Is a Glendale golf course supervisor wrongly taking the fall in court for foul stench?

A man who Glendale prosecutors have accused of allowing a foul stench to come from a golf course pond is believed by some residents of the nearby Arrowhead Ranch subdivision to be the fall guy for the company that owns the country club.

Stephen Kyle Bais, the Arrowhead Country Club’s golf course superintendent, appeared in municipal court Monday when he pleaded not guilty to one count of a class 1 misdemeanor criminal charge for allegedly violating a city code relating to noxious smells.

A class 1 misdemeanor is the most serious crime without being a felony.

Glendale City Court Judge Eartha Washington set a pretrial conference for April 24.

Brennan Ray, Bais’ attorney, declined to comment immediately following Monday afternoon’s hearing.

The city’s case against Bais stems from the foul odor coming off the sixth-hole pond at the golf course, located along the south side of Loop 101, between 67th Avenue and Union Hills Drive. City officials have said multiple code violations were issued, but the matter wasn’t resolved.

Complaints from the neighbors, fed up with the smell, piled up for years. Residents like Helena Johnson Bodine, the president of the Arrowhead Ranch Phase Two HOA, have called the smell “repulsive” and likened the stench to that of a sewer.

Late last year, a group of residents filed separate odor petitions, or logs of their observations related to the pond smell, to the city. The city presented the petitions to the Glendale city prosecutor’s office to consider filing charges. The odor violation charge was then filed Jan. 16.

After learning over the weekend that Bais has been named as the defendant in the case, residents questioned why he’s the one being arraigned and facing the charge, not the company that owns the country club, Arcis Golf.

“Stephen is not the one at fault for the lake smell,” Arrowhead Ranch resident Jim Rice wrote in a letter to The Republic. “Yes, at the direction of Arcis Golf … they directed (Stephen) to care for the lake. The issue is that Arcis Golf is not taking the necessary steps to fund the cleanup of this lake on the sixth hole of the country club. The golf course owners continue to drag their feet to make the necessary changes to clean the lake.”

Rice had attended a late September meeting that included Johnson Bodine, Tom Cramer, the HOA president for Arrowhead Ranch Phase One, Glendale Councilmember Lauren Tolmachoff and the course’s then-general manager. The group had met to discuss the smell and discuss potential solutions.

According to Rice, the general manager was advised to tell Arcis that it should budget the necessary funds to clean up the lake.

“The lake cleanup is a huge problem that the lead maintenance person, (Stephen) Bais, cannot solve,” Rice wrote. “He needs assistance from the Arcis corporate office, which is responsible for funding the cleaning of the lake on hole 6 and, I am sure, the other lakes throughout the Arrowhead Golf Club.”

Arrowhead Country Club's current general manager, Jeff Barba, did not return a phone call seeking comment as of this posting.

City officials and Arcis, which cited lake management experts, have pointed to algae in the lake as the cause of the smell.

“It appears that algae has been stimulated by an abundance of organic sludge that has been built up over time in the bottom of the lake,” Arcis recently stated in a newsletter to country club members.

The country club tapped Arizona Lake and Pond Management LLC to treat the lake every week.

“These experts are confident this should eliminate the problem,” Arcis wrote.

Shawn Raymundo covers the West Valley cities of Glendale, Peoria and Surprise. Reach him at sraymundo@gannett.com or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Golf course official in Glendale pleads not guilty in pond smell case