candidates running for City Council seats<\/a> in November, including former council members John Moss and Chris Taylor, said they couldn\u2019t support it, raising questions about fiscal responsibility and lack of transparency.<\/p>\n\u201cKill the deal,\u201d Moss said, and the crowd roared.<\/p>\n
Resident Doug Kelly asked the council to vote no or at least take a strategic pause to consider other options and gather more public input.<\/p>\n
\u201cVB National is more than a balance sheet problem, it\u2019s a community asset,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
The future of Virginia Beach National came into question following a 2023 city audit, which found the clubhouse and stormwater ponds needed costly repairs.<\/p>\n
Two unsolicited proposals to buy the course ensued. In 2025, the city began formally seeking offers for the property last year. Nine proposals, including four with a housing component, were considered by a city committee.<\/p>\n
In February, the City Council authorized a term sheet with Dragas Cos., which was one of the first firms to make an unsolicited proposal to the city. City officials began confidential discussions with Dragas representatives more than a year before the formal request for proposals was issued.<\/p>\n
Several people who asked the council to vote no said they had concerns about the erosion of public trust and the \u201cgiving away\u201d of public land.<\/p>\n
Helen Dragas, president and CEO of the Dragas Cos., said after the vote the company was grateful for the council\u2019s support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to all the due diligence that has to be done, the studies, the questions that have to be answered,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIRGINIA BEACH \u2014 The City Council on Tuesday approved the sale of Virginia Beach National Golf Club to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[591,9150,44,541,898,899,54,2090,525,9149],"class_list":["post-49293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-business","tag-city-politics","tag-golf","tag-housing","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-virginia","tag-virginia-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}