It is kind of a shame when a community loses this sort of course.
I live on the opposite end of the valley and am not generally inclined to drive all the way down there even for Foothills or Club West, so I'd certainly never played the Lakes. Nonetheless, I'm sure it was a pleasant place for some mebers of the community to spend some time and introduce people to the game.
I used to live in an apartment just a few steps away from this sort of executive course (it was called El Caro). When my wife was learning how to play we went around it a few times. It closed a number of years ago and left several of the same issues--an urban golf course unmaintained really gets ugly in a hurry in this climate. It's only been within the past year or so that some of that land has started to be re-developed.
Such is the state of the industry, I suppose. But how are new people going to be brought into the game without the courses where they can best learn?