Mt. Laurel council wishes Evesham Township the best, but it still isn’t interested in moving forward with an offer from Evesham to promote its township-owned Indian Spring Country Club golf course on the Mt. Laurel township website.
If accepted, Mt. Laurel residents, and other participating townships, would receive a $5 discount on rounds of golf at Indian Spring in exchange for promotion from those participating townships on their websites, social media outlets and township events.
Evesham Township Council recently passed the resolution officially setting up the offer, referred to as the “Municipal Partner’s Program,” and townships such as Tabernacle and Maple Shade have already agreed to the deal, according to Evesham Township Manager Tom Czerniecki.
Deputy Mayor Irwin Edelson was invited to a meeting to discuss the deal several months ago, and brought the offer up to council where it was discussed and ultimately decided against.
Reasons for not moving forward with the deal included concerns that no business, Mt. Laurel based or otherwise, is promoted on the township website, and worries that Mt. Laurel’s own golf courses at Ramblewood Country Club would lose business.
“We did not choose to move forward,” Edelson said. “As a council, we felt that we should really sponsor and take care of Mt. Laurel businesses. It wouldn’t be fair to Ramblewood if we put Indian Spring on our website. You can call it ‘take care of your own.’”
Councilman Jim Keenan echoed Edelson’s sentiments, and said the decision to promote one business over another on the township website raised too many questions.
“The question is how do you handle that on the website?” Keenan said. “We were concerned if you do one, what about another?”
Upon adoption of the Municipal Partner’s Program, Evesham Mayor Randy Brown said he disagreed with Mt. Laurel’s decision to not participate, and believed Mt. Laurel should be promoting Ramblewood and Indian Spring.
“If I can get some sort of bait or hook or lure to get me to a municipal course or public course that I haven’t been at before, why not go?” Brown asked. “I don’t want someone playing golf only at Indian Spring. I’m a golfer. I don’t want to play one course forever…I play about 10 different courses a year as a golfer.”
Brown also said he would agree to deal similar to the Municipal Partner’s Program with a course in another township, such as Ramblewood.
“If Ramblewood came to Evesham and gave our guys $5 off, I’d put them on our website tomorrow,” Brown said. “I’d put Ramblewood on tomorrow. I’d put any local public course if they were offering deals to us.”
Regardless of the decision not to enter into the agreement, Edelson said he and council wished Evesham the best.
“Some towns are going to do it, some aren’t,” Edelson said. “It hasn’t stopped me from playing there. It’s a great concept, but we have to take care of Mt. Laurel.”
