Community Corner
Missouri Athletic Club Members Want Audit
Missouri Athletic Club members are reportedly circulating a petition demanding a club audit.
According to a well-connected source, a rift has developed among membership at the Missouri Athletic Club (MAC).
A petition has allegedly been circulating at the MAC Town and Country and downtown St. Louis locations encouraging members to sign if they want the club audited.
The source said current and former board members have been getting free dues, free food, and free drink, and the club has not been audited in years.
On May 5, John Bugh, Mary Frontczak, Terry Hammer, Judith Hanses and Troy Robertson were elected to the MAC Board of Governors.
Bugh is the managing director at The PrivateBank. Frontczak is the vice president and assistant general counsel for Peabody Energy Corporation. Hammer is the president and orthotist at B & H Orthopedic Lab. Hanses is retired from a management career with Barnes Jewish Hospital. Robertson is a sales associate with Coldwell Banker Gundaker and vice president of J.Robertson Homes.
Robertson was also a member of the Saint Louis University men’s basketball team from 1996-2000.
Acording to the MAC website, the club is the preferred athletic, dining and social club for professional, business and civic leaders in the St. Louis metropolitan area.
The source said there is a real feeling of dissatisfaction among the membership in regard to the club and board members receiving dues and food and drink gratis.
Membership dues at the MAC average $350 to $375 per month the source said.
“Clubs around town are losing members due to how tough the economy is, and these guys, the leadership, aren’t paying the dues that those they are representing are struggling (at times) to come up with,” the source said.
According to a 2010 report from accounting firm RubinBrown, the average private club in St. Louis lost $165,000 on food and beverage operations in 2009, and half of the clubs hit members with assessments to cover operating losses after raising dues by an average of 2.5 percent in 2008.
The MAC is more than 100 years old and features two clubhouses, access to seven premier golf courses, and a variety of programs and leagues.