed agreement with the developers of River Bluff Resort LLC
proposed on rural land near Marquette & McGregor, Iowa. As you may know this urban
sprawl project was originally to consist of an 18-hole golf course, gated
housing development, hotel/water park, restaurant conference center (paying
wages of $ 6 per hour, according to their own internal documents).
This SI article points out the terrible
glut that the golf course developers have created in our country in the last
eight years, while rounds of golf have actually declined. Their own
organization, the National Golf Foundation (NGF) states “ Golf-industry
consultants have been saying pretty much the same thing from South Carolina to
Texas, and from Maine to Arizona, as one struggling course after another has
engaged their services for help. Egged on by industry cheerleaders and promises
of a golf boom fueled by a demographic cocktail of aging baby boomers and
Tigermania, developers have oversaturated the market with new properties,
driving one another to the brink of financial ruin or beyond.” Within one hour
driving time in any direction from the Isle of Capri Casino in
Marquette, which was instrumental in
the initiation of this entire Legacy Project concept, there are approximately
forty golf courses.
The article goes on to
state, “The height of the boom was in 1998 and ’99. In 2000 bad things started
to happen. Bank of America, which was the industry’s biggest lender, shut the
doors of its golf-lending unit.” Ruan Securities Corporation disenfranchised
itself early on from this Clayton County project. Locally we have
Peoples State Bank of Elkader now owning the “paper company”, River Bluff Resort
LLC lock, stock and barrel. All the while attempting to be awarded a $20 million
TIF bond from our county supervisors. Last week I had a telephone conversation
with a community leader from the last place these guys had preyed upon,
Necedah, Wisconsin. I was told that the $5
million bond has never been paid, neither has the interest from their Oak Grove
Golf Community fiasco. Not one home sold. No property taxes have ever been paid
and thus the county will initiate tax condemnation foreclosure after the first
of the year. I was told this would bankrupt the
Village of
Necedah. You may remember that last
spring Sheldon Auction Service of Chicago desperately attempted to sell that
entire golf development and never did get an opening bid.
Take a close look at what
the River Bluff Resort proposal is today. The supervisors have given the
developers until 2010 “to identify a national hotel franchise”. If this
development were ever to begin to actually pay any increased real estate taxes
above the current agricultural assessments it would be in the year 2025 in a
best case-scenario due to the TIF agreement. Then one must realize what a
25-year-old hotel property would be valued and assessed at. All the while
artificially driving up surrounding property assessments. Our own
County Attorney has distanced himself from
this whole mess. The county government finds itself dependent upon a pricey law
firm from Des Moines, whose senior partner coincidentally was the author of
Iowa’s Tax Increment Financing laws and has made a career from them as a paid
consultant. He will profit substantially if this $20 million bond ever gets
awarded. His firm has earned many hours of work defending the actions of our
elected officials and the developers. The most recent proposal for this “grand
resort” is several clusters of condominiums, in other words, apartment
buildings. They are attempting to get zoning permits on less then twenty acres
at a time to circumvent the county’s Corn Suitability Rating clause in the
Planning and Zoning rules. Whenever we point out other problems this urban
sprawl project has concerning P&Z rules the supervisors have the rules
amended to fit the developers, as was done again last week. No cost/ benefit
analysis has ever been conducted by an independent objective party of the
project. MSA Consulting Company, which is working for the county and the
developers on this project, was also involved in the Necedah project. No
drinking water or wastewater systems plans have ever been reviewed by the
Department of Natural Resources. In September during the District Court trial
phase of our lawsuit concerning our County Supervisors’ involvement in this
project, Chairman Robert Walke alluded to the concept that housing at River
Bluff Resort could alleviate a housing shortage caused by the floodplain
buy-outs at Elkport & Garber. The question had been asked because one of the
purposes under the law for tax increment financing is to alleviate a housing
shortage. Our attorney questioned M. Walke if these county residents would be in
the market for the high end housing that Mr. Daughtry was proposing? Contrary to
this is another internal e-mail dated August 9,
2002, which states"Therefore,
you should delete all references in the urban renewal plan to the low and
moderate income set aside.” Interesting contradictions! So this is what the new
plan comes to, a bunch of apartments three miles from the nearest municipal
infrastructures? All subsidized by a county’s good credit rating, while we need
that bond rating for a new jail. There is a responsible land use ethic spreading
in America aptly named Smart Growth. This progressive
land-use philosophy should be applied in our rich beautiful county to help
preserve our rural values and stop urban sprawl.
Visit our website River
Bluff Resort Not!
http://www.mhtc.net/~bloodyrun/index.html
Thank you. Happy
Holidays!
Timothy
Mason
Rural
McGregor, Iowa
For the Concerned Citizens
of Clayton County
(563)-873-2372