Letter to the Editor Favoring Countryside As A Municipal Golf Course

Today's Letter to the Editor in The Roanoke Times:

Municipal golf course is a better investment

The Feb. 19 commentary by Valerie Garner "Chipping away at Countryside" exposed the narrow-minded approach of Roanoke city government and city council members to the valuable asset and potential of the Countryside Golf Course.

The city should not turn a blind eye to this potential cash cow for Roanoke and the future generations that could enjoy one of the last green refuges in a sea of expanding industrial development and asphalt. The city's plan for a real estate development with $400,000-plus homes is unrealistic now with the ever-mounting inventory of homes on the market and the mortgage industry going belly up.

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Why not look north at the Baltimore solution adopted more than 20 years ago? The Baltimore Municipal Golf Corp. began in 1985 with a loan of $500,000 from the city and since invested more than $6.5 million in capital improvements to the five city courses and donated more than $4 million to city youth programs. The courses are great and readily accessible to the general public.

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As you enter the Shenandoah Valley into Roanoke off Interstate 81 onto Interstate 581, let there be an attractive municipal Countryside Golf Course available to all.

JOHN W. SMITH
BOONES MILL