I’m writing to voice disagreement with Mr. Van Lelyveld’s recent column, “Golf Course debate coming to a head” published this past week. I believe he chose to use facts selectively and simply ignore others to present what is, in my opinion, an inaccurate picture of the whole keep/modify/eliminate the golf course debate.

As has been mentioned in previous letters to the editor, the idea that having a golf course is not supported by a majority of respondents to the surveys is just not consistent with the facts. While noting that 42 percent of the respondents to the open house number two (conducted in late April) supported a “central park” plan without golf, 51 percent supported either keeping the existing golf course property as-is or a hybrid plan including a golf course but allowing changes to encourage more public non-golf usage. In addition, what was not mentioned in Mr. Van Lelyveld’s column is that in the open house number three (conducted late June), when asked to choose support between just the central park idea and the hybrid golf course idea (taking the option of using the property exclusively for golf off the table), more respondents supported the hybrid golf course out of the two. Also, not mentioned – out of the 13 stakeholders polled at the June open house (arguably the stakeholders are those closest to and most knowledgeable about the situation), seven supported the hybrid golf course versus five that supported the central park option.

Based on this data, the proper interpretation of the public input would seem to be that more of the respondents, both general public and stakeholders, support keeping the golf course in some form than don’t support it. Hearing the mayor make comments during the meetings such as golf is dead, we’re just ripping the Band-aid off, seems to fly in the face of the public input. Perhaps that is the reason why you’re hearing comments about the mayor ignoring or superseding public desires.

Those of us that support keeping the golf course in some form actually don’t believe we’ve lost the quantitative argument despite the column’s statement to the contrary.