RTM Approves $1 Million+ for New Sand Traps

By James Lomuscio

How do you make a better sand trap?

Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Fava explains the appropriation request tonight to the Representativre Town Meeting (RTM). (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

By a 30 to 1 vote, Westport’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM) tonight approved a $1.07 million appropriation with bond and note authorization for design and construction improvements to the Longshore Golf Course’s 94 bunkers.

Many of the bunkers, a.k.a. sand traps, have fallen into disrepair with rocks rising to the surface, edges or lips collapsing, and they are difficult step out of, town officials said.

Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Fava made the request, already approved by the Board of Finance and the Parks and Recreation Commission.

She said that $48,000 of the amount would go to pay Norwalk-based Golf Design Unlimited, which was selected by a competitive bid. The remaining $1,022,000 would cover estimated construction costs of a company yet to be chosen via competitive bidding.

RTM member Diane Cady was the lone dissenter. She called the request “a huge expenditure,” adding that golf course attendance in general “is shrinking.”

Supporters, however, said that a well maintained course would assure future playing, and that Longshore already ranked eighth statewide as a revenue producer.

Meanwhile, the condition of the present bunkers, Fava said, “has been one of the top complaints of the golfing community for years.”

Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Charles Haberstroh said the sand trap hazards were last renovated in 2005. At the time liners were not put beneath the sand for fear that the mechanical raking equipment would rip them out. As a result, Haberstroh said, the sand traps have been difficult to maintain.

Of Longshore’s 94 sand traps—those hazards diehard golfers always aim to avoid—some are never used, even by novice golfers.

“We’re going to look to combine and reduce those never played on to reduce maintenance costs,” said Haberstroh.

Fava said the bond would be paid back by an increase in user fees at the course where 35,000 rounds were played in 2015. According to Haberstroh, the established increase is $3 per round.

Calling the Longshore course “a real civic jewel,’ RTM member Seth Bronstein stressed the importance of keeping it well maintained.

He likened the appropriation to an investment, saying it was “a no-brainer“

“It is 100 percent going to be borne by the users of the course,” he said.