It was a packed meeting room at the Fond du Lac city county government center Thursday night and of the 60 plus people in attendance who spoke there was a clear message…don’t sell or downsize Rolling Meadows Golf Course. The issue was raised at the last county board meeting when supervisor Tom Schumacher suggested maybe it was time for the county to get out of the golf course business after a report showed the course has lost money seven years in a row including $256,000 last year. “Its almost three-quarters of a million dollars over the seven years that its gone down the tubes,” Schumacher told WFDL news. “I’m not in favor of shutting down the golf course but we’ve got to cut the losses.” Golf course manager Dave Brandenburg says he welcomes the discussion and says last year’s loss was an anomaly due to the weather. “I think its good to have the discussion, obviously we have to return to profitability and a lot of people are willing to help and give us good ideas. Our goal is to break even over a period of time. If we break even everybody will be happy,” Brandenburg said. Brandenburg says so far this spring the course is $50,000 in the black. County board supervisor Dean Will says a lot of the financial problems are out of anybody’s control. “We have to hope for good weather. That’s the key to this whole thing,” Will said. “Last year if we had more play days we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.” County executive Al Buechel says the bottom line is Rolling Meadows is a quality of life issue. “The golf course was built by our leaders of this county years ago to attract businesses to the community. It was all about quality of life then and it still is,” Buechel said. In the end the finance committee and ag and recreation committee decided to let the course manager explore ways to increase revenue.
