Editor’s Note: This was written by BREC Superintendent Corey K. Wilson in response to an opinion column written by Rolfe McCollister in August 2023, urging residents to sign a petition to convert City Park’s nine-hole course into a park.

BREC has a long history of relying heavily on input from the community and unflinching evaluation from experts to guide the agency in the creation of a robust park system. Through surveys, public meetings, partnerships, accreditation reviews and audits, BREC leadership has tirelessly worked to improve its facilities, programming, maintenance and operational processes and procedures. We understand that these parks aren’t ours, they belong to taxpayers who should determine their highest and best use and that we must strive to continuously serve more people and serve them better.

That is the reason that over the past 19 years, BREC has focused on the implementation of two Imagine Your Parks system wide plans to transform what had become an aging park system comprised of mostly neighborhood parks and some special use facilities into a national Gold Medal system for the third time in its history.

In response to a recent column suggesting BREC is operating a subpar golf course that should be repurposed, we want to share some facts that were mis-stated or overlooked in the column.

In 2014, as part of the Imagine Your Parks 2 strategic plan, BREC listened when the community strongly suggested improvements were needed in the BREC golf system. Superintendent Carolyn McKnight commissioned an evaluation of all seven courses by the National Golf Foundation. The resulting plan was immediately implemented by newly hired Golf Director Mike Raby who focused on three key findings: repurposing Howell and Dumas Golf Courses and improving maintenance and operations system wide.

The results have been significant.

In 2014, rounds at all seven of BREC’s golf courses totaled 134,941 and in 2022, with two less courses, those numbers increased to 164,643, a 22% increase.

In 2014, City Park Golf Course had 15,927 rounds played and in 2022 rounds increased to 23,262, a 46% increase. Even more striking, in 2021, City Park recovered 99.2% of its operating costs and in 2022 it recovered 112% of its operating costs, surpassing expenses by nearly $40,000.

The column also inferred that BREC was content with the status quo. Please visit our website, where you will find pages showing how the Imagine Your Parks 1 and 2 plans have been transformational for East Baton Rouge Parish. You will also find a link to a survey as we ask you to imagine with us again and participate in the creation of the Imagine Your Parks 3: Parks with Purpose system wide master plan.

We believe that working together makes us stronger and have an open door for anyone to provide input to make our system better. We know our work isn’t done and that there are ways we can and must improve all 175 parks in our system. We just ask that you speak with us and ensure you have all of the facts before suggesting a major change in the system and try to rally community support for it.