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SALT LAKE CITY — South Jordan City Council members will use a research and data analysis group to survey residents and gain more public input on the future of Mulligans.
"We have no preconceptions and no predetermination as to where it's going to go," City Councilman Chuck Newton said of the two nine-hole golf courses, batting cages, driving range and miniature golf course.
"The purpose of the poll was to flush out people's attitudes about where do we go, and to help us explore options and to see if there's any options we've missed."
The City Council has enlisted Y2 Analytics to survey community members from the voter rolls to see what residents want for the future of the facility, Newton said.
The survey is expected to begin in about a month and will take two to three weeks to complete. The randomly chosen residents will receive an email and take a computer survey, then they will then be called for a phone survey.
Newton said an open house will follow to highlight benefits and costs of the top options and get feedback from the community.
"Then we'll do a scientific poll ballot type so that we can accurately assess in essence a vote, which option the residents will prefer. And that's what we'll implement," he said. "However it shakes out, that's what we're going to do and implement to the best of our abilities based upon what our residents want, based on a majority."
But the president of a group dedicated to preserving the golf courses, Save Mulligans, said the public should have been more involved before Y2 Analytics came on board and is not in favor of the poll.
We feel that until the city has resolved its financial issues around Mulligans, they should not move forward. Until we have all the facts out there, you shouldn't start doing a survey.
–Julie Holbrook, Save Mulligans president
"We feel that it's going to be skewed," Julie Holbrook said.
Holbrook said the group isn't comfortable moving forward with the survey after comments made by some City Council members that Mulligans is losing money despite auditor Richard Bolwer's comments in a meeting on July 1 that characterizing some money as a loss is "a mischaracterization."
"We feel that until the city has resolved its financial issues around Mulligans, they should not move forward," she said. "Until we have all the facts out there, you shouldn't start doing a survey."
But Newton said keeping Mulligans open is a loss to the city of about $250,000 annually. The loss, he said, can't be sustained without a change or possibly a tax increase.
"We want to place some scenarios in front of (the community) and see what people are willing to do," he said. "This is big and it's going to impact people tax-wise if we keep it as a golf course."
He said the idea is to keep at least 30 percent of Mulligans open space, but even that isn't a hard number.
Newton said a few options are to keep the golf course as it is, redesign the facilities, keep nine holes, add a clubhouse, add restaurants or office buildings, turn it into green space, or any combination of these options.
Holbrook argued that a city needs to have open space incorporated and preserved within the community.
"We need open space. (Mulligans) is the only open space by the river," Holbrook said.
Right now, Newton said, Mulligans is not a park. It's a recreational facility.
"Right now it's not green space, it's not just open space. You have to pay a fee to use it," he said.
Newton said the city hopes to come to a resolution for the facilities by February 2015. He said Mulligans would likely stay open at least through 2015. Regardless of which option is implemented, he said, Mulligans will be closed for a short period for some redesign work, but it should be up and running in 2016.
