Officials' private club memberships cost cities thousands

VIRGINIA BEACH

Warren Harris, the city's economic development director, became a member of the Cavalier Golf & Yacht Club in January at the city's expense.

The country club, with its own marina overlooking Linkhorn Bay, is charging the city an $18,000 initiation fee spread across five years. The city also has to pay separately for meals, $400 in monthly dues and for events at the club.

The membership, which city officials say helps Harris recruit new businesses to Virginia Beach, has cost taxpayers $7,700 so far this year, according to credit card data obtained by The Virginian-Pilot through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Harris is not the only top city official in South Hampton Roads with a private club membership paid by taxpayers.

Chesapeake pays for its economic development director's membership at Greenbrier Country Club. Norfolk pays for four officials to be members of the downtown Town Point Club, which bills itself as a "haven of refuge and a home away from home," for businesspeople.

"It's the first I'm hearing about it," said City Councilwoman Rosemary Wilson, who serves on Virginia Beach's economic development authority, of Harris' membership. "The Cavalier is a surprise... It's a lot of money to be a member."

The Virginian-Pilot requested detailed receipts of these expenses in late August after the newspaper reviewed Virginia Beach city credit card expenses that included payments to Cavalier and Town Point Club.

Questions by The Pilot prompted Virginia Beach Councilman Bill DeSteph to request further information about the membership from City Manager Jim Spore. "It's not acceptable," DeSteph said. "It's a private club... If they want to join, use their own money and pay for it."

City officials, including Harris, defend the Cavalier membership and the Town Point Club membership that preceded it. Harris had a city-paid membership to the Town Point Club that included the use of the Greenbrier Country Club between January 2008 through March of this year. According to credit card expense reports, the city spent more than $11,000 on the club over the two-year period.

The memberships are the cost of doing business and attracting companies to Virginia Beach, Harris said.

Staff of the Economic Development Department have access to the membership for business purposes. Any personal use of it is reimbursed to the city, Harris said.

The country club offers a private venue to entertain prospective clients and talk to business executives, he said.

While Virginia Beach can get access to private meeting rooms in hotels and the city owns a championship-quality golf course, they are not of the same caliber as the country club, said Steve Herbert, the Beach's deputy city manager.

"It's an investment that we think we have to make," Herbert said.

Economic development, like other city agencies, took cuts in this year's budget. The department lost some marketing money and one employee, but officials decided the club membership was an important expense, Herbert said.

Considering that economic development had a hand in getting companies to invest $48.8 million in Virginia Beach and bringing 1,450 new jobs to the city during the last fiscal year, the credit card cost is a small expense, Herbert said.

"I think it's fairly normal practice for other businesses," said Vice Mayor Louis Jones, who is also a member of the development authority. "The idea is to bring people to town, entertain them, at least take them to dinner at a nice place and show them that we have something like a country club and other facilities in the city."

Chesapeake's Economic Development Director Steven Wright has a $4,800-a-year membership to the Greenbrier Country Club and Town Point Club.

Development officials host luncheons at Greenbrier once or twice a month and have taken business leaders for rounds of golf, Wright said.

"It's part of the tools we use to get companies in," he said.

And Norfolk pays for four officials - City Manager Regina V.K. Williams, Development Director Rod Woolard, Nauticus Director Hank Lynch and Cruise Administrator Stephen Kirkland - to be members of Town Point Club.

Norfolk finance officials did not know the cost of the memberships as of Wednesday afternoon. The memberships are used by staff members of the various departments, said Nancy Olivo, the city's human resources director.

Employees get the membership if it's a "business necessity," Olivo said.

"Generally, memberships are part of the budgets," she said.

Portsmouth and Suffolk do not pay for country club or Town Point Club memberships.

Don Maxwell, the Beach's former economic development director who now works in Phoenix, said he didn't have a city-paid country club membership during his 11-year tenure here that ended in January 2007.

The city did have a membership to the Town Center City Club, a private dining and business club, that started while Maxwell was the director and continues today. Virginia Beach agreed to acquire two memberships at the City Club, which cost about $1,700 a year, to ensure that the business would be viable and help launch the Town Center development, a public-private partnership.

Maxwell entertained at country clubs prospective executives looking to relocate their companies here only a handful of times, he said, and usually they were international or national visitors.

For those meetings, development authority members, who personally belonged to the club and helped recruit businesses, used their membership to get him a private room, Maxwell said.

He didn't need the country club membership, Maxwell said.

"Any facility I needed to get access to, I could get into."

Deirdre Fernandes, (757) 222-5121, deirdre.fernandes@pilotonline.com