[Ed note: My Southborough accepts signed letters to the editor submitted by Southborough residents. Letters may be emailed to mysouthborough@gmail.com.
The following letter is from Kathy Cook for the Select Board.]
To the Editor:
On behalf of the Select Board, I am writing to express support of Article 3 on the Warrant for Saturday’s Special Town Meeting. The Select Board has voted unanimously to support this Article. This Article is asking for the funding needed to install a new irrigation system on the town owned golf course. The funding for the new system will come from the Community Preservation Act (CPA) surtax and the golf course revolving fund. The golf course revolving fund will contribute $150,000 in total to the project. The remaining funds (approximately $950,000) will be provided by previously collected CPA funds. There is a contingency of about $140,000 built into the request.
To remind readers what the CPA surcharge is. The surcharge (roughly 1% of your real estate bill or $100 on a tax bill of $10,000) is designed to fund projects that might have trouble finding traction without the CPA. Those projects include projects to fund preservation of historic structures, fund recreation projects including open space preservation and provide funds for community housing. In addition to the surtax on local tax bills – the State contributes funds to the CPA pot. The surtax can range from 1% to 3%. Each town votes on adopting the surtax and then the amount of the surtax. The higher the surtax the more the state contributes. Towns adopting the 3% surtax get an additional bonus as an incentive. Southborough adopted the surtax about 25 years ago and has funded many worthwhile projects over the years. The list is quite long and impressive. The source of the state match is a fee charged on real estate transactions.
About ten years ago, St. Mark’s School informed the Town that they intended to sell the land they owned on which they operated a golf course. Southborough’s leadership team was concerned about the future of the land if sold to a private developer. Southborough’s leadership negotiated a deal with St. Mark’s to swap the golf course land with the parcels on which our Fire Station and Police Department operated and pay roughly $5,000,000 to St. Mark’s.
In addition to the desire to protect the golf course parcel from unwanted development, the Town needed land to build a new public safety building. Annual Town Meeting voted to approve the deal with St. Mark’s that included placing a conservation easement on the parcel not used for the new building. Golf courses are a permissible use on conservation land.
As part of the deal to acquire the St Mark’s parcel, the Town also decided to continue to operate the golf course. The Town hired the same management company as St. Mark’s had used. The current management contract ends on 12-31-26 but includes two one year options. The Town has exercised the first one year option which retains the services of the current manager thru 12-31-27.
The reason the Select Board decided to exercise the first one option is that we believe that we need to have the new irrigation system installed before we put the management contract out to bid for a longer period of time. The Select Board has been advised that potential bidders will be reluctant to bid without a fully functional irrigation system. It is too much work to manually water portions of a golf course. We therefore would like to see the irrigation system replaced immediately so that we have a more competitive bidding process next year.
For everyone’s info – the golf course has been totally financially self sufficient since it was bought as far as covering all operating costs and smaller capital costs. However, paying for the irrigation system out of golf course revenue is not feasible.
The course is currently very popular. 28,446 rounds of golf were played in 2025. Strides have been made to correct the inherited deficiencies in the golf course with one major correction still to be made – preventing balls from ending up in Latisquama Road front yards. The Golf Committee is active and doing a great job. The Select Board wants to continue the progress on the golf course and believes that funding the irrigation system through mostly CPA funds is the best alternative. It allows for work to being immediately so that the new irrigation system installation will be complete by the next golf season AND in time to allow the Select Board to negotiate a new long term contract.
As far as an alternative proposal that has been suggested – adding a surtax to the current green fee of $24 does not accomplish our goal of getting the system replaced immediately after 10-17. Additionally the $24 green fee currently charges is a market rate. Southborough would only receive 20% of any surcharge per our current management contract so it would take a hefty surcharge to generate the revenue to fund any debt incurred to pay for the system if the currently readily available CPA funds weren’t used. Additionally the golf course revolving fund terms would probably have to be changed to allow for distribution of any surcharge which could not happen before next Annual Town Meeting.
We look forward to seeing everyone at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
Kathryn M. Cook
Select Board Chair
