Letter: Elimination of Eagle Valley golf passes is wrong

This letter is in response to Marv Teixeira's letter in the Oct. 19 issue of the Appeal in which Marv attacked Lonnie G. Phelps for his past letters to the Appeal concerning the Eagle Valley Golf Course.

Marv implies that the fees paid to use the Pony Express Pavilion exceed the pass fees at the golf course. If the revenues are as great as Marv claims, why not use them to pay down the Pavilion debt? The reason is because the revenues are nearly nonexistent.

The revenues from the Pavilion for this year were $6,632. Last year they were $2,028. The revenues from the passes at EVGC were more than $141,000. So who's kidding whom?

Marv talks about the fees spent by roller hockey participants at the Pavilion. It is our understanding that the fees have been waived for youth roller hockey by the board of supervisors and that the youth pay nothing in fees to play at the Pavilion.

Additionally, the Pavilion receives an annual operating budget from the city of $20,000 (our tax dollars).

Marv tries to compare the recreation hours used at the Pavilion with that of the golf course. This is ridiculous. There were over 67,000 rounds of golf played at the courses last year representing about 268,000 hours of recreation. Come on, you're not even close, to coin a few political phrases, "There you go again" using that "fuzzy math."

Marv talked about a "snow ball's chance in hell" of using taxpayer money to subsidize the "Lonnie G. Phelpses" of this community for their recreation. We are those "Lonnie G. Phelpses," and are offended by Marv's comment. Why is it so different than using taxpayers' money for bike paths, swimming, softball, tennis, etc.? It is also offensive when Marv implies that we are "whiners and snivelers." Would the real "whiner and sniveler" please stand up?

The room tax is used to retire over $200,000 per year of the Pavilion debt. These funds should not have been diverted from the EVGC for the Pavilion, especially at a time when golf course competition was emerging from all sides. Unlike the Pavilion, the golf course has the potential of bringing in revenues from outside the state to benefit the whole city. EVGC is a city course and should be supported with the 2 percent room tax originally slated for the golf course.

We are not opposed to the use of the Pavilion. The youth activities that occur there are well worthwhile. Roller hockey is a neat sport. And the other activities that take place there are probably also worthy.

Enough is enough. It's time for everyone to stop "sniveling and whining." Elimination of passes is wrong. The passes are a tradition and a heritage of the EVGC and the city which go back to the very beginnings of the course. The pass holders that we know are not opposed to raising prices. What needs to happen is to strategically raise the price of passes to optimize potential revenues, along with supplying funds from the room tax or from the "Quality of Life Fund."

Thanks to the folks in the city agencies who pulled together some of the figures in this letter.

Our hope is that the Eagle Valley Golf Courses will survive and eventually prosper.

MYRL SAAREM

DICK VANDERPLOEG

Carson City