In this March file photo, the Ontario High School boys golf team (above) plays a match at Ontario Golf Club. The City of Ontario is debating how to pay for capital improvements it is responsible to make at the course.
ONTARIO — As early-summer clouds cast gloom over Ontario, another shadow, this one circling around finances and the city’s golf course, is already growing and there appears to be no easy answers in sight.
Ontario’s elected leaders, though, hope to at least begin to tackle the long-standing golf course saga and perhaps determine the facility’s fate at an emergency meeting at noon Tuesday at Ontario City Hall.
Ontario City Councilman Dan Cummings said the facility’s situation has reached a critical stage, and he urged the public to attend the Tuesday session and provide input. In addition, Cummings said at Monday’s City Council meeting, it is necessary for as many council members as possible to attend, as well as golf course and budget committee members.
“The more we can have at this, the better we’ll be,” he said.
Cummings said the emergency stems from a number of critical needs at the golf course regarding equipment replacement and maintenance supplies, without which, he said, Ontario Golf Club Manager Mark Copley has indicated the golf course cannot succeed.
“Under our contract, we’re responsible for doing that, and we haven’t had the funding to do it,” Cummings said.
Copley estimates the golf course needs approximately $92,000 in equipment, including a fairway mower, a rotary mower, a kitchen hood/fire suppression system and a utility vehicle and 20 used golf carts. That does not include the cost of all the operations supplies, such as fertilizers and more.
“It makes it very difficult to maintain things when you’re fixing things that are broken down all the time,” Copley said. “We’re going to get to a point very soon where the equipment is not going to be functional period.”

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