Melaleuca Golf Course

And they could have a cart of appropriate Melaleuca products driving around, dispensing Melaleuca sunscreen and uh other Melaleuca products (I’m not really current with their product line lately).

But you get the idea.

Maybe Franky V could even get a pro golfer to sign on to the project and a PGA Tour event could be played there.

I forget his name but he is known as “The Shark”, he’s Australian, is designing and building a golf course in Teton Valley so why not here?

Oh yeah, I totally see it as a private course. No tax dollars involved, they can do their own thing, no kvetching from the locals about it 8^)

By keeping it private, they can allow only employees and customers to play. It could be another benefit to their customers and employees.

dnix: that is a great idea, I’m sure Frank and associates are connected enough to bring a pro and a tour here. That would be a great way to give back to the community also, make our area even more high profile.

That’s cool, but let’s not hang the man until he commits the crimes, ehh?

Let’s imagine a scenario where he or the company pay for it all, everything is done top shelf, and they just create an awesome golf course.

I suggested the Melaleuca logo built as a green and series of sand traps.

What other features do you see there?

As a matter of fact, that land is already owned by Melaleuca. The long term plans include moving all parts of the corporation to the area. Currently the new building is the Distribution Center. Production, R&D as well as Corporate Offices will be located there in the future.

Kevin Green said he needed new locker rooms for his players or Idaho Falls might have to find another 8-ball club. People started a fund raising project to, Green wasted time and money going to out of town architechs for his new Shea Stadium locker rooms. Time was critical and money short, Blake Hall from the fund raising committee came up with whoever made the biggest donation to reach the fund raising goal, would get naming rights. Vader wrote a check for $500K and change and got the naming rights. The City gave $2.5M in tax dollars. Was there a Hall/Vader connection? you connect the dots, I would but then I would be accused of “Bashing” Vader. I don’t even like Baseball lol. They selling Beer at the ballpark now?

Yeah, they sell beer for like $7 bucks a can…..Green can make one heck of a profit off that. Maybe he can upgrade the fence at McDermott (er, Melaluca Field)…it is all about to fall down soon!

Funny, days before the fourth of July, I commented to my friend about the Malaleuca- freedom-celebration banners flying all over, Maleleuca’s ballpark came up and he made the comment that soon, we may be hearing about the Idaho Falls Temple brought to you by Maleleuca. It’s some power, to redesignate the celebration of America’s Independence Day in light of the fact those fighting for our freedom to do so remained fighting on that day. Everyone’s heard it before, but while we’re on the topic of Donald Trump…

Idaho Falls was shifting the Fourth to the Fifth to avoid Sunday celebrations long before Frank VanderSloot ever came to town. From what I can tell, nobody got too upset about it, which ought to tell you what a lightning rod VanderSloot is.

As for the idea of him building a Melaleuca Golf Course, you are on drugs if you think that is going to happen.

How does…Maleleuca Falls sound? LOL.

LOL! Am I going to have to move? Melaleuca Falls is pushing it!

Melaleuca never tried to rename the 4th of July. The Melaleuca Freedom Celebration, as it is called, only refers to the dinner and fireworks show that they do. It is just one of the events taking place on Independence Day - along the parade and countless other activities.

And, as someone else has already pointed out, it was the city of Idaho Falls who changed the city’s events (including the Parade) to the 5th several years ago because the 4th fell on a Sunday.

What I can’t understand is why people see so afraid of someone else’s success right here in Idaho Falls. Is it jealousy or lack of self esteem? Goodness, for a company to come in, start from nothing and build a local business that employs who knows how many thousands of employees, grow to several hundred million dollars in sales that gets put back into the local community, and people get upset because they have a dinner and fireworks show on the 4th of July. It kind of reminds me of in grade school when after a team sport, one team wins – sometimes there would be someone on the loosing team who threw a fit and shouted insults to the winning team because they themselves didn’t win.

Now I certainly haven’t “won” financially in this game of life – no millions to speak of, but I don ‘t see that as a reason to attack a successful person or company for that. Good for them! And all the better for them for doing the good in the community like Melaleuca’s done (i.e. that was great how they helped coordinate Hurricane Katrina support – I heard several semi-truckloads of goods, saving the ballpark, etc.)

One thing’s for sure. I hope no one thinking of starting a small business here in Idaho Falls is reading this board. If they were, you can probably count on them turning their tail and running. “Sure don’t want to do anything to contribute to that community, they’ll string you up!”

So people need to get over it already, why harbor ill feelings about whatever, that is just self-sabotage and the best ‘revenge’ is to live a good life!

Why must one claim “jealousy” or “low self-esteem” as the reasoning behind freely expressing disgust? Please. I’m all for successful people as long as they are not interfering with me and my success. Not that redesignating (not to be mistaken with “renaming”) the fourth of July interfered with my life, I felt it was a pretty sleazy thing to do whoever did it. Surely, the city (church?) would have had a change of mind if Mr. V insisted that independence day actually be celebrated on well…INDEPENDENCE DAY or he would have taken all of his fireworks away. What do you think?

I actually discussed that issue with a number of friends and family and none of them ever heard of moving the 4th of July celebrations to a Monday because it fell on a Sunday. And I’ve got family and friends in a number of cities all over the country. It’s a “Mormon thing” pure and simple.
Does anybody know if they did the same in Salt Lake City? I’d be interested in knowing.
I just think it’s ridiculous! Who says you can’t go to church AND celebrate festivities if the 4th of July falls on a Sunday? Aside from the parade, most festivities don’t start till after church is out anyways, both morning and evening services. Seems some people around here a little too uptight.
imo

No clue, Joe, if Frank V. golfs. If not, why not a really wonderful championship calliber tennis complex, an ice hockey rink (so the local high school athletes and others who play) could have better facilities.

One never knows, there are minor league hockey teams too - another sport for Idaho Falls area residents wouldn’t be a bad thing, from my POV.

Also, a water or Lagoon- type parks and even a Olympic quality swimming complex would add to local scene.

I believe early on dreavill mentioned the land is already committed to future Melaleuca buildings. I remember that being the plan, when the growing business opted for Bonneville County vs. remaining in Idaho Falls.

Lower taxes and limited room to grow were two reasons I remember for building Melaleuca moving.

What is kind of an interesting idea for me to think about is how close Melaleuca’s new facilities are to newly annexed city property, all factors considered. Melaleuca won’t be that far away from the Sunnyside Crossroads development.

In reality, Joe, your question is a good one, as residential and other businesses will follow this new development as the west side becomes the next hot spot for growth. My understanding is Sunnyside Crossroads Regional Shopping Center is suppose to offer new movie theatres and other entertainment options (maybe minituare golf, maybe a water park - I don’t know).

Could we please stick to the topic of what sports, and I’ll add other entertainment, would local residents would like to see added, which might be developed in any non-committed land around Melaleuca?

Okeydokey I didn’t mean to wade into it, but since you ask, what episodes has Frank engaged in to cause him to be so reviled in our area?

First let me agree with you there may be some jealousy to it. Basic human nature, probably some of that to it.

It’s not so much Frank’s support of the Boy Scouts, but his aggressive support of Kim Hansen, who was alleged to have covered up pedophile activity from more than one boy scout counselor.

Frank did not appear to care much about the sexually abused victims in the cases, in fact gave a moment’s lip service to their ordeal, and brazenly attacked the motives of anyone who talked bad about the highly questionable manner in which the Boy scouts covered up pedophile abuses of boy scouts.

In at least one case, boy scout lawyers had the files sealed, and discouraged processes that would have identified the true number of sexual abuse victims.

During the course of a summer’s debate over the Boy Scouts and what they did or did not do to stop pedophile abuses in their summer camps, Frank took the extraordinary step of outing a privately gay news reporter.

He tried speaking out of both sides of his mouth by outing the reporter but saying nobody should judge or presuppose the reporter’s motives. It was a really low blow from someone claiming such high moral standards, and he has NEVER apologized for it.

What else over the years?

Frank is currently involved in a lawsuit against a former VP, trying to prevent that VP working in similar work ANYWHERE WORLDWIDE, which many view as ridiculously restrictive and protectionist.

Frank sued a school district a few years ago for property tax refunds. The legal point he sued on was valid, it was a valid legal loophole, but it left a bad impression nevertheless because the poor school district had to return hundreds of thousands of dollars for a man who is the 400th something richest American.

What else? There were the billboards Frank ran a few years ago against PBS because he didn’t like a pro-gay program they ran. I watched the program and didn’t think it was very bad. Most critics thought it was more boring than controversial.

Recently, Frank donated about 10% of the chukars baseball stadium and got full naming and sponsorship rights to it, despite that us taxpayers kicked in 3 times more money. We could’t even get shaded seats for our $2.4 million!

There’s probably some other smaller nitpicky things that have happened to cause people grudges against Frank, but these are the biggest.

To say people hate Frank simply because he supports boy scouts disrespects the people sexually abused under boy scout care.

Also, to address your other points, Joe:

1. It’s very common practice in the business world to enter into non-compete agreements. Jeff Hill, from what I understand, entered into such an agreement and thus opened himself up to a lawsuit. This isn’t really anything out of the ordinary in the business world. As I said, it’s common practice and, in my opinion, you’re using this as just another opportunity to unjustly bag on VanderSloot. That’s your choice, I guess.

2. As is never noted by his detractors, Frand VanderSloot contributed, by far, the largest amount of money to the Chukars fundraising effort. It is worth noting that without his contribution, the fundraising effort would have come up WELL short, and the city of Idaho Falls never even would have put up its share of the money. Even more, Frank did not demand, nor ask for, the naming rights to the stadium. They were offered to him, and like any business in this country rightly would, he named it after the business which had the money to pony up. This is no different than is done at sports stadiums and complexes all over the world. Only in Idaho, it seems, are we pretentious enough to complain about a business helping to subsidize the building of new recreation facilities. It should also be noted that the McDermott family blessed the re-naming of the stadium, as they valued baseball more than just the name of the stadium, and that a section of the stands was dedicated to E.F. McDermott.

Again, you and others are more than welcome to harp on that point over and over again, but I must say that at this point it seems like sour grapes to me. You, it seems, purposely neglect important facts that seem to weaken your arguments. I don’t think that’s in the best interest of open and honest debate. Do you?

JP, I don’t know where you get your information, or if it’s just your own opinion that you’re spewing, but Frank DID request naming rights to the stadium. This I know as being fact, and of which my sources I’m not at liberty to divulge at this time. However, just like everything he contributes to, he trys to put up the most money so he can have the event, bldg, etc. named after him and/or his company for advertising purposes. He didn’t get where he’s at by being an idiot in the business world, but with that being said, he’s definately far from a saint.

In regards to the Scouts piece, even writers from the Post Register were disgusted with the poor choices the newspaper made in how it treated the situation. One writer called it “worst piece of journalism I’ve seen in a long time.”

The Post Register even had customers canceling due to their lack of ethics with the article.

Some thought there WAS a connection to Peter Zuckerman being being gay and attacking the Boy Scouts as the gay community has been very vocal against the Boy Scouts ever since the Boy Scouts of America made a rule that a gay person cannot be a scout leader - done, in my understanding, as an attempt to protect against this very thing.

The worst victims of this whole thing were those poor boys who were molested, and will probably be damaged for life. But the Post Register didn’t go after the molester, they went after the organization.

UncleBuck,

I have no idea who your mystery source is, but they are way off on the facts.

The city council voted on and approved a naming rights package for the ballpark (documented in the council records) that was available for months to anyone. They solicited it hard but no one in the community thought the $600,000 donation was near worth getting some ballpark named after them.

There was talk that if someone didn’t pick up the package, the city would back out of it’s $2 Million commitment towards the ballpark. So they approached Melaleuca directly at the 11th hour to try to save the ballpark, and Melaleuca stepped up to help.

The naming rights was part of a package long before they approached Melaleuca directly.

Knowing what I know, one thing I believe is certain, if Melaleuca hadn’t stepped up when it did, we wouldn’t have a ballpark today. If you were to contact any member of the city council or even Kevin Green, I’ll think they’d tell you the same thing.

So no, Frank didn’t “ask for the naming rights”, the city offered it as a thank you for saving the ballpark.

I think the lawsuit was to the county over being overtaxed - I don’t think it had anything to do with a lawsuit against the school district. The judge ruled that all the property owners had in fact been overtaxed. I think that says it all. It’s just an example of how people like to spin the facts.

Back onto topic: I’m in favor of having a new golf course in Idaho Falls! The more the better!

And I’m in favor of a new golf course also. I think a Melaleuca-owned golf course could be a nice high-end private golf course in our area. I bet Frank could do such a great job with it that it would rank in the top ten American golf courses.

Are you or I being overtaxed to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars? My guess is no. We check our taxes to try recovering a couple hundred bucks so we can make ends meet.

How was he overtaxed? The loophole had something to do with the land once being used for agriculture. He was not using it for agriculture at the time, but he exploited the tax rule meant to help our farmers.

I’ll admit it is a double standard. Most other farmers used the tax rule appropriately. Frank exploited it but did not need the money. They closed the loophole soon thereafter.

It may have been a legal right, but it was seen by many as not proper.

If you had hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, would you sue to take a few hundred thousand dollars from a school district on a legal loophole intended for farmers not you?

I like your perspective and your points.

I’ve said my peace and will stop on this subject. I still hope Frank does the golf course, and continues to do the good things he does around here.

I’m glad you like the site and the participation, hope to hear more from you in other subjects.

There you go, awesome!

If you watch closely, Joe does like to stir the pot on topics here on his webpage. It’s a scheme that is sometimes used by webpage owners and, once in a while, low-class newspapers to keep the contriversy up and trafic and discussion going.

So, yes, he likes to stir the pot - and it looks like he gets especially aggressive when it comes to the Melaleuca/Vandersloot topics. (Remember the false article he wrote about Melaleuca wanting to buy naming rights?) It looks like he has a personal axe to grind.

I think he said once that he worked for those guys at one time -maybe he had a bad experience there. Revenge CAN be sweet!

Boise to I.F. I’ve been exposed! Well the game is over now, time to shut down, thanks for the chuckles folks!

Err wait except that article about the naming rights was published on April 1st. We publish three April Fool’s Day articles each year, the only day those kind of articles are published, and the only day real articles are not published. Just keeping the content distinct.

I’ve said several times that I worked for Melaleuca about 10-12 years ago. I actually had a great time. I was 19-21, and the place was full of hot gorgeous Mormon girls! I even later married one I met there. I left when I moved to college. When I moved back to IF about four years ago, I had an interview to work there again in a different job, but I just happened to get a better offer at the time.

I considered your observation for a moment, but I do not think I hold any bad feelings or angst from my time there. I think they make some good products, if they didn’t have such a steep monthly commitment I would be a customer.

I will admit to you something though.

If you reread this thread from top to bottom, as I just did again, you will see I tried to downplay controversies several times, to refocus on a cool idea for Melaleuca to do.

It was about Commment 33 that I felt something needed to be said about why Frank is reviled by many in our area. I didn’t mean to bash him, but don’t want anyone to think he has a squeaky clean, whitewashed local history. He’s not an evil man, but he’s done some things viewed as bad.

However, I will admit I should have dropped it at Comment 33 or 36. I finally realized at comment 49 that I had gotten sucked into it and was beating a dead horse, talking about things I already said and really didn’t even care to talk about!

So I apologize for antagonizing the issue beyond the single comment or two I should have left it at.

Stirring the pot? In the left column under Top commenters, you’ll see I clearly lead the pack at 1494 comments. Being my site, I’m primarily responsible to start and keep discussions going. Folks are awesome at going themselves, but I can help with questions or participation or whatnot.

I don’t mean to stir trouble up if that is what you mean by stir the pot. I try to keep the conversations going, and make more than my fair share of mistakes too in saying the wrong things.

I guess you can call it a scheme if you want. I always thought of it as a strategy. I think scheme indicates I delight in causing trouble. I’ve always thought of the discussions as generally healthy for our area, rather than causing trouble.

But anyways…

Regarding post 53, some don’t recognize the difference between stirring the post and stimulating people into further discussion by introducing a different way to look at a situation, real or an idea.

Kind of smelled like a planted post anyway.

I commend Joe for acknowledging his weakness of falling into the word battle and getting caught up in the nonsense.

Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

Why would anyone want to take credit for “outing” someone? Unbelievable!

According to a fellow staff member at the Post Register Peter Zuckerman was: Peter was about the most “out” gay person any of us had ever met. He had made his homosexuality public at Poynter.org, and there was nothing he liked talking about more than his homosexuality.

Add that to the fact that it looks like Peter wrote an article about his homosexuality on some online news site before the article ran.

And add that to the fact that Peter Zuckerman himself said they talked about it on the radio for hours.

It looks like he was “out”, “out”, “out” for quite some time.

So I don’t understand how Vandersloto could have outed him when he was already out and the fact he is gay was already public in the community.

What Vandersloot said (according to the community page website) was: “Much has been said on a local radio station and throughout the community, speculating that the Boy Scout’s position of not letting gay men be Scout Leaders, and the LDS Church’s position on that marriage should be between a man and a woman may have caused Zuckerman to attack the scouts and the LDS church through journalism. We think that it would be very unfair for anyone to conclude that is what is behind Zuckerman’s motives…”

It’s nice to have these new facts.

I sure trust Dean Miller (uh - RIIIIGHT)

Interesting suggestion in today’s PR letters to the editor.

George Rebuck said that only in Idaho Falls are fivesomes (groups of five players) allowed to play together on our golf courses. Most everywhere else the cap is foursomes. He observed that some take longer than the typical four hours to play a course. He also observed the decreased enjoyment for all other players when one or more groups take five hours or more to play their round.

He suggested a “marshall” go out to pull slow groups to the side and let others play through, or to even designate one of our three local golf courses as a “signature course” where you may pay more for a round but you know slow and big groups are not allowed.

What do you think of this?

What? No plaid pants?