The Highland Lake Golf Course purchase: A WHKP station editorial

An editorial from WHKP:

When the announcement was made the other week that the county is buying…for $1.15million dollars…the Highland Lake Golf Course, we were shocked…and apparently many other Henderson County taxpayers were shocked as well. A lot of them will be at the county commissioners meeting tonight. We remember last summer very well… when at budget time, the same commissioners who bought this golf course imposed a 7.5 per cent, across-the-board, spending CUT on all county departments…all in the name of tough times and reduced revenue. Some county employees lost their jobs, schools took a whopping big cut, and library hours were reduced.


But now…the county can spend over a million taxpayer dollars to buy a golf course? For another park? Look at all the parks we have in the CITY…from Berkley to Patton to King to Edwards…and the list goes on and more are being planned. Look at all the parks we have in the COUNTY…from Jackson to Etowah to Fletcher to Edneyville to Stoney Mountain and now to Mills River....

Some suspect there may be more behind this acquisition than the need for another park and more soccer fields. There have been all sorts of rumors going around since the big deal was announced…rumors which county officials have been quick to deny. But the county commissioners left the door open for rumors and suspicion with their lack of transparency in this deal. Whatever the real deal is with that property, whatever it turns out to be, the commissioners chose to be mighty secretive with this until the deal was done. And there is no justifiable reason we can think of for that lack of transparency....

This station fully supports affordable, appropriate, responsible and transparent capital improvements and acquisitions by our local governments. For a lot of reasons, this purchase of Highland Lake Golf Course does not appear to meet those criteria. To his credit, Commissioner Larry Young was the single vote AGAINST spending taxpayer’s money to buy the golf course…like WHKP, he said he could not support the purchase after all county departments, including schools and public safety, had their budgets cut 7.5 per cent earlier this year. Maybe the commissioners thought Santa Clause was coming early when that property was made available to the county at a bargain price. But we still believe that a bargain is not a bargain…if you can’t afford it…and if you don’t need it....

Read it all.