Concord City Council will get an update on plans for the Beaver Meadow Golf Course clubhouse amid a new ethics complaint against a city committee that recommended the city build anew.

Three clubhouse options had a range of prices, from roughly $5 million to $8 million for either a total rebuild or a renovation with a sizable addition. The options were weighed by three city committees, and all three recommended building a totally new clubhouse.

Councilors will consider those recommendations at Monday’s meeting and they are expected to take action as part of the city budget process in May. There will be no public hearing or comment on the proposal at the meeting, though written public comments for and against the project were attached to the agenda.

Meanwhile, Concord resident Marcy Charette, who has publicly criticized city ownership of the course and the clubhouse plans, filed an ethics complaint against members of the Golf Course Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations to City Council about golf course matters and was one of the three groups recommending a new clubhouse.

Under city rules, the committee must include “seasonal users,” a “non-seasonal user,” and members of the general public, all nominated by the mayor. Charette takes issue with some current members of the committee designated as representatives of the general public also being golf course members. She argues that their membership constitutes a conflict of interest and specifically sees the committee’s support for a new clubhouse as self-serving.

More broadly, Charette argues that the committee doesn’t include non-golfing taxpayers as its rules require and places the blame for that on the general public representatives named in her complaint.

“Given their financial investment in golfing and time invested in playing there, Beaver Meadow members lack the perspective of the non-golfing community, just as those who do not golf lack the perspective of seasonal users,” Charette stated in her complaint. “The General Public… was effectively disenfranchised.”

Several members named in the complaint have submitted responsive objections to Charette’s premise.

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“I am a member of the public who happens to be a golfer, not a golfer who happens to be a member of the public,” wrote Linda Mattlage. “These are volunteer positions...there is no advantage to us from our participation on the committee, other than knowing we have performed a service to the city.”

When recommending a new clubhouse, officials across the three committees cited how a new building would expand programming offerings: it would include a larger kitchen and function space, add a room for cross-country skiers, bring fewer construction interruptions than renovation and potentially increase course revenue.

“In terms of voting for a new clubhouse,” Mattlage said in her response, “I am too old to get much use from it in the future, but I feel strongly that it would be an asset for the city as a whole, not just for golfers. I also spoke up against a more expensive clubhouse design.”

Mack Bean, another committee member, said that he disclosed his membership from the outset and was confirmed by City Council anyway.

Like Mattlage, he dismissed the idea that his course membership prevented him from representing other taxpayers. 

“Like all Concord residents, I am affected by changes in tax and spending decisions,” Bean said. “My opinions will always be based on the best interest of the city and not my personal well-being as I, too, am affected by the final decisions.”

Roger Jobin, also named in the complaint, wrote in response that he is not a course member, and hasn’t been since 1985. He felt Charette and other critics of the proposal, specifically Ward 5 Councilor Stacey Brown, had a “campaign to do anything they can to throw sand in the gears of progress.”

All ethics complaints are weighed by the city’s Board of Ethics, set to meet on April 9.

Also on Monday, the Committee for Concord’s Plan to End Homelessness will present to councilors. The committee has been around since 2012 but ramped up its meetings in the last year. In recent months, the group focused on collecting data about people in the city experiencing homelessness and barriers to housing.

On the council’s Monday agenda under consent items — meaning they likely won’t be openly deliberated — is a grant application that, if successful, would fund a K-9 program at the police department, and an announcement of roughly $50,000 in city grants for local events and festivals that have been awarded. That’s a third of the total funds available.

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.