Oro Valley Struggling In Peak Season, Investment Still Failing

The March numbers are in on Oro Valley’s El Conquistador Country Club and golf course investment, and once again the Town is falling short from its forecasts. Documents acquired from the Town of Oro Valley show that the revenue projections for March 2016 missed their forecast by $70,635.

The forecasted projections, which were revised on March 7, called for $296,200 in revenue, where the actual revenues published earlier this week were $216,565. Interestingly enough the forecast for member dues was increased from $80,000 to $110,000. In actuality there were 5 less members in March then in February.

At last week’s meeting, Councilmember Mary Snider made what some considered to be a baseless and bizarre claim that Councilmember Mike Zinkin’s inquiries as to the Town’s financial situation, which she described as “constant negativity,” were causing this investment not to succeed.

Snider’s highly questionable claims did not end with that. Snider stated, “I would just like to make it clear to the public that the term losses is being used up here – there are no losses. We have an asset; it has expenses and revenues and those might not be in balance through the year but there is no money being lost. No dollars being lost by the Town of Oro Valley over this operation.” Contrary to that claim, the Town is losing money on the operation, but the majority of the Council voted to raise taxes to hopefully cover that loss. At this point, even with the tax increase Town losses could be $2.1 – $2.5 million, which is well over the $2 million projected.

^{*The average per round is calculated by taking the total revenue and dividing it by the total golf rounds for members and non-members}