At last week’s meeting of the Oro Valley Town Council, Town Manager Greg Caton scrambled to explain why the recent purchase of golf courses is not as reckless as it appears to be on paper. Throwing out hundreds of numbers and leaving huge gaps in the information needed to assess the accuracy of his projections, residents and fellow council members say Caton appeared to have misled the public.
According to Town Councilmember Mike Zinkin, the numbers are in for September, and they are grim. Zinkin notes that the forecasted rounds of golf for September were 4,351 but the actual rounds played was 3,762. The Town missed its goal by a whopping 589 rounds. The average revenue per round was forecasted to be $40.17 while the actual revenue per round was $31.89, missing the projected figure by $8.28.
Zinkin says the bottom line is that the forecasted revenue for September was 4351 x $40.17, or $174,779.67. However, the actual revenue per round for September was 3762 x $31.89 or $119,970.18.
In other words, the Town lost $54,809.49 from what it was forecasted to make.
· In July the Town lost $65,826.60 from what was forecasted
· In August the Town lost $68,295.50 from what was forecasted
· In September the Town lost $54,809.49 from what was forecasted
· This totals $188,931.59 in total losses over what was forecasted.
Zinkin wonders why the Council majority did not want the Town to study and adjust their forecast. Councilman Brendan Burns discussed that very subject last week after the Council rejected the request to readjust their projections at their last Council meeting. Burns appeared on a morning radio show and was asked the same question and why Mayor Satish Hiremath is demanding that people stop talking about golf. “‘We don’t need to keep talking about golf, we have a community center,'” said Burns of Hiremath’s demands. He stated that the Mayor only wants to talk about fitness, and other “services offered by private companies for years. Now the Town is competing with the small business owners while being subsidized by the taxpayers,” who bemoaned the inequity of the situation.
Burns was asked by the radio host, “You guys now own a restaurant.” To which he responded, “That lost $37,000 so far. They can’t talk about reality,” Burns said, referring to Mayor Satish Hiremath, Vice Mayor Lou Waters, and Councilmembers Joe Hornat and Mary Snider, “because it is so bad. They want to get reelected without discussing this, and it’s the people’s money. They have no Plan B. They say they need a year; that’s $5 Million in loses,” Burns said in two years the Town will have $10 million in loses.
Burns said Oro Valley business owners who now find themselves competing with the Town “just want a level playing field,” and they are not getting it. “We are paying $20 per person to subsidize golf. There is no way a private course can compete with that.”
Contrary to Hiremath’s claims that the golf course purchase and its details were well-known by Council members, Burns said he did not learn about the details of the purchase until the Town Council was asked to vote on it. “We did not see the financials, ever, until two days prior,” to the vote said Burns. “How we can agree to something, whether it was on a handshake or not, without looking at the financials – it is reckless negligence. How can you buy a business without knowing how much it makes?” Burns continued, “Basically buying something sight unseen – which is basically what we did.”
According to Burns, he first heard about the deal with HSL on December 3, and did not see the financial numbers until two days before the Council was expected to vote on it. Burns said, “It gets worse.” According to Burns, the Town Manger refused to turn the financials over before the vote and Burns was forced to formally file a request for the numbers. “That is how nontransparent this purchase was,” said Burns.
Burns pointed out that 25 percent of the children in Oro Valley qualify for free or reduced lunch and the increase in sales tax, which was raised to buy the golf courses, will be devastating for some families. Burns asked how it was possible to raise taxes on struggling families, “to subsidize golf?”