Overland Park neighborhood activists and local music-industry leaders are expressing concern over a proposed music festival backed by the city, Anschutz Entertainment Group and Superfly.

The entertainment giants and the city floated the multimillion-dollar music festival they want to throw on the Overland Park Golf Course, the oldest course in the state, past neighbors at a meeting on Monday, January 30. The project would turn public land into a major moneymaker.

At the meeting, which was held at the Overland Bar and Grill in the course’s clubhouse, representatives of Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration said that the festival would bring an estimated $1 million to $2.5 million to the city and, if all goes as planned, much more to the corporations that say they will donate some of the revenue to local nonprofits.

Fred Weiss, director of finance for Denver Parks and Recreation, said that some revenue generated from the project would land back in the Overland Park neighborhood and the golf course, though he admitted it wasn’t a guarantee; if Hancock runs for a third term (he’s currently raising money), he would likely face opposition, and another mayor might use the potential music-festival revenue differently.

First-term councilman Jolon Clark, a parks advocate, pledged at the meeting that he will fight for that revenue to stay in his district. But it’s uncertain that he’ll keep his seat, which he won in a heated run-off election.

While this project is news to the public, the festival has been in the works for roughly half a decade, says local music-industry legend Chuck Morris, CEO of AEG Live Rocky Mountains, a company nested within billionaire conservative Phil Anschutz’s entertainment empire. Morris told Westword over the phone that he has been laboring over the project behind closed doors since 2010, the year AEG’s Mile High Music Fest, held at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, shut down after three years for not turning a large enough profit.

Morris says the Great Recession might have impeded the festival’s success. But the economy has since bounced back. By 2011, the city had become a choice destination for rich millennials, who are entrepreneurs by day and culture and music junkies by night. Morris and his colleagues see potential — not just in run-of-the-mill stadium concerts, but in creating a festival experience with multiple stages and a bevy of musical acts, akin to Coachella, if slightly smaller, at least in the beginning.

Morris says the Colorado festival is far from guaranteed to happen at the Overland Park Golf Course or even in Denver, which is where his company is headquartered. “The investment of festivals is an absolute bloody fortune, and we’ve just got to be sure,” Morris says. “We’re in the phase of looking at all options.” He didn’t say what other cities are under consideration.

Both Morris and his partner in the project, David Ehrlich, pledge that they will not foist the music festival upon any community that does not want it. Ehrlich is participating in community meetings, and his involvement has impressed the leadership of the Overland Park Neighborhood Association over the past few weeks, said secretary Terry Pasqua at the meeting.

Attendees at that January 30 meeting seemed split over whether they should sacrifice peace, quiet and time on the fairways for the festival. Some members of the Overland Park Neighborhood Association, like Pasqua, said they support the festival because of the economic benefits the city says the project will bring. Other neighborhood activists oppose it. Neighborhood activist Helene Orr and Joanne Weiss, leaders of the neighborhood organization back when it won a multi-year campaign to clean up toxic waste from the Shattuck Chemical Company, said the association’s new leadership is riding roughshod over the community’s interests and selling out public lands to the highest bidder — a dangerous precedent for the city to set, Orr added.

Ehrlich opened his presentation at the clubhouse by reassuring the golfers that “this is not a done deal by any stretch. We will not do this festival here if the community doesn’t want it,” a message he repeated throughout the night.