Bendelow

Insurance companies won't like the Sasaki plan, and neither will the railroads consent to an uncontrolled crossing over the tracks. They can't.
Sasaki are a bunch of fantasists burning up public money.

And SM will be even more crowded after LSU closes in May. BR has lost 81 holes of public golf in the past five years at a time when golf is growing following COVID

Sasaki are planners, not golf course architects. They don't have any feel for an historic course like City Park or any appreciation of its significance.

LSU finally went public: the LSU Golf Course will close in 2026. And the explanation feels very familiar.
Just like BREC’s “efficiency” layoffs, LSU is using vague language about “operational priorities” while insisting the land has “no planned use.” But you don’t shut down a 60-year public course that costs almost nothing to operate unless something else is driving the decision.
The pattern is the same: remove the public asset first, explain later.
The timing says even more. Silence until the community started asking questions — then a sudden announcement with no plan attached
Public land deserves honesty and openness with the public.

Another example of public land being turned over to private development entities. The same will happen to City Park if BRAF has its way.

Why do they hate people who play golf? Because at City Park a functioning, revenue positive public course stands in the way of a much larger land use agenda. A century old municipal course with real users is inconvenient when the goal is to fold City Park into a conservancy, shift Lakes Project obligations onto BREC, and open the door to developer driven “visioning.” That’s why the planning process keeps trying to redefine an active course as “passive space.” That’s why real estate developers are being invited to steering committee meetings. That’s why the survey is being stretched beyond what it actually measured. That’s why the public keeps getting pushed into overflow rooms and muted livestreams.

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Calling for lights, bars, food trucks, or a “destination” sounds fun until you look at the realities on the ground. BREC can barely maintain the system it already has. Crime, litter, staffing shortages, and security challenges are real. Turning City Park into a nightlife adjacent entertainment venue wouldn’t solve any of that — it would magnify it.
And the idea that you can bolt a Topgolf lite concept onto a 100 year old, walkable, tree canopied 9 hole course and somehow “top 50,000 rounds” is fantasy. The course works because it is simple, affordable, historic, and predictable. That’s why 28,200 rounds happened last year. That’s why it’s the most diverse and accessible golf facility in the parish. That’s why kids, seniors, beginners, students, and everyday players use it constantly.

J.R. Ball is at it again, spreading falsehoods and myths about Historic City Park and its century-old golf course. In today’s version of his Red Eye e-letter, he writes:
“The traditional 18-hole, four-hour municipal round is fading (or 9-hole in City Park's case). What's replacing it doesn't look like a golf course—it looks like a lighted par-3 with a bar attached, food trucks, a social scene and a $25 green fee. That format is drawing younger demographics in Austin, Phoenix and a dozen other cities where recreational golf was supposed to be dying.”
What Ball wrote is rhetorically slick but empirically hollow. National data show:
• Municipal golf rounds have increased for four consecutive years.
• Public golf is the strongest segment of the golf industry.
• BREC’s rounds are up, not down.
• City Park hosted 28,200 rounds last year — a 9 hole course with that volume is not “fading.”
J.R. Ball’s take on City Park golf is pure fiction dressed up as analysis. Municipal golf isn’t “fading” — it’s growing nationally, BREC’s rounds are up, and City Park did 28,200 rounds last year.
That’s not a dying model. That’s a busy public course.
His whole argument is based on Austin and Phoenix, which have nothing to do with Baton Rouge. If you want a lighted par 3 with a bar and food trucks, go to Austin. Don’t bulldoze a century old municipal course that thousands of people actually use.
And the survey he keeps quoting? It wasn’t scientific. It didn’t measure real usage. BREC’s actual visitation data shows City Park is already dominated by passive use — with golf still there.
Bottom line: Ball is trying to import a trendy entertainment golf concept into a park that already works. Baton Rouge doesn’t need to be Austin. It needs to keep the public assets people actually use.

aw the Red Eye e-letter this morning about the City-Brooks survey, and it leaves out the part golfers should care about most.
The survey never asked whether people wanted less golf. That’s the flaw. Sasaki took broad park-wide questions and turned them into a “shrink the course” interpretation that isn’t actually supported by the data.
Here’s what the numbers do show:
• Connectivity and safety were the top priorities, not changing golf.
• Ecology ranked first, which a well-maintained 9-hole course already delivers every day.
• The course is one of the most consistently used parts of the park, with 28,200 rounds last year. That’s not “underperforming” by any stretch.
• People want a coffee shop and gathering space, which golfers have been asking for longer than anyone.
Bottom line: Golf isn’t the obstacle to the park’s future. It’s one of the few things already working. The real issues are crossings, trails, water, and maintenance—exactly what the public actually identified.
If we’re going to talk about the survey, let’s talk about what it really says, not what someone wishes it said.

How’s this for seeking public input?
At BREC’s special meeting of the City Park Steering Committee, the committee was placed in one room — and the public was placed in a separate room, watching on a screen, unable to ask a single question.
Meanwhile, major issues went unaddressed.
Most importantly: why BREC is considering a conservancy model that would roll City Park into the failing University Lakes Project, even though BREC doesn’t own any of the Lakes.
A process that separates the public from the decision makers, limits participation, and avoids basic governance questions is not a public process.
City Park deserves better than that.

All are welcome.

You and more than 28,000 others enjoyed historic City Park Golf Course last year, yet BREC's high-priced planner/designer Sasaki calls it a "passive space." They don't say who will maintain the space if golf goes away; they just expect BREC to absorb the loss of golf revenues.