Teeing off over park space

COPE park-board commissioner Loretta Woodcock isn't thrilled with the process for dealing with the future of the University Golf Course and Pacific Spirit Park.

The provincial government is in discussions with the Musqueam First Nation about the golf course, which is within its traditional territory. Metro Vancouver (formerly the Greater Vancouver Regional District) has a parks committee that has jurisdiction over Pacific Spirit Park.

The committee includes municipal politicians from across Metro Vancouver, but not from the Vancouver park board. "Vancouver is an anomaly, in that we are the only ones with [elected park-board] commissioners and councillors, so I am trying to connect the dots," Woodcock said.

NPA councillor Elizabeth Ball is the City of Vancouver's sole representative on the Metro Vancouver parks committee. Woodcock tried to introduce a motion at the September 17 park-board meeting that would have criticized NPA park-board commissioner Marty Zlotnik for attempting to engineer a land deal that would save the privately owned golf course.

Zlotnik has proposed that a 48-hectare chunk of Pacific Spirit Park, which is in Metro Vancouver's jurisdiction, be transferred to the Musqueam First Nation in exchange for the 48-hectare University Golf Course. NPA commissioner and park-board chair Ian Robertson did not allow Woodcock's motion to proceed.

"My question is, is this all about playing golf?" Woodcock said. "It is a privately run for-profit operation that is leased and happens to sit on Crown land. The eight-percent commission that the government receives from this course equals $450,000 a year. So there is a lot of money that is being made out of this course. It is not about saving a public golf course. It is about saving a private golf course that is accessible to the public."

The provincial government has indicated it may transfer the land the golf course sits on to the Musqueam as part of a court-ordered land settlement. This follows a B.C. Court of Appeal ruling in 2005 stating that the $11 million sale of the course to UBC, passed by the B.C. Liberals as a provincial order-in-council in 2003, was done with insufficient consultation with the Musqueam. Officials at the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation told the Straight an announcement will be made in January 2008 on how the province will respond.

For many months, Zlotnik, cofounder of a citizens' group called Save the Course, has rallied support for the golf course. He has claimed it is a 78-year-old gem and risks being developed if transferred to the Musqueam. Band representatives did not return calls from the Straight by deadline. Zlotnik has claimed he is acting as a private citizen, adding in a phone interview that he has a petition and an Angus Reid survey of 1,128 people from September 5 to strengthen his case.

The Straight called the downtown offices of David Ho, who operates the golf course and is a well-known contributor to B.C. Liberal coffers, but his staff did not make him available for an interview.

Zlotnik has been a major fundraiser for Premier Gordon Campbell. Campbell has hinted to constituents in Point Grey that the swap is not an option, according to Zlotnik.

"We have had a bit of a dispute," Zlotnik said. "But of the 99 things the premier does in a year, I agree with 98 of them. As for Loretta Woodcock being mad, is she ever in agreement with me on anything?"

Other community groups have come out strongly against Zlotnik, including Friends of Pacific Spirit Park. "I'm disappointed he would put forward a proposal that the park be expropriated for this purpose," Shelagh Dodd, the group's cofounder, said by phone. "Our sole purpose is that the park be preserved in its entirety."

Zlotnik said he does not see the need to save Pacific Spirit Park in its entirety if he can get a "good deal" for the Musqueam.