SEQUIM — The SunLand homeowners association board of directors voted unanimously Tuesday not to provide any monetary support to the financially struggling SunLand Golf & Country Club.
The unanimous vote by the SunLand Owners Association, or SLOA, board leaves country club officials considering their options, Golf & Country Club president Jim Ratliff said.
Those possibilities, he said, could include selling the golf course or restructuring the debt.
The golf course is, for many of 850 homeowners in the community north of Sequim, a brilliant green gem of a front yard.
Many believe the course adds to their home values, so last summer when the Golf & Country Club indicated it needed money for maintenance, a number expressed support for a new annual $300 fee for all SunLand homeowners.
That revenue, Ratliff believes, would have been well-spent on keeping up the course while protecting SunLanders’ investments.
Ratliff said that when surveyed, 55 percent of SunLand households said they favored a fee to help the golf course weather its current economic woes.
That homeowners’ fee, he added, would have continued for five years with an annual review of the amount.
In response to the fee proposition last year, the SunLand Facts group formed.
Led by SunLand North residents Tim and Barbara Paschal, the coalition researched the legality of requiring all SunLand homeowners, regardless of their use of the golf course, to fund its upkeep.
To play on SunLand’s links, one must be a member of the country club. Many homeowners are members, but many aren’t.
Annual dues run $3,285 for a single unlimited membership to $4,655 for unlimited family play, while “associate” and “social” memberships are priced lower.
Non-members, even if they live next to a fairway, are forbidden to walk on it.
Numerous SunLanders, such as the Paschals’ neighbor James Karr, didn’t come here for the golf. They were attracted by the location near Sequim, with all of its surrounding natural beauty.
Karr, for one, has said he’d like to see the golf course turn into a big park with native plants instead of putting greens.
The dispute over the course’s future, however, centered around the fee’s legality.
The SunLand Facts group cautioned against the assessment, and asked what else SunLand homeowners might be asked to provide once the fee was in place.
Some elderly residents said they couldn’t afford $300 added onto their existing homeowners’ dues of $195 per year.
The pro-fee crowd, meantime, warned that the golf course’s demise could mean major damage to home values.
After Tuesday’s vote against the fee, Tim Paschal pronounced himself “very relieved.”
After copious research, he believed the proposed fee to be illegal — and it turned out the SLOA board’s lawyer, Patrick Irwin, was of like mind.
“He made a strong recommendation that we not provide any support,” board member Eldon Dennis said Tuesday.
Plan B for extricating the country club from its cash-flow troubles — memberships have declined while expenses have climbed in recent years — hasn’t been decided yet, Ratliff said.
“We’ve been running thin for a long time on course maintenance. After a while, that catches up,” he said.
But “we’re a bunch of optimistic people,” who hope to find a solution to the financial puzzle.
“People had an opportunity to participate in the solution. They chose not to,” Ratliff said.
“We’ll accept and live with that. And we will move forward.”
But the air is chilly at SunLand now, Tim Paschal said.
“The next thing that needs to happen is this community needs to repair itself,” and the rift between the SunLand Facts group and the golf club members.
“I have no animosity toward golf, the golf club or golfers,” Paschal said.
But “the board didn’t have a legal right to assess SLOA members, and then gift SLOA funds outside SLOA,” he added.
Some neighbors here are not as neighborly as they once were, he said.
“People who a year ago would have stopped and talked about flowers or the weather, just walk past each other.”
This isn’t a universal thing, Paschal said. Some do offer greetings, and judiciously avoid discussing the golf course.
Mary Ellen Brown, a SunLander for 13 years, doesn’t play on it, and she doesn’t mind the prohibition against her walking on it.
“I love living here,” Brown said, adding that the dispute of recent months didn’t spoil that.
“This is the most contentious it’s ever been,” she said.
Ratliff acknowledged the cloud over SunLand, and called it “very, very sad.”
He’s looking forward to starting a fresh discussion on golf-course financial health. Spring is coming, after all.
“I think time takes care of things,” Ratliff said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.