This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

California is known for a lot of things, not all good things.

A new bad one is this:

A piece of legislation in the California Legislature — AB 672 (called by opponents “The Public Golf Endangerment Act”) – poses a threat to municipal golf down south.

What the bill does is provide $50 million in developer subsidies to re-develop California’s municipal golf courses into housing complexes.

That covers 22 per cent of the state’s golf stock that hosts upwards of 45 per cent of the state’s golf play and roughly 90 per cent of the game’s growth and diversity programs, according to information from the Southern California Golf Association (SCGA).

The SCGA says the bill “singles out golf and only golf for dismemberment.  No other park, open space or land preservation use is similarly jeopardized, guaranteeing that golf and only golf will be sacrificed up for re-development.”

Now, why do a care about this?

Well at least two reasons:

• First, it is a stupid idea – and, as some say, “you cannot fix stupid.”  There are far better ways to provide needed housing other than to trash open spaces such as golf courses, which, I add, have proven their worth during the pandemic.

• Second, based on my more than 25 years in the state lobby business in Oregon, I worry that legislative ideas move north and south on the West Coast.  And the ideas that move are not always good ones.

So, we could see this kind of land grab here in Oregon.

The SCGA is working to round up grassroots comments against AB 672, but it is too early to tell yet what will happen.

As a California golfer, albeit at a private club in the California desert, I intend to add my voice to the opposition.