Creekside Golf Club averts closure, for now
Creekside Golf Club will stay open at least through the end of the year, a committee of club members working to save the south Salem course announced Friday.
“Concessions were made on both sides to reach the agreement and the financial support of individual members greatly influenced the outcome,” Terry McEvilly, a committee member, said in a news release.
McEvilly did not respond to a request for details about or a copy of the agreement.
The committee previously had offered to collect $338,000 for the owners in one-time payments from members, raise another $221,000 by increasing monthly dues, and collect $144,000 by convincing some neighbors to purchase at least a social membership.
The threat of a lawsuit may also have played into the owners’ decision to keep the course open for now.
On Monday, a neighboring homeowners association asked a judge to stop the owners’ planned May 1 closure and require the property to remain a golf course forever.
Lawyers for the association say closing the course would violate the covenants, conditions and restrictions (CCRs), recorded in 1992 by the developer of both the 18-hole championship course and the subdivision.
The CCRs require that a golf course be sited on the property and be properly maintained, said T. Beau Ellis, the association’s lawyer. And they don’t allow any change to the course’s boundaries.
Developers also created an “equitable servitude” that burdens the property when they advertised and sold homes as being in a “golf course community,” Ellis said.
Although the course will stay open for now, the lawsuit still will proceed, Ellis said.
"We believe it's important that we have resolution of the issue. As noted, it's a temporary solution," he said.
The golf course and the neighborhood were created together in the early 1990s by the same developer, a partnership that included Salem developer Larry Tokarski’s Mountain West Investments.
Tokarski currently owns the golf course property, and co-owns the club along with developer Terry Kelly and club manager Tom Whitaker, Whitaker said in an interview earlier this year.
In February, Whitaker announced that the club had been losing money for years.
He asked the homeowner association to approve a plan that would triple residents’ monthly association fees, raising about $400,000 per year for the club. In exchange, each resident would receive a social membership to the club, allowing them to use the pool and fitness center. Homeowners have not previously been required to join the club.
On April 1, Whitaker said the association was moving too slowly, and announced that the club would close May 1.
The 588 association members still are scheduled to vote on the forced-membership proposal May 3.
Club manager Tom Whitaker did not respond to a request for an interview.
tloew@statesmanjournal.com, 503-399-6779 or follow at Twitter.com/Tracy_Loew
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