Community Corner

VOTE: Shoud the City Lower the Rent for Foxtail's Management Company?

CourseCo, who has managed the two golf courses in Rohnert Park since 2001, is asking the city to lower their rent due to a bad economy and a decline in the golf industry.

CourseCo, the private company that manages Foxtail Golf Course in Rohnert Park, as well as 17 other city-owned golf courses from Eureka to Orange County, hasn't paid their rent since December. 

According to City Manager Gabe Gonzalez, the company owes Rohnert Park nearly $160,000 in rent and outstanding loan payments.

But Tom Isaak, the president of CourseCo, said this week that the previously negotiated rent is unsustainable, citing a bad economy and a decline in the golf industry as a whole.

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"We fervently wish and are working to avoid Foxtail gong the ," Isaak said in a letter to the City Council. "We have accrued losses approaching $4 million and can no longer bear the burden alone."

Isaak petitioned Gonazalez and elected officials at to renegotiate their lease with the city, asking for lower annual rent payments. The City Council gave direction to staff to talk with CourseCo about what can be done.

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Currently CourseCo is required to pay $175,000 annually for rent.

Gonzalez said Wednesday that he plans to sit down and talk with company officials, but any decision has to come back before City Council before it's made final. He also told the Press Democrat this week that he's going to demand the company pay the late rent.

All this talk about the golf course made us wonder — what does the community think? Comments on a story about the golf course lease published in Rohnert Park Patch Tuesday aired concern about the long-term viability of the golf course during turbulent economic times.

But elected officials and golf course managers said Tuesday that the course adds to the character of the city, and it would be worse to let it fall into disrepair than to keep it up. Four out of five coucilmembers live within 500 feet of the green, and in the 10 years that CourseCo has run the course, they said they've vastly improved course conditions, adding in irrigation systems, car fleets and new equipment.

What do you think? Should Rohenrt Park re-examine the golf course? Should the city lower the rent rates to make sure it survives?


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