Mayor on Rye Golf Club: Flattening Resident Fee is “Not Right”
Earlier this week we reported when the Rye City Council directed the Rye Golf Club to flatten its fees for residents (see Henderson Plays Through, City Council Flattens Rye Golf Fee Structure). The move was done over the objection of Rye Mayor Josh Cohn.
Mayor Cohn provided MyRye.com the written transcript of his objection, shown here. You can also view the video of his comments below.
Comments of Rye Mayor Josh Cohn delivered at Rye City Council on Wednesday, February 7, 2024:
Rye Golf Club 2/7/24
-RGC is an enterprise fund. It is responsible for its own financial well-being – not the taxpayer. It pays the City rent and for City services. It is not your typical municipal golf course and pool.
-The Golf Club Commission is the duly elected representative of the members and is charged with proposing rates for our review.
-This Council historically deferred to the Commission on rates — including a Commission practice that has imposed a higher first-year rate on new joiners for many years – back at least to 2005, according to members.
-The Golf Club has substantial capital costs in front of it – a needed irrigation system and a bunker renewal, and still unknown and greater costs for Whitby Castle upkeep and a major swimming pool renovation.
-The Commission is sensitive to the community that is its membership and to the capital cost to come. The Commission proposed both a 2024 rate increase and that new members pay a rate, only for the first year, 30 percent higher than other members. For a full golf and pool family membership, this upcharge was approximately $1700 dollars. Real money, but in golf land not that much.
-The Commission-proposed rates, including the first-year upcharge, are substantially cheaper than the closest municipally-owned competitor, Harrison Meadows. The upcharge, in fact, the total Rye Golf rate is a tiny fraction of, for example, the cost of a first year of membership at Apawamis, the private golf club in town. In sum, the Commission put a great deal on the table, both for new joiners and continuing members.
-The only way Rye Golf Club has rewarded continuity of membership is by allowing continuing members to pay a little less than new members pay in their first year.
-By quashing the rates the Rye Golf Club has proposed for 2024, this Council will quash the Commission’s effort to creatively manage the rate process with a view to saving for the future and protecting the membership that has continued with the club over the years. We say, yes, you are an enterprise fund responsible for yourself, yes you provide a superior golf/pool experience, but no, Commission, you can only manage rates one way – as if you are a tax-supported, walk-in and play course. That is not right.
-And a question: A substantial part of the Rye Golf membership has paid an upcharge for that first year. The club has a capital reserve built in part on first-year upcharges. Are we going to pay those upcharges back to the members who paid them in? Otherwise aren’t we giving new members an advantage?
