Stockton mulls fate of two golf courses with meager attendance
STOCKTON — Golfer and naturalist Jim Marsh was playing the 18-hole course at Swenson Park last winter when he spied one of the resident foxes several hundred feet down the fairway.
This wasn’t unusual. Swenson is famous for its foxes. But this fox seemed to be dragging some kind of object behind it, an object that flashed silvery in the sun.
The fox scampered off as Marsh approached. But what Marsh found there, flopped on the carefully manicured turf of a 210-acre golf course in the middle of a city of 300,000-plus people, was a fat steelhead. The fish, whose belly had been torn open, was full of eggs. Somehow she had traveled all the way from the Pacific Ocean to diminutive Five Mile Slough to spawn, only to become dinner for Mr. Fox and maybe his family.
It’s a story that illustrates just how wild and environmentally diverse our open spaces can be — even a developed golf course. As the city grapples with what to do with its two money-losing public golf courses, and considers potentially building homes at Swenson, many are asking if there isn’t some other solution.
The discussion has evolved into one of the most passionate public debates in recent memory over the the merits of parks and open space in a city that is already lacking.
“This is a good debate to have,” Marsh said after recalling the story of the fox and the fish. “How can we make these places pay for themselves, but also recognize that they have intrinsic value and that it’s worth sacrificing something for them?”
The case for change at Swenson is based on simple math, Mayor Michael Tubbs has said. Fewer than 3,000 Stockton residents, or about 1 percent of the city, golfed at the Swenson or Van Buskirk courses at least once last fiscal year. After the popularity of golf soared nationally in the 1990s, it is now declining. And the Stockton region is oversaturated with courses.
Most importantly, perhaps, the city’s courses require a combined subsidy of about $850,000 per year from the precarious general fund. That’s money that could be used for other purposes that benefit more people.
“As mayor of a city of 315,000 people, it’s important to keep in mind what’s good for the most,” Tubbs said at a recent City Council meeting.
His comments came after the council was presented with three options for building much-needed affordable housing at Swenson (Van Buskirk cannot be developed). All three options still provide some open space or parkland, though substantially reduced from today. The golf subsidy would be eliminated, freeing up money for other city services. And hundreds of new homes would be built within Stockton’s existing urban footprint, which is generally preferable to paving over farmland or open space on the city’s perimeter.
But as Swenson admirers made clear at the meeting, open space within the city is important, too. Dozens of speakers poured out sentimental memories of their lives at Swenson. A 9-year-old boy said he brings binoculars on golf outings with his dad so they can watch for birds. Another extolled the virtues of the centuries-old oak trees that provide habitat for rare hawks and other raptors. One neighbor said she simply likes looking out her kitchen window onto the ninth hole.
Only about 3 percent of Stockton’s land area is in parks, or about 1,157 acres; the average for large cities is about 9 percent, according to the Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based nonprofit. Losing most of the open space at Swenson would make those numbers only worse.
Granted, Swenson isn’t like other parks. Access is limited to golfers. A chain-link fence with “no trespassing” signs keeps others out, with the exception of a band of public parkland that runs around the northeast corner of the course.
But if public testimony is any indication, the golf course has aesthetic benefits even for those who simply walk or drive past. And it provides wildlife benefits, with pre-eminent birder David Yee calling Swenson one of the best inner-city forests for birds in the entire region.
“Forward-looking cities do not pave over their green spaces,” Swenson neighbor Ruth Brittin told the City Council. “They find ways to improve their access.”
It’s unclear that building homes at Swenson is even viable after three of the seven council members expressed strong opposition.
But simply closing the Swenson course and leaving the property as open space may not be the solution, either. City staff said this month that it would cost just as much to maintain that open space as it now costs to provide the golf subsidy. And Stockton is already struggling to find enough money to maintain 50 of its other parks.
Some wonder if there is a way to make better use of the course’s attributes as a natural place. While environmentalists and golfers don’t always see eye to eye, there is increasing agreement that courses can provide valuable wildlife habitat. Restoring native vegetation on the periphery of a golf course and across other large swaths of land that aren’t regularly used by golfers could, in turn, reduce maintenance costs, said Yee, the birder.