Golf Trip Highlights Ethical Gray Area

A round of golf at storied Pine Valley Golf Club in New Jersey is an invitation-only experience enjoyed by an exclusive set of golfers, among them President George H.W. Bush, actor Sean Connery and champion player Arnold Palmer.

Now add to that list William "Lynnie" Cook, chief executive of the Baltimore County Revenue Authority.

But Cook's trip to one of the nation’s most exclusive courses—as the guest of a revenue authority contractor—is raising questions from ethics watchdog groups and state and county legislators. The golf outing has also highlighted an apparent hole in county ethics laws at a time when County Executive Kevin Kamenetz is seeking to strengthen the code.

Ethics rules in Baltimore County and Maryland prohibit county and state employees from accepting and soliciting trips and gifts from companies that do business with county and state agencies.

Those rules do not apply to the Revenue Authority, officials say. Cook’s trip did not violate any rules, but it has led some to question whether the authority should be governed like other county government agencies.

"It appears that (Cook) used his position to gain access," said Del. John Cluster, a Parkville Republican. "If an employee of a state agency did this, I'd be calling for an investigation."

Cook told Patch he solicited and took the trip to Pine Valley in early 2008 with the president and a salesman from Golf Car Specialties, a Pottstown, PA, company that the authority had paid $1.5 million for a fleet of golf carts a few months before the outing.

The trip first came to light after Cook revealed details of it in an email that was made part of the authority's board minutes two weeks ago during a discussion about disclosing gifts. Cook was under no obligation to disclose the trip's details.

He said he paid for the rounds of golf and associated caddie fees for himself and a friend recovering from cancer treatments. Access to the club, however, would have been impossible without being a member or being taken by one. Cook is not a member of Pine Valley. The Golf Car Specialties salesman is.

That worries Susan Wichman, executive director of Common Cause Maryland, a government watchdog group.

"It's troubling whenever someone who has procurement authority has access to special trips like a golf outing," Wichmann said. "It raises questions."

Wichmann said the timeline of the late 2007 contract and the 2008 trip is less of a concern than the fact that a revenue authority official asked an authority contractor to provide him with access to an exclusive club. Similarly, she said promotional outings paid for by golf manufacturers raise their own questions.

"It's all about creating a long-term beneficial relationship," Wichmann said.

The authority, which manages properties that generate about $15 million annually, was created by the state legislature in the 1950s to oversee public parking in the county. Today, it manages four Towson-area parking garages and a number of metered parking spaces.

In 1995 it took over management of the county’s five public golf courses.

In 2007, it partnered with the county to build an indoor soccer arena and ice rink in Reisterstown, which it manages for the county. The agency also plans to build and manage a garage for the proposed Towson Circle III movie theater and restaurant project.

The county executive appoints the board’s five members who in turn hired Cook. The board and Cook are required to file county financial disclosure forms, but they are not governed by state or county ethics rules, said Susan Dubin, an assistant Baltimore County attorney.

GIVING A FRIEND A REASON TO LIVE

Cook said he asked John Myers, president of Golf Cart Specialties, to arrange a trip to the course through a salesman who is a member.

The trip was meant to be part of an encouragement gift to a friend recovering from cancer treatments. Cook said he crafted homemade coupons for the Pine Valley trip and another that promised an outing to Oakmont Country Club—another top course, located outside Pittsburgh.

"I was trying to give a friend who was puking his guts up a reason to live," Cook said in an interview. "I wanted to give him something to think about and tell him when you get better and well enough to travel the two of us will play two well-known courses. That would be a real treat for him."

Cook, who earns $148,000 a year plus a car, said he asked Myers about paying the fees for the rounds and ultimately paid about $160, which covered the caddies for himself and his friend.

"The golf course is perfect," Cook said. "It's an unbelievable challenge of golf."

It's a challenge few avid golfers will ever have a chance to experience.

Only members can play the course with the exception of one time a year when about 100 of the top amateur golfers are invited to play an annual tournament, according to news reports. Visitors are allowed to walk the course but may not play.

Non-members may only play if a member accompanies them. And those non-members are limited to playing the course just three times a year regardless of which member brings them, Myers said.

Who those members are is largely a mystery, like most private clubs. Published reports say the club boasts members from all over the world, including former presidents and famous actors. The membership rolls also include the average guy, such as a salesman from Golf Cart Specialties, who once won the amateur tournament there in the 1990s, according to Myers.

"The club membership isn't just the rich and famous—you're talking about some names of some very average people," Myers said. "That's part of the aura."

'I don't want people to use us'

Myers’ recollection of the outing is almost identical to Cook’s memory. Where the story differs centers on how much Cook paid for. 

Cook said he remembered paying only caddies fees, but Myers said Cook also paid the $200 per person greens fees—something Cook didn’t remember.

Myers said his company rarely takes clients out to Pine Valley Golf Club and his company has rules for such excursions.

"The tab is always on (the client)," Myers said. "Primarily because it's so expensive. I don't want people to use us for Pine Valley.”

Stuck In The Middle

Cook said he didn't see a problem in asking for the trip at the time and he doesn't see a problem now.

"I paid for it," Cook said. "I don't see what the ethics issue is if I can say I'm paying for it."

"This was just to get access—to call someone and say, 'Can we play and I'll pay for it,'" Cook said, adding that he had played the course once before with the brother of a neighbor who is a member.

Cook said his host on that trip does not do business with the authority but that he didn't feel comfortable asking for seconds.

"I didn't want to put my neighbor in the middle," Cook said.

Cluster, the Parkville delegate, said Cook's decision "put the contractor in the middle instead."

Cook said the trip wasn't questionable for two reasons. First, it wasn't for himself but for his friend. Second, Golf Cart Specialties received no benefit. The $1.5 million contract awarded to Golf Cart Specialties had been awarded prior to the trip. Cook said that he has also recently recommended purchasing its new golf cart fleet from a different company.

In August, Cook did recommend altering the authority’s contract with Golf Cart Specialties. Rather than requiring the company to buy back the entire 375-cart fleet—a standard provision in such deals because fleets need replacing about every three years—the authority allowed Golf Cart Specialties to refurbish about two-thirds of the fleet.

Under the terms of the original contract, the authority would have been guaranteed to sell back the fleet at a price of $1,550 per cart. Cook said Myers asked him not to enact the sell-back part of the contract because many golf courses were closing and a glut of carts on the market was driving the prices at auction down to about $1,000 each.

"So he'd take a real bath on that," Cook said in August.

Instead, Myers offered to come in at his expense and strip down the carts and create a fleet of 225 carts with the best windshields, batteries, trim and other equipment. The authority would then seek to purchase about 150 new carts.

Cook said at the time that he told Myers that the offer was acceptable "but it doesn't guarantee you will get the bid on the 150 carts."

Last month, Cook recommended a different distributor.

"All of the decisions that have been made have always been made in the best interest of the revenue authority, not anyone else," Cook said in an interview last week.

Industry Standards

Golf outings are a bit of an industry standard.

Typically, golf cart and other manufacturers will invite golf pros and others to country clubs for luncheons and a chance to test new equipment, according to Jon Ladd, executive director of the Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation.

"That's fairly typical when someone has a new product," Ladd said.

Cook wrote about a number of such outings in the email to board members that detailed the Pine Valley trip and which was made part of the authority's meeting minutes last month.

But Pine Valley is in a different stratum.

Ladd said trips such as the one Cook took to Pine Valley are "unusual but perhaps not problematic."

"I don't make those kind of trips," said Ladd, whose own quasi-public company that oversees Baltimore City’s courses also bought golf carts from Golf Cart Specialties. "They're not my world."

Ladd said he's never played on the Pine Valley course. He said gaining access through a contractor might be in a little bit of a gray area.

"I think I could play," Ladd said. "But I'd definitely talk to my chairman about it beforehand.

The trip is just the latest issue at the Revenue Authority that is troubling to some members of the County Council and General Assembly.

In recent months the authority has drawn attention for a .

Cook, in an interview, said Madonna was not a friend but said he took a number of golf lessons from the instructor when he worked in the Baltimore area. He also said he stayed in the Orlando hotel where Madonna's golf instruction headquarters is based. He said he never ran into his former instructor until he attended a golf show earlier this year.

In the past, the authority has entered into no-bid, no contract arrangements with former board members to provide legal and marketing services. 

The authority also looked at giving a portion of the proceeds of a golf promotion to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. Former County Executive Donald Hutchinson is chairman of the authority board and is president of the zoo. The board never took action on the donation.

Two weeks ago, County Executive Kevin Kamenetz announced a . The bill, , seeks to further restrict county employees from seeking gifts and other gratuities either for themselves or others. The new laws will not apply to the authority unless the General Assembly passes legislation changing the current set-up of the agency.

Councilman David Marks, a Perry Hall Republican, said he would like the county to have more oversight over the quasi-public revenue authority. Getting that oversight could be tough because the agency was created by the General Assembly, which retains control over the authority.

Cluster, a state delegate who is a critic of the authority's plan to sell the Lavender Avenue parking lot to a developer, said he would like to help change the state law.

Cluster is already planning on sponsoring at least two bills that would .

"I see a lot of gray areas," said Cluster. " This is just another thing we're finding out as we peel back the layers. They should come under the ethics laws—either the county's or the state's."

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