OVA Should be the Driver in OGC Negotiations

Greg Gewalt listed three actions (Click HERE) the OVA Board should have taken “in the Interest of due diligence” to avoid divisiveness in the community in its response to the OGC’s request for funds, among them:

“3 … The request for non-disclosure of all pertinent information by the OGC would have been rejected to advance the promise of transparency.”

With the benefit of hindsight, I agree that the Board ought to have taken that position. In not doing so, OVA allowed itself to become a passive, reactive captured passenger in OGC’s ill-conceived and poorly executed public relations vehicle.

A case can be made that assenting to the OGC-demanded non-disclosure agreement was reasonable in order to get sufficient information for PRELIMINARY study of the financial request. At least in the sparse public record, however, OVA has been less than satisfied with the level of financial information it received and less than satisfied with the level of information it was permitted by OGC to share in the single OVA-sponsored Town Hall.

With deadlines for 2019 budget decisions approaching, OVA’s representative, Director Tom Kendrick, recently stated that “there are several ideas being explored involving transactions, partnerships, or services that could result in OVA business dealings with OGC in the near future . . ..”

OVA has a political problem with its constituency and OGC shares that problem: securing the acceptability to the Oakmont community of any agreement(s) the two parties enter into. Securing Oakmont community acceptability requires publicly DEMONSTRATING that proposed financial contributions to OGC, in any form, will satisfy OVA’s stated concern of securing the long term viability of the golf courses.

OVA has something that OGC wants. That puts OVA in the Driver’s Seat.

OVA has FULL ability to condition ANY financial support it may consider providing to OGC: “We may be willing to do A, B, and/or C but ONLY if you provide to the community — or to us for release to the community — X, Y and Z.” X, Y and Z can represent release of necessary financial and operational information in advance of any announcement of agreement(s) as well as OGC business plan guarantees, mechanisms for future joint review, and information-sharing arrangements going forward.

It is time for OVA to show the Oakmont community that it has assumed the role of Driver in negotiations with OGC by demanding, as a pre-condition to any agreement(s), much more robust information sharing than has occurred to date. Failing to do so risks the political chaos of apparent last minute “springing” of financial deals without taking the advance steps available and necessary to enable community acceptance.