Residents see red over plan to revamp greens

A group of Taylorsville residents doesn't want Salt Lake County officials to dig themselves out of golf funding woes by digging up Meadowbrook Golf Course.

The residents — who packed the Salt Lake County Council chambers Tuesday — said they don't want the nearby course remodeled and roughly 350 townhouses and homes built on the surplus land.

"I don't like the idea. I don't want it done," resident Carol Borich said after the meeting. "They're going to ruin our golf course. It's just very sentimental for me."

Borich added that county officials are trying to patch a golf funding gap, which runs about $2 million annually. Most of that money goes to pay back debt on bonds for the South Mountain Golf Course.

"It's not fair to put that burden on residents of Taylorsville," Councilman David Wilde said.

But Chief Administrative Officer Doug Willmore said the county could not get equivalent revenues by remodeling the South Mountain course. The Meadowbrook plan, however, could net the county more than $10 million.

Willmore also said the money earned from selling the roughly 30 acres of open space in Taylorsville to developers would allow the county to purchase even more open space elsewhere in the county.

But Councilman Mark Crockett, along with residents, questioned whether the county should trade the land for acreage elsewhere.

"Finding land in these dense, highly populated areas is hard. There's a reason it's more expensive," Crockett said. "I wonder if we don't want to give it up that lightly."

Willmore noted the plan is nowhere near finalized. The model featuring homes throughout the course and a tightened-up, 18-hole golf course is still in the idea stages, he said.

"It's a concept, it's not a proposal. There are still many details to work out. We're in the middle of it," he said. "We may get to the point where there's not a way to solve this with a win-win solution and we walk away."

Sharon Petersen, who leases the golf cafe at Meadowbrook, hopes the county does walk away from the idea. If it goes through, Petersen said, she fears many of her employees at the cafe will be out of a job during a two-year construction period.