Add one more headstone to the adjoining Park Hill Cemetery, this one chiseled with “Vanco Golf Range.” Our city council and staff have put their collective heads in the sand trap, burying a community jewel in favor of more apartments.
Vanco is in effect our most successful city park, serving thousands of golfers every month and providing a safe, fun and healthy activity for all ages and backgrounds, all the while paying the city a sizable rent.
How fortunate we have been to have Chuck Milne, a world-class golfer, operate Vanco for over 40 years. It feels like family when you walk through the doors; Chuck charges half of what you would pay for a bucket of balls elsewhere and has encouraged high school golf teams to practice there.
Apartments, affordable or not, can be located anywhere and will help a few hundred people, paling in comparison to the outsized positive effect with which Vanco has blessed our community. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, “they paved paradise and put up another apartment building.”
Thank you, Chuck, for all you have done, and for giving this dad and his sons some great memories.
