The sun may have set on Marin County’s quest to turn the San Geronimo Golf Course into a park. Last Friday, Judge Paul Haakenson finalized a tentative ruling he made the day before, saying the county needs to perform a California Environmental Quality Act analysis before completing its purchase of the 157-acre property.
Max Korten, director of Marin County Parks, has said the county would end its purchase and sale agreement with the Trust for Public Land in the event of an adverse ruling. This week, though he did not entirely rule out the possibility that the county might continue with the project, he described doing so as arduous and possibly fruitless.
“The ruling is saying we’d have to do all the planning and projects for the property and a CEQA analysis for those projects before acquiring, and that’s probably a pretty expensive and time-consuming process, at the end of which the county could be sued again,” he said.
When the nonprofit Trust for Public Land bought the course last November for $8.85 million, it did so with the understanding that the county would subsequently purchase it and restore the land for preservation as open space.
A month later, the San Geronimo Advocates, a group of residents who wanted to preserve the course for golf, brought a lawsuit against the county alleging that it had violated CEQA and was acting in opposition to the area’s community plan.
In a foreshadowing of his final decision, Judge Haakenson handed down a temporary injunction in June that prevented the county from obtaining the grant funding it needed to finalize the purchase from the trust.
Nearly $5 million of the county’s purchase was to come from state grants and private donors, but approval of the biggest potential grant—roughly $3.4 million from the California Wildlife Conservation Board—was rescinded due to the injunction.
Since the beginning, the county argued that its plans to purchase the course did not require a CEQA analysis, given an existing exemption for projects designed to preserve open space. The Board of Supervisors concluded as much when they finalized the county’s agreement with the trust in November.
But in his ruling on Friday, Judge Haakenson said that the county’s intended project encompassed more than a mere land acquisition, and thus did not qualify for the exemption.
“The court finds the County’s definition of the project is too narrow and does not give appropriate consideration to the underlying activities the County agreed to perform when it purchased the property,” the ruling states. Those activities included performing stream improvements, opening golf cart paths to the public and halting the diversion of Larsen Creek water, all of which Judge Haakenson said should necessitate a CEQA analysis.
According to Winter King, an attorney for the Trust for Public Land, the county was facing a Catch 22: It was being chastised for proposing plans without a full public review or environmental analysis, but in order to obtain grant funding for those efforts, it had to conduct due diligence and look into potential projects.
Moreover, Ms. King said, “There is a policy concern with requiring public agencies to fulfill CEQA before even purchasing land, which private companies don’t have to do.”
Now the property could well end up in the hands of a private company. The trust’s California director, Guillermo Rodriguez, has said the organization “does not plan to own this property indefinitely.” Rather, the trust works as a fundraiser and intermediary to negotiate land transactions.
In statements last month, Mr. Korten said the county would only continue to subsidize the operation of the course by Touchstone Golf while the lawsuit was pending, and Mr. Rodriguez said the trust was unlikely to extend the county’s subsidized management of the course.
That’s why, even after Haakenson handed down his final ruling, Niz Brown, who led the suit against the county, said her overarching feeling was one of trepidation rather than victory.
“We have no control over the Trust for Public Land,” she said. “At least with the county, we are citizens. If I had my druthers, [the trust] would sell it to a golf company.”
The golf course has been in operation since 1965 and is a well-loved recreation facility for many in the community. It’s not currently profitable; county projections estimate that by December the course will be operating at over $100,000 in the red. Yet more than 10,000 people have signed a ballot petition aimed at keeping golf as the primary use of the property.
The petition references a line in the San Geronimo Valley Community Plan that states “future uses [of the golf course] should be limited to those which support the primary use as a golf course.” Although Judge Haakenson did not find this language strong enough to hold up in court, advocates hope to get the issue on the ballot to ensure that whoever buys the property from the trust will be required to maintain it as a golf course.
The petition, which is targeted at the next statewide election in March 2020, needed 8,790 certified signatures before Jan. 9. Specifically, it would prevent the county from changing the course’s golf use without the approval of a majority of Marin County voters.
Not all residents of the San Geronimo Valley are intent on preserving the golf course, however. In an email to the Light, Jean Berensmeier, who chaired a committee that updated the valley’s community plan in 1997, said she believes the county should immediately give Touchstone Golf 60-days notice and move forward with the acquisition and conversion plans in spite of the ruling.
“Time to involve [the Board of Supervisors] in the County and the TPL’s next steps,” she wrote. “I can hardly wait.”
Outside the courtroom on Friday, backers of the golf course were buoyed by the ruling. “Justice prevailed,” said Lisa McHugh, a San Geronimo Valley resident. “Sometimes, supervisors and backdoor dealings don’t always get their way.”