Golfers at the Wellness Classic at Creekside Golf Club (Mary Louisa Van Natta/Special to Salem Reporter)
Salem’s Creekside Golf Club will remain open indefinitely after neighbors Wednesday voted against paying new monthly fees to prevent its closure.
Club co-owner Larry Tokarski told Salem Reporter Thursday that 504 households voted in a Creekside Homeowners Association election on a proposal to set two separate fees. (Disclosure: Tokarski is a co-founder of Salem Reporter.)
Of those, 170 – about 31% – voted yes on a $90 monthly fee for all 588 households in Creekside Estates, totaling $1,080 per year for each.
Tokarski said 97 households, about 19%, voted yes on another fee – 1% of the sale price of any home sold in the upscale south Salem neighborhood, to go to a trust fund for the golf club.
“One thing that has become very clear is that there are many in the community who value the club and see it as a vital part of this community,” Tokarski wrote in a statement Thursday. “We wish the outcome of today’s HOA vote had been different, but many questions and concerns were brought to light in recent weeks, so the result does not come as a surprise.”
Tokarksi added that an agreement was made to keep the club open “while we work to find a long-term solution.”
He said he will be purchasing co-owner Terry Kelly’s share of club interests, and will start leasing the course it to General Manager Danny Moore and Controller Shelley Elliot.
That option came up recently he said, after club members raised over $1.25 million to address delayed maintenance and staffing needs.
The proposal would have generated about $4.12 million for the club if approved, and Tokarski and Kelly would’ve had to pause plans for development on the property for five years.
The announcement comes after six-year court battle over the club’s potential closure.
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
