Residents Tee Off on Prospect of Privatizing Golf Course Management

The Paramus Golf Commission voted to recommend against hiring a private company to manage the Paramus Golf Course at their meeting Tuesday.

Close to 100 residents, including the Mayor and Council, packed one of the larger classrooms in the Life Safety Building to hear a presentation on golf course management companies.

Doug Hellman, vice president of Business Development for Kemper Sports, flew from his Illinois office to lay out the various management options available to the Golf Commission. One of those options included having a full service management company, like Kemper Sports, run the course.

Under such an arrangement, Hellman said, the municipality would still control the course's budget, rates and service levels. However, the Borough would also bear the brunt of any losses and the cost of any capital expenditures while paying a flat fee, plus a performance incentive, to the management company.

One of the bigger advantages Kemper Sports could offer, Hellman said, was purchasing power. Because of its size, Kemper can leverage its buying power to achieve savings on equipment purchases, and pass those savings to clients.

"This is our business," Helman said. "It's the only thing we focus on."

The throng of residents in attendance were more suspicious of the merits of privatizing the golf course management. Though Hellman denied it, Robert Adler, a Hobart Road resident, said a management company would undoubtedly raise the price of playing at the course.

"We all know, every one of us here knows, that the day that they privatize this course, you'll never see the same rates again," he said. "Guarantee it."

Brad Hopkins, a Linden Street resident, doubted there was any benefit to hiring a management company.

"So the only thing they bring to the table, from what I heard, is extraordinary buying power of fertilizer, which there seems to be a lot of," he said.

The Borough Council authorized Councilman Michael Rohdieck and Administrator Joseph D'Arco to for the golf course in January. The golf course on its own made more than $700,000 in profit last year.

However, much of the surplus has been used in past years to pay back bonds used to construct other recreation facilities, like the Parkway Plex and the Sports Complex. Because of that, the golf course is in the red on paper, prompting Rohdieck, liaison to the golf commission, to look for ways to boost revenue.

"That's what we're doing," Rohdieck said. "We're looking at options. We invited Kemper Sports here to show what options are out there for our municipal course."

Mayor Richard LaBarbiera said the golf course, as run by the Borough, was affordable and well maintained, and criticized Rohdieck for reaching out to Kemper Sports.

"They have been invited here by Councilman Rohdieck to push his agenda on how the commission, the council and the residents of Paramus operate their golf course," he said.

The golf commission's recommendation against hiring a management company will now be considered by the Borough Council. The recommendation is non-binding, but commission member Michael Mariniello said the Borough deserves a chance to keep running the course, given that it is doing better financially in the first three months of the year than in the past quarter.

"Give us a chance to control our destiny," he said.