No Pond Improvements Unless Harlingen Country Club Shares Expense

A $400,000 Plan to improve Pond 3 of the Harlingen Country Club Golf Course (only one of 7 ponds) has been submitted by Engineer David Flinn in June 2019 to the Palm Valley City Council for approval. Harlingen Country Club is a private FOR-profit organization / business (approximately 435 members) located in Palm Valley, a municipality of 1271 residents (2017 Census.) Residency in Palm Valley is separate from membership in the Harlingen Country Club which operates via separate paid membership subscriptions.

The $400,000 Pond 3 Plan is a large project as compared to the annual operating budget of Palm Valley, currently only about $1 million yearly. While the waste water (effluent) drainage system via interconnecting ponds is currently fully operational, the $400,000 Plan incorporates dredging of Pond 3 to improve the capacity and the flow of effluent coming from the sewage plant into Pond 3 and to the other ponds thereafter. Effluent drainage is an approved purpose under the 2005 Easement Agreement between Harlingen Country Club as owner of Pond 3 and Palm Valley as owner of the sewage plant. In turn, Harlingen Country Club receives free water (effluent) for irrigation of it's 130 acre golf course which it otherwise would have to purchase at great expense.

The Plan also calls for cosmetic improvements to the pond as well as new dredging / construction to control new volumes of water from storms falling from the skies and into streets, some flowing into to Harlingen Country Club's golf course ponds. Pond beautification and storm water control are expensive measures beyond the original purpose of the 2005 Easement Agreement exchanging free water to irrigate the golf course for effluent drainage from the Sewage Plant. That agreement made Palm Valley solely responsible for 100% of the maintenance and improvements to the entire Harlingen Country Club (unfair!) but for the approved purposes only which were effluent drainage and golf course irrigation only but not pond beautification or storm water control. The improvements for storm water control would mitigate only a small fraction of the millions of gallons of water falling on Palm Valley's 395 acres from rain (approximately 75 million gallons for 1 inch of rain) as compared to the daily outflow of the sewage plant at only 120,000 gallons daily (less than 1% by comparison.)

A better agreement is needed so improvements benefiting Harlingen Country Club are paid in part or whole by Harlingen Country Club and not Palm Valley tax payers alone. A new agreement has not been proposed because Harlingen Country Club likes the current agreement most favorable to it making Palm Valley residents and non-club members pay for even cosmetic improvements to Harlingen Country Club property. Furthermore, the Mayor, Palm Valley's City Attorney, and 3 of 5 members of Palm Valley's City Council are also members of the Harlingen Country Club paying thousands yearly to belong with one Council member even a direct employee of the Harlingen Country Club receiving thousands in salary. That group with conflicts of interest in business between Harlingen Country Club and Palm Valley influences votes or casts votes favoring Harlingen Country Club in these matters and has not to date attempted to negotiate a better easement agreement for Palm Valley. As a result, Harlingen Country Club is not set to pay any share of it's own property improvement expenses in this Plan. And this $400,000 Plan addresses only one of 7 active ponds in the drainage system connecting the Sewage Plant to the Cameron County Irrigation system. Approval and implementation of this Plan could set a precedent that could extend to the other 7 ponds at a multiple many times over the $400,000 projected improvements for Pond 3 alone.

Until a better agreement can be reached, the current $400,000 Improvement Plan should be POSTPONED or REJECTED so that payment for same becomes fair under a new agreement and does not favor Harlingen Country Club to the disadvantage of Palm Valley residents and tax payers.