The Rancho Santa Fe Association board approved a new resolution on the management, operations and financial responsibility of the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club facilities. The board’s vote was 5-1 with Director Jeff Simmons opposed and Director Dan Comstock absent.

The action was an update of an original resolution approved back in 1987 that has been  amended several times over the years, the last time in 2017.

“This has been months and months in working, this has been no little feat,” said RSF Association board President Courtney LeBeau.  “We worked closely with golf to get their input.”

The resolution lays out that the Golf Club general manager reports to the Golf Club Board of Governors on day-to-day operations and to the Association manager on personnel, legal and financial matters, including construction projects.

“This is a document which outlines how this board would like staff to work together,” Director Phil Trubey said. “This is just a resolution, we’re not handcuffing future boards…there was some concern in the community that we’re giving away responsibility…legally it’s not possible for any resolution to do that.”

The resolution states that as the Ranch Clubhouse is a community asset for the use of all Covenant members, the Golf Club will operate the clubhouse and the Association will pitch in $500,000 toward its operations for 2024-25 and will fund the renovation and ongoing maintenance of the clubhouse as well as upgrades to the campus parking lot.

As LeBeau noted, the resolution can be changed at any time by a future board.

With his sole no vote, Director Jeff Simmons was opposed as he didn’t think the $500,000 number should be in the resolution. Director Lorraine Kent agreed. While she voted in favor and supports subsidizing the restaurant, she believed the amount should be reviewed annually.

As the board prepared to vote on the new resolution, resident Linda Leong stood and interrupted them and asked all board members who were Golf Club members to recuse themselves, citing a conflict of interest.

“It’s unethical for this board to go ahead and ramrod this through without the general membership being aware,” Leong said. “This is in essence a staged coup.”

In her comments, LeBeau said there has been a lot of confusion in the community about the resolution, which was posted for review on June 5. Association Attorney Bill Budd said the intent of the resolution is to facilitate the operation of a “huge” community asset.

“The golf club is an integral part of the Association, it’s not independent, it’s not separate, it’s land owned by the Association and ultimately overseen by the board of directors of the Association,” Budd said.  “The idea is to have this resolution established by the board so that everybody knows the ground rules.”

Budd said the Association has to rely on the expertise of the Golf Club staff to run the facility. They have some autonomy but because of the size of the asset and the amount of money involved, “it requires an intricate level of procedures and oversight,” he said.

At the meeting, the board heard from several residents who were opposed to the resolution,  believing that it “unfairly” benefits the golf club at the expense of non-golfers. A few people said that they believed the resolution was rushed and that the board’s process lacked transparency.

In a letter to the board, former board director Bill Strong wrote that the resolution was “terribly one-sided”: “Everything is given to the Golf Club and paid for by members,” Strong wrote. “Even the parking lot expenses become totally the responsibility of the RSFA, when most of the usage is from the Golf Club.”

In her comments, resident and former board director Heather Slosar said she believed the resolution was a violation of the board’s fiduciary responsibility to the 70% of the membership who are not golfers.

“Up until 2020 the Golf Club ran its own club and paid for it since 1987. They managed the restaurant, maintained their course and parking lot, built their player’s clubhouse and maintained everything to a very high standard,” Slosar said.

The recent $11.4 million golf course renovation was entirely funded by the Golf Club.

Slosar pointed out that in 2019, non-member golf packages were revoked and the Association began to subsidize the cost of running the restaurant through the cost-sharing agreement—now the Association “will take on millions in renovation projects.”

“When you take money from the Association, you are accountable to the general Association members,” Slosar said. “Now non-golfers are rightfully going to scrutinize the club and all its spending.”

Last year, the board debated the amount of the cost share agreement and even considered a 50/50 split of the $1.47 million cost to run the restaurant. The newly approved resolution states that future contributions to running the restaurant shall be $500,000 and tied to a consumer price index escalator.

Per the resolution, a staff working group will collaborate with the new food and beverage director on clubhouse operations. Within 180 days, the director is charged with reviewing the restaurant’s operations and finances, and presenting any recommendations to the board.

The board majority backed the spirit of the resolution as they believe that the clubhouse is a benefit to the entire Association. As Director David Gamboa said, a large percentage of the community is using the golf and tennis campus every day—there are currently 278 tennis club members and 604 at the golf club, making up about 49% of the electorate, he said. Factoring in the restaurant, even more members utilize the clubhouse as they can come to dine whether or not they play golf or pickleball.

“That gives us high confidence that we are representing the membership quite well in distributing the allocation of cost,” said Gamboa.

Director Scott Thurman said he thinks of the area as being the center of the community and the Ranch Clubhouse and restaurant as just another “amazing” amenity that they support.

Last year the board approved a $450,000 agreement with Ocio for the design of the restaurant remodel and transforming the existing snack bar building into a new “casual dining annex”. Several design rendering updates have been presented at board meetings although no decisions have been made.  The next steps would be board review of plans and cost estimates, financial analysis and community input. Early estimates for the cost of the upgrades are about $5 million to $6 million for the restaurant and about $3 million for the snack bar.