Should Marin County lose a case next month regarding its purchase of the San Geronimo Golf Course, it will not only relinquish control and upkeep of the course, but may well drop all plans for the property.
Max Korten, director of Marin County Parks, said an adverse ruling from the court would likely require the county to undertake a California Environmental Quality Act analysis “not just for acquisition, but all potential projects on the site—and that would be a very expensive, time-consuming process.”
“That doesn’t seem advisable for the county to take on if, at the end of the process, we’re not able to acquire that land,” he said.
The Trust for Public Land, which bought the embattled 157-acre property last November for $8.85 million with the understanding that the county would purchase it for conversion to a park, said last week that it does not plan to own the property indefinitely.
“If the court rules against the county, we will have no choice but to explore all options,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, the California director of the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that helps create parks.
Without the purchase-and-sale agreement, the trust would terminate the county’s lease, upon which its contract with Touchstone Golf is contingent. “They’re all nested,” Mr. Korten explained.
Mr. Rodriguez said the trust was unlikely to extend the county’s subsidized management of the course. He also noted that the trust believes future decisions about the course should be made through a public process.
The trust typically does not keep the land it buys, but rather works as a fundraiser and an intermediary to negotiate land transactions. It creates parks in conjunction with local governments and school districts. On its website, it explains that its general mode of operation is to “buy land from willing landowners and then transfer it to public agencies, land trusts, or other groups for permanent protection.”
Mr. Korten said the county will likely end its purchase-and-sale agreement with the trust, which expires at the end of this year, if Judge Paul Haakenson hands down a permanent injunction on Oct. 26 mandating that the county perform a CEQA analysis of its plans for the course. The injunction is being sought by the San Geronimo Advocates, a group seeking to preserve the course for golf.
In June, Judge Haakenson handed down a temporary injunction that prevented the county from obtaining the grant funding it needed to finalize the purchase, a ruling that seemed to indicate he found merit in the advocates’ argument that the county had erred by claiming a CEQA exemption.
Mr. Korten said the county will only continue to subsidize the operation of the course by Touchstone Golf while the lawsuit is pending.
If Judge Haakenson sides with the advocates next month and forces the county to perform a full-blown environmental review, the county would hand over all usage decisions to the trust.
The county’s $6,000 a month contract with Touchstone was authorized this spring as a two-year agreement that could be terminated with 60 days’ notice.
Under the agreement, the county provided $140,000 in working capital to start operations and a capital fund of $60,000 for equipment or deferred maintenance.
If the course generates a net income, the county and Touchstone would split the profits 60 percent and 40 percent respectively. (Mark Luthman, president of Touchstone, told the Marin Independent Journal that the course is not currently profitable.)
Some golf course advocates viewed Mr. Korten’s statement about relinquishing the course’s management as a threat.
“Sudden closure of our green fairways is an underhanded action that makes people think about recall petitions, and certainly will not be forgotten by the next election,” Peggy Sheneman, a Woodacre resident, wrote in an open letter to county supervisors. “No one will need to spend money on yard signs, because the dry weeds and broom-covered land will speak volumes.”
For their part, the San Geronimo Advocates are trying to ensure that whoever owns the course in the future has to preserve it for golfing. A petition they are aiming to get on the ballot in March 2020 now has roughly 7,000 signatures.