Unconscionable.
That’s not the only word I can think of to describe the city of Wichita’s latest machination at the site of the former Clapp Golf Course.
But it’s probably the most descriptive word that’s actually publishable in a family newspaper.
On the City Council agenda for Tuesday, city staff is proposing to extend a low-rent, no-bid lease for the former Clapp clubhouse to a disc-golf business for the next 10 years.
It’s essentially a gift of the use of public park property to a private business. Duck’s Flying Discs gets not only the clubhouse, but access to acres of adjacent city parkland to support its disc golf business — on what used to be a real public golf course.
The lease terms are outrageous.
The contract gives Duck’s full control of the former golf clubhouse, which, according to county appraiser records, is 2,880 square feet of business space.
The contract also gives Duck’s the rights to sell equipment, snacks, soda and beer to its disc golf players and other park users, keeping all the revenue generated.
But wait, there’s more: In addition to daily disc golf usage, they also get to use the park for their league play, tournaments and other events, with Parks Department approval and promotional support. Ducks gets to keep all the revenue from that, too.
For this, they’ll be paying $500 a month for first five years of the lease, and $550 a month for the second five years.
Try finding any commercial space in Wichita at those prices.
The justification for this is lame, even by city of Wichita standards.
“The tenant’s presence onsite benefits the Park & Recreation Department as the tenant’s staff picks up fallen limbs, provides general maintenance to the area, and, overall, improves the aesthetic condition of the park,” said a staff report recommending approval. “The clubhouse also serves as a point-of-contact with the public for information and public restrooms that will be even more beneficial when the new playground at Clapp Park opens in 2025.”
“Sweetheart deal” doesn’t even begin to cover this. The preferred term for what this is starts with the word “cluster.”
Duck’s has been using the space for $300 a month for the past three years.
This deal was originally sold as a short-term stopgap while the city planned and built an absolutely epic destination park at the site. On that basis, it was (just barely) acceptable.
But the promise of a destination park has turned out to be a costly and bald-faced lie — a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream that was impractical on its face and will never be built.
The city’s original plan was to carve up the former golf course and sell off pieces for private development, anchored by a dog bar .
That didn’t work out, largely because people get a little sensitive when it comes to wrecking their neighborhood by selling off parkland for more drinking establishments.
Imagine that.
So then, the city spent spent $206,000 on a consultant to draw up a master plan for Clapp Park.
The resulting plan included a bistro restaurant, an all-weather farmer’s market, a performance bandshell, a BMX bike track, numerous sports courts and even a weird mound for watching planes from McConnell Air Force base fly overhead.
The price tag on that was $28 million, which the city never had and never will.
So the city spent another $530,000 on consulting fees for a scaled-back proposal, which now includes a basic dog park, an expanded parking lot, bridge replacements and a playground accessible to children with disabilities.
The City Council and Parks Department have been wrenching their shoulder patting themselves on the back for the playground.
Nobody at City Hall seems to be asking the obvious question, so I will: Why aren’t all of our playgrounds accessible to children with disabilities?
And so the farce that is Clapp Park continues.
As usual with bum deals for the public, the contract for Duck’s to continue to basically control Clapp for the next 10 years is being brought before the council in an underhanded manner.
It’s buried on the “consent agenda,” a weekly list of supposedly routine and noncontroversial items of city business, to be rubber-stamped and disposed of in a single vote without public discussion.
And as if that’s not sneaky enough already, this vote’s on the consent agenda for the morning after a three-day holiday weekend, when almost nobody will have read the agenda — and following a Friday agenda review meeting where only three of seven council members bothered to show up.
Mayor Lily Wu recently touched off a furor when she suggested that the city should consider selling off some of its parkland to businesses that want it.
Why bother, when you can essentially just give it away?
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