My wife and I were drawn to Hidden Valley Lake a few years ago, where we found the great community and amenities we didn’t have in Santa Rosa.

We now find that community sharply divided over our association’s management of those amenities. We’re surrounded by cliques of golfers, non-golfers, movers and shakers, and fiscal frugals.

Some insist we’re a golfing community, which is no longer the case as fewer than 13 percent of us golf on our course, only 6 percent regularly enough to purchase golf memberships.

Others claim we’re more of a working-family community than a golfers’ enclave. However, this view ignores the importance of the golf course in our community.

My wife and I paid a premium for our home on the golf course but are concerned about how it’s managed, along with social shifts that imperil the golf course’s future and our quality of life.

Our golf operation has been subsidized between $419,870 and $694,243 annually over the past nine years. Our director of golf has increased the number of rounds played since 2010 by a third, and we’re now slightly above the national average for 18-hole courses.

But during that same period the number of full golf memberships has declined and last year we saw a substantial increase in the subsidy to the highest it’s ever been.

The golf course is our largest and understandably most expensive amenity to maintain. But our other amenities aren’t maintained to anywhere near the same standard.

This is especially true of our Hidden Valley Lake itself. In www.hvlclarified.org’s “The Quality of Our Lake,” sediment buildup was cited as a longstanding quality issue yet the proposed 2015 budget is the first to identify funds to address it.

It remains to be seen if these funds will survive the board’s final cut in the approved budget.

Additionally, the golf subsidy represents well over 40 percent of the golf course’s operating budget.

Because non-residents pay only 30 percent more to play on our course, association assessments are used to subsidize public play in addition to member play.

Golf is declining in popularity across the country, particularly among younger players. An increasing majority – 86 percent – of Hidden Valley Lake residents are working families and their children.

Although our community has historically attracted golfing retirees it’s unlikely to be the major draw for new residents in the future.

As our baby boomers age out of the sport over the next 15 years, our affordable housing and accessibility to good jobs in Napa and Sonoma counties will continue to attract working class families.

Golf course operating costs are likely to continue climbing, compounded by the ongoing drought. As our demographics shift and our golf population declines, support for the golf subsidy among the members is likely to decline as well.

Future HVLA Board directors face an increasing challenge in justifying the golf subsidy to association members. Maintaining our current golf operations management approach will likely bring HVLA to a breaking point.

As a former director recently told me, our board is obligated to maintain our amenities but they’re not obligated to keep them. If a future majority of directors feel the golf subsidy isn’t justified they simply have to let the members who elected them vote in agreement with them to eliminate all or part of the course.

Our golf course has historically been run as an amenity open to the public. We should start running it as a business and subsidize it only to the minimum required for the benefit of Association members.

This difference may sound trivial but it’s not. The change starts with a golf operations feasibility study. Such a feasibility study was a board agenda item in June, but has since disappeared from the association’s agenda without explanation.

Operating as a business also means developing a business plan, benchmarking with other operations and consulting with industry experts.

The last time the association consulted a golf management expert was in 2008. After only a few hours' visit the board pursued no operational assessment, review of finances or other recommendations.

In “Golfer’s Paradise,” published on www.hvlarising.org , Steven Greenberg cited a reduction to and elimination of golf subsidies made at our sister communities in advocating for a management expert to review our golf operation and offer recommendations.

Hvlclarified.org’s “Apples, Oranges, Lemons” was published as a rebuttal, identifying important differences between us and our sister communities in an attempt to discredit Greenberg. Yet it failed to discredit the validity of his argument that an outside expert might be able to help reduce our subsidy.

The more residents we have golfing and the more often they play, the more revenue generated and the easier it will be to justify a subsidy.

A new player recruitment program could make an impact. Rather than losing our subsidies to operating costs we could invest some in providing free club rentals and beginner lessons to residents, such as the PGA’s Get Golf Ready in 5 Days program.

This could be partnered with an ambassador program to pair our seasoned golfers with rookies and build our community relationships.

Pay-per-hole memberships at off-peak times would allow those of us with limited time to enjoy golf more often and also enhance revenues.

Every evening I look out on an empty course and wish I could pay a few dollars to play the two holes between my house and Mulligan’s to unwind at the end of the day. But I rarely golf because like most working adults in Hidden Valley Lake I don’t have enough time to play 18 or even 9 holes regularly.

As the only 18-hole golf course open to the public in Lake County, the fate of our course has implications for county-wide tourism.

To ensure we can all enjoy and benefit from our golf course well into the future, it’s time for our Board of Directors to show HVLA members they’re serious about increasing member utilization of the golf course, managing the golf subsidy, and maintaining all of our amenities to the same high standard.

Sky Pile is an environmental health & safety consultant and coaches middle school cross country and track in Santa Rosa. He volunteers on Sonoma County’s Community Activity and Nutrition Coalition’s Physical Activity Subcommittee to promote physical activity opportunities throughout the community. Sky holds master’s degrees in kinesiology and public health. He and his wife have lived in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., since 2011.