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Wednesday, November 20, 2019
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Club West future sinks again into uncertainty BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
T
he Club West Golf Course likely is gone for good, a group of local investors said Monday as they walked away from a tentative deal to buy the beleaguered site. In ending talks that last week fueled rampant speculation in the community that homes would be built on part of the site, Matt Shearer, a Club West resident and one of the investors, delivered a sobering verdict after months of analysis by the group’s consultants: “Unfortunately, we do not believe the course can be saved as a sustainable jewel of our community.” Noting that he and his partners “invested significantly in our research, hiring hydrologists, irrigation consultants, surveyors, planners, soil experts and renowned golf course and clubhouse architects,” Shearer issued a statement to AFN that said:
“As more time passes, saving the course becomes more difficult and prohibitively expensive. Time is not an ally and the course needs to be revitalized within a budget that considers available water sources, community support and the direction the golf industry is headed.” Shearer said he and his partners wanted “to create a sustainable, challenging but playable, 18-hole course with a beautiful clubhouse and community golf center.” But they apparently discovered the same thing that another group of local investors encountered earlier this year when they considered buying the course from owner Wilson Gee. The earlier group eventually determined that Gee’s asking price of $850,000 is twice what the course is worth. But even at half the price, they said, the intractable issue of cheap water and a badly deteriorated infrastructure made any effort to run a profitable course an uphill climb.
Those factors may put into play a new future for the course outlined in the anonymous letter delivered last week to 73 Club West homeowners – namely, that houses and a shortened nine-hole course might emerge as one of the few viable alternatives to the barren site. But for a brief few months in the winter of 2017-18, the course has been virtually barren since the summer of 2016, when Gee turned off the water because its cost was too high. Because the city more than a quarter of a century ago demolished an effluent treatment station that provided cheap wastewater, Club West Course relies on city potable water. In 2016, Gee said he was facing a $700,000 water bill and his only alternative to going broke was to simply close the course. Shearer’s statement took notice of the
see WEST page 14
Akimel A-al ‘farm’ grows wonder for students BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
I
t started with a long-abandoned garden that Akimel A-al Middle School Assistant Principal Dana Westerman persuaded a student to clean up in the hopes of inspiring him to get more engaged in school. But over the last three years, that patch has become an evolution growing a revolution. First there was a garden. Then a few chickens and a giant tortoise were added. A butterfly garden seemed a natural fit and then parakeets found it a nice place to roost Last Saturday, the evolving Akimel farm added a giant high-tech greenhouse – thanks to a $5,000 grant from Lowe’s, a renowned world expert on sustainability and the sweat equity of about 40 volunteers who spent the day erecting it. Akimel students in science-technology-engineering-math designed the greenhouse, a new component in an expanding program that’s providing ongoing lessons for scores of students in agriculture, STEM and qualities like leadership and teamwork. That program has attracted not only Akimel
Akimel A-al Middle School Assistant Principal Dana Westernman, foreground, carries some lumber during the all-day construction of the campus’ new high-tech greenhouse as Heidi Burgess does the same behind her. (Pablo Robles/AFN Staff Photographer)
students, but also some from adjacent Estrella Elementary. And it could eventually evolve into an agriculture component in the curriculum at nearby Desert Vista High School, pro-
viding a continuum of education in a subject that few would expect to find in a highly ur-
see GREENHOUSE page 18