Golfers have got some nerve

A group of golfers (read: rich men) want the Chamorro Land Trust Commission to just give them hundreds of acres of CLTC land smack in the middle of Dededo so they can run a golf club for themselves and their buddies.

Joe San Agustin wrote legislation that will allow the Guam International Country Club leaseholders of the CLTC land on which the golf course operates to turn the operation into a solar farm that will feed cheap energy into the island wide power system. The bill – a genius and beneficial idea for all of Guam and not just its golfers – would essentially increase the amount of rent CLTC would have been paid by GICC and demand the payment for the full term up front.

That money would go into an endowment fund that will be used by CLTC to survey and prepare thousands of residential properties for leases to the people of Guam.

The San Agustin bill kills two birds with one stone: It will help to lower the cost of electricity and do something substantive about the extraordinary cost of housing on Guam.

So, imagine my surprise when the CLTC was discussing the matter and a local businessman attempted to barter with commissioners by opposing the legislation and offering to take over the lease so he and his associates could operate the golf course as a business. What?

First of all, that’s not how it works. The lease is being held by GICC. And even if it weren’t, any interested party would have to wait in line and bid for it.

Secondly, and most important, WHAT?! You want to make money off a golf course instead of using public lands to reduce the cost of power and housing for poor people? These are among those rare times I begin to wonder whether rich people should have the right to vote.

These corporate golfers also must believe the commissioners are idiots, because the math on this yields an equation so lopsided I can’t help but visualize a fat boy hopping on a see saw while the skinny girl on the other side flies up.

On the fat boy’s side of the see saw, the golfers propose a business model that benefits themselves and indirectly benefits the recreational proclivities of a mere hundreds of golfers a year. On the skinny girl’s end is a proposal that will reduce the cost of electricity for 40,000 households, and has the mid-term impact of creating 11,000 new households through CLTC residential leases. Not to mention the additional tax revenue that comes with increased economic activity.

Joe San Agustin’s bill has the potential to have the largest positive impact on the economy of the island in a very long time. It is sensible, business friendly, environmentally progressive, and beneficial to the needs of the middle class and the poor. If there is any bill that needs to become law sooner than later, it is this one.

And what the hell do we need so many golf courses for? There are six others barely surviving as it is. Go golf there. Unlike the everyday Guamanian struggling to pay the power bill and rent, you can afford the gas.