Donald Trump wants to turn a popular public golf course in DC into a course that he dreams could hold championship-level events, because of course that’s what important to him.
The capital region’s U.S. senators are doing what they need to do: calling BS.
“The municipal golf courses of Washington, D.C., are public assets with deep historical, recreational, and community value. Decisions affecting their future, and the health and safety of those who use them, must be guided by law, transparency, and fidelity to the public trust. The Administration’s failure to respond to the questions posed in the January letter, combined with the significant new developments outlined above, compels us to seek answers with greater urgency.”
That’s from a letter from Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, Democratic senators from Maryland, and Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, Democratic senators from Virginia.
The District, as you may know, doesn’t have representation in either chamber of Congress, so it has to rely on its neighbors to plead its case.
Trump, who sees himself as having been elected city planner of Washington, D.C., with a side gig that gives him the power to start endless wars, has his eyes on East Potomac Golf Links.
The POTUS has repeatedly claimed that East Potomac is in bad need of repair, though he has failed to acknowledge his role in why the course is in the sorry state that it’s in – the administration has dumped tons of toxic debris from the old East Wing of the White House in the middle of the course, in a pile that locals have taken to calling Mount Trump.
This is, to use a golf term, par for the course for Donald Trump – cause a problem, and then use the problem that you caused to propose a solution that won’t fix the problem, but will probably make you and your buddies money.
Which gets us to Trump, on June 29, announcing grandiose plans for the muni, after touring the grounds with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and renowned golf course architect Tom Fazio.
“When completed, this Course will have the ability to host Major Golf Tournaments, including The U.S. Open, The Ryder Cup, The PGA Championship, and other top PGA Tour events,” Trump wrote on his socials after the visit to East Potomac, indicating in the post that work on the renovation would begin on Sept. 1.
That Sept. 1 start date for renovations was news to pretty much everybody who would need to be in the review and approval process.
The Department of Interior has “not provided Congress or the public with basic details about the scope of the project, the funding source, the expected period of closure or disruption, the effect on current users, or how such an accelerated timeline can be reconciled with applicable environmental, historic-preservation, procurement, and public-engagement requirements,” the senators wrote in their letter, which is addressed to Burgum and to Jessica Bowron, the acting director of the National Park Service.
To date, the senators wrote, “the only detail provided was a low-resolution image of the proposed course, leaving the public and Congress entirely in the dark about the scope of the redevelopment, including to what extent redevelopment will ensure continued public access to the waterfront, address existing infrastructure issues on Hains Point, and protect important artifacts such as the historic cherry trees on the White Course – the oldest grove of Japanese cherry trees in DC.”
Mess with those cherry trees at your own peril, would be the advice here.
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Chris Graham
