Attention: EBR Parish Citizens. Historic City Park Golf Course Baton Rouge is under attack !!
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There has been a multi decade long effort to steal large segments of the City Park Golf Course Baton Rouge or eliminate it completely and repurpose the land to a Central Park. These efforts have been spearheaded by the Baton Rouge Business Report. In 2002, the owner petitioned to have a parish library built upon site. That idea was defeated and Baton Rouge was rewarded with the Main Library on Goodwood Blvd which has been a fabulous success.
Various players are involved. Business people, BRAF, BREC, city leaders on the metro council, mayors and/or their appointed representatives, and BREC Commissioners. In 2005, BREC commissioned a conceptual design without the golf course. That effort fizzled after staunch public opposition. Yet, here we are twenty years later, battling the same adversaries, spending consulting money, and rehashing a public fight to eliminate City Park Golf Course. We note, since that time, utilization at the course has sky-rocketed from 16,335 rounds played in 2012 nearly doubling to 28,225 rounds played in 2025. The course is now effectively a money maker for BREC, which takes in nearly $5 Million annually in golf fees throughout the parish. Furthermore, local economist point out that golf is the number one secondary sporting activity for the bowling attendees of the U.S. Bowling Congress (USBC) Open Championships which came to Baton Rouge in 2025 generating an economic impact of more than $125 million for the city and parish. Enhancing golf could bring another Championship to Baton Rouge and a net influx of another $125 million dollars to city and parish businesses and tax collectors.
We wish to acknowledge that we currently believe we have the support of the Mayor of Zachary who has been supportive and understands that the Historic City Park Golf Course is of great value and should remain intact in its complete form. Historically, several members of the BREC commission have championed our cause to protect the golf course. We wish to say thank you for keeping the golf course complete to the present day. However, at this time, the composition of the commission has changed and the golf course is again under severe threat of elimination or significant land reduction.
The current situation is dire primarily because the BREC Commission in late December set into motion a consulting group (Sasaki) to determine a best use recommendation for the land currently occupied by the golf course.
The course is a Historic property that has been in existence since 1926 and has enjoyed city/parish stewardship since 1929. Today, a potential majority of your BREC leaders are busy contemplating how to hand away land rights for areas adjoining the lakes for a term period of ninety-nine years. These rights will go to outside special interest groups that will have no public accountability and will privately profit from a public resource. This is a time tested scheme, where public governing boards such as BREC sign a long term lease with a counterparty for a nominal value and then the private counterparty enjoys revenue and profits for years to come. With a ninety-nine year lease term, one can only imagine how sweet a giveaway by BREC to a special interest group could be. The phrase du jour is Public Private Partnership.
The fairways, greens, and clubhouse of City Park Golf Course Baton Rouge are listed on the National Registrar of Historic places having been deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic value" by the United States Department of the Interior.
The course has positive net operating income and is self-sustainable. Utilization at Historic City Park Golf Course has grown to over 28,225 rounds of annual play in FY2025. The sport of golf generates more than $5 Million dollars of revenue annually to the BREC budget. Removing golf removes revenue which offsets costs. By removing golf BREC will need more millage property taxes from the public. BREC consultants are attempting to portray the course as dormant and passive in use, when in fact, more people use the golf facility at City Park Baton Rouge than any other use except for the knock knock museum. Compared to the art gallery, the Golf Course attracts 3x the amount of patronage and community participation in ‘active’ land use. Don't be fooled by misdirection of consultants’ biased negative opinions of golf demand and utilization at City Park Golf Course. Demand post Covid is sky high.
Tens of thousands of citizens enjoy the atheistic beauty of the course on a regular basis.
Walking, jogging, and riding bikes around the perimeter of the course are daily exercises everyone can enjoy on a no fee basis.
Additional but neglected amenities and vacant land surround the course currently and can be developed should the public desire it. If only BREC would invest resources, these sites too could be further enhanced and patronized by the public without need to repurpose golf course land, which we remind you the Federal Government of the United States has recognized as Historic in nature and worthy of preservation due to its significance to the local community.
As you read this, BRAF, BREC and its consultants are busy at work executing a strategy to prove that the golf course must be reduced 50% or eliminated entirely in order to reprogram the land use for a different use scenario as a central park. The Baton Rouge Business Report and the owner of a local running group have pitched this narrative for years. New BREC commissioners are told that people don't like or play golf anymore. This is patently false and not substantiated when unbiased data are evaluated.
We fear that our city leaders are stuck in the past, due to the constant threat upon the golf course to expropriate its playing field for alternative use cases. They don't recognize that golf is a sport enjoyed by people of all races, ages, and social backgrounds. Students and retirees, men and women, all races and religions, can find themselves enjoying the game of golf in diverse groups collectively learning about the humanity of their neighbor, varied backgrounds and life experiences. Golfers know that the Golf Course unites the community. Claims that the golf course divides the community are completely unfounded and inaccurate. Developers, Contractors, and Consultants are feeding upon these issues hoping to get a slice of the spending pie as BREC contemplates redevelopment of the golf course.
There is a growing dedicated group of citizens who enjoy playing golf in Baton Rouge. However, most citizens do not belong to a private golf club. Therefore options to play within the core of Baton Rouge at a reasonable price are limited to three courses. LSU golf course will soon close, putting further demand and pressure on the remaining courses at Webb Park and City Park.
In an effort to produce a pre-determined outcome desired by several members of the BREC Commission, the consultant has launched a survey. Upon careful analysis, one can clearly see that by innocently answering the survey, the majority of all the answers allowable on the form provided by the consultant inevitably point to alternative use demands from the public. By structuring their survey in this biased fashion, the consultant will most likely report to BREC that the public supports six alternative use cases other than golf. Magically, the pre-determined outcome will be confirmed and the consultants will falsely claim that golf is the lowest priority use case and should therefore be eliminated entirely, cut by 50% in land area, or reprogramed for alternate land use. This has been a dream for several special interest groups for over 20 years. In that 20 years, they have accumulated virtually no public support. Hence, these actors now seek to destroy the golf course through political influence, attempting to usurp public will and pressure or entice BREC commissioners in the process. Outsourcing recommendations to consultants is a favorite tool of influence to circumvent public interest.
BREC has its own tax millage of 14.9 mills and an operating budget north of $115 million dollars, 40% of which goes to salaries and fringe benefits. Compare that to the parish general fund at 2.9 mills, BR city general fund at 5.44 mills, the fire department budget at 11.7 mills or law enforcement at 15.0 mills. Taxpayers can quickly understand BREC has money to burn. So while we, the taxpayers, struggle to pay our Delta Utilities Gas Bill each month while BREC is handing out money to consultants for the same failed proposals the public rejects year after year.
BREC and its consultants will likely tell you that City Park is a divided facility split by Dalrymple Drive and the Railroad tracks. The consultants will further postulate that repurposing golf course land for alternative use cases will solve some perceived problems in ‘program’ use. What those same consultants and BREC won't tell you is that the railroad tracks will remain and Dalrymple Drive will remain no matter the ultimate use case of the property. The entire park will be geographically divided by these transportation routes regardless of use case.
Recognize that your innocent participation in BREC's survey could be utilized by BREC and BRAF to expropriate much of City Park Golf Course for alternative use if you do not complete the survey wisely. As you read BREC’s survey, recognize the answers you are providing are crafted to exclude the golf course as a preference in a majority of the questions. Furthermore, by simply asking a six part question, a declarative statement can be made that five out of six respondents selected a use case other than golf. This is a survey predisposed to portray the golf course as unwanted (i.e. failure by design).
Why do we have such skepticism? The answer lies in the fact that BREC from the outset of this process could have assured the public that the park would undergo a redevelopment phase, but the footprint of the golf course would remain intact and complete. However, BREC has never provided much, if any, reassurance, rather choosing to hint that other use cases might be in the works and postulating that many people would prefer to eliminate the golf course entirely. This is a false narrative pushed by developers, contractors, and consultants and a few very vocal citizens. This false narrative has now been adopted by several BREC commissioners and mayors of the parish. Hence, we are skeptics of the consulting process.
Admittedly, we like golf, other people perhaps like tennis, some like art, while others like walking, jogging, and sitting in the grass. All these activities have coexisted in harmony for decades, until now. BREC and some of your civic leaders at the behest of well-funded private interests (e.g. Baton Rouge Business Report and BRAF) are determined to take the golf course for their own purposes. We strongly encourage BREC to invest in the underdeveloped areas of the park that lay beyond the golf course footprint. We completely reject the idea that the golf course land should be repurposed to solve perceived short comings at the park or within the city.
If BREC wants to build a running track on vacant unused space outside of the golf course footprint, we can support that. If BREC want a revitalized playground, we can support that. What we see as a fool’s folly is the repurposing of existing golf course land use and we urge the public to let BREC know the golf course should maintain its Historic footprint intact, whole, and 100% complete. We would be pleased if BREC so chose to spend a fraction of its annual expenditure allocation on golf improvements at City Park, but for now, the most important agenda is demanding that the golf course remain intact, whole and complete, for generations to come. If you like, suggest BREC allocate golf improvements of three to five million dollars at City Park over a period of time. Your choice, but please help us keep the entire golf course.
We kindly ask that should you take the time to complete the BREC survey while being careful that you do not play into the consultants’ rigged game. Leave their suggested choices blank, we have no doubt BREC will fund them regardless of the publics input. The survey is constructed purely for the reason to expropriate land from the golf course. If not, the consultant process would have never started and the money would have been saved. That's $600 thousand dollars of your taxpayer funding down the drain. We encourage you to select ‘golf’ whenever the survey allows. We also encourage you to select the ‘other’ check box and write in your “Support Golf Current Footprint / Keep 100% Golf / Support New Amenities Only Outisde Existing Golf Areas” as your winning response.
If you are asking yourself, why is our tone so aggressive? The answer is simple. Golfers attend every BREC meeting. We have been battling the threat of land confiscation for more than two decades. This present threat happens to merely be amplified fivefold. We have rarely found reassuring voices emanating from BREC Commission votes at monthly meetings in the last six months and we have every cause to be concerned that the golf course as we know it could be lost forever.
Soon we will publish our more detailed guide to help the public complete the BREC survey without sabotaging City Park Golf Course. NOTE: This website will have a more detailed advisory soon regarding the manipulative BREC survey orchestrated by BREC's consultants.
The clock is ticking. Citizens have only a few weeks to mobilize to stop the golf course land grab.
Please locate our website - www.ProtectCityParkGolfCourseBR.org - and revisit us here often in the month of February; we plan to have weekly, possibly daily updates.
There is much to know about the background forces at play here. We feel it is in the public’s interest to be presented with the facts of the matter at hand. If you learn nothing else, please note that BREC is burning your money on an unnecessary consultant study and contemplating an unnecessary land taking. Saving the golf course should have cost zero consulting dollars, but now environmentalist, preservationist, golfers, walkers, joggers, tennis players and dog lovers alike, all must fight to protect the golf course for future generations. There are many ways BREC can enhance surrounding park land without taking one square foot of the golf course, but the special interest forces pushing this land grab won't enjoy the pleasure of burning your tax dollars unless they take the most historic parcel and repurpose it in the process.
When you open your wallet and wonder where the money went, when you hit the next pothole on city streets, remember BREC burned some of your tax dollars on frivolous projects and they are looking for another bite at the apple to spend more of your tax dollars to the tune of tens of millions. We urge the public to be skeptical of any result BREC produces from its consulting contract to evaluate City-Brooks Park if that evaluation calls for eliminating or repurposing the golf course.
Remember, please send us your email contacts so that we can keep you informed. You can join our cause by filling out a contact form here.