Nearly 150 people filled the gymnasium at Trinity Lutheran Church on Thursday night to discuss the fate of the now-closed Holmes Harbor Golf Course.

“We need to control the future of the course so nothing like this will happen again,” said Stan Walker, president of the Holmes Harbor Sewer District board of commissioners.

Proponents hope to reopen the course May 17 and operate it on a nonprofit basis. The sewer district hopes eventually to buy the parcels making up the course itself at “a reasonable price” to keep sewer rates from going up, Walker said.

If the district is unable to buy it, it can condemn the property and acquire it that way, he said.

“But we don’t want to do that,” Walker said. “It’s a lot less expensive to come to an agreement.” He said the owners of the course, Holmes Harbor Community Partners, have been cooperative in trying to work out a solution.

“I don’t think they’ll get it sold in the near future,” Walker said of a possible deal with someone else.

He said the sewer district’s link to the property “would have a chilling effect on a potential buyer. I wouldn’t buy a piece of property like that myself.”

The 18-hole, par-64 executive course shut down March 14 when its owners ran into financial trouble after trying to sell it for more than a year and a half. It remains for sale.

The course is vital to the sewer district, which has an easement on the property to distribute water from its nearby treatment plant along Honeymoon Bay Road through the course’s 400 sprinkler outlets.

When Holmes Harbor Community Partners, a division of the Schuster Group of Seattle, closed the course, they stopped mowing and maintaining the greens and fairways, tasks necessary to provide evaporation and efficient distribution of the sewer district’s water.

The district took over maintenance for 60 days at an estimated $8,000 per month and pressed for a way to reopen the course, hoping the resumption of play would produce enough revenue to pay for its upkeep.

A nonprofit group, the Holmes Harbor Recreation Association, is hastily being formed to take over the course’s operation. Interim board members were introduced Thursday night.

“I think we’ve found the answer to our problem, but this can’t be done without you,” said Todd Bitts, the interim chairman of the association.

Other interim officers are Ryan McFarland (vice chairman and secretary), Tim Lewis (treasurer), Larry Kimball (grounds director) and Phil Simon (marketing director).

All are residents of the sewer district.

Bitts said elections for a permanent board would take place in October, and that voting members of the association would decide the outcome.

Voting members must be residents of the sewer district, but non-voting memberships are available to anyone.

Bitts said memberships in the association are $25 for voting members (district residents 18 and older), $15 for non-voting members and $100 or more for founding members.

He also described the need for about $20,000 in seed money to get the association up and running.

“This is a vibrant community,” Simon, one of the new board members, told the audience. “We just need to step up to the plate and do it.”

Walker said doing nothing would condemn the sewer district to “mow the course forever,” which probably would mean an increase in sewer rates of at least $25 per month.

He stressed that the district would buy the course using reserve funds, and there would be no increase in rates associated with the purchase.

Walker said an updated appraisal of the property is under way.

Meanwhile, ownership is permitting use of its maintenance equipment, and has said it would agree to let the association use the pro shop and restroom portions of the clubhouse.

An operating agreement with the owners is expected to be finalized next week, Bitts said.

He stressed that rates to play would be reduced to the break-even point, to encourage more participation.

Walker said the association and sewer district would remain separate in the proposed arrangement, similar to Greenbank Farm, which is owned by the Port of Coupeville but operated by a nonprofit organization.

He said the current predicament is the result of the failure of the original 1993 agreement to require the owners to maintain the course, closed or not.

“We had a symbiotic relationship, until the course closed,” Walker said. He said alternative water distribution systems for the district’s treatment plant “would cost millions.”

“This is our least expensive option,” Walker said. “We just need to play a lot of golf.”

Bitts urged the audience to get out their checkbooks and buy memberships and make donations.

Soon after, Walker and the association interim board members were given a standing ovation.

“I guess that’s a motion to adjourn,” Bitts said.