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More than once throughout a Monday night meeting about the future of the municipal golf course, City Manager Joe Neeb, city councilors and city staff asked golfers for one thing: patience.
The city needs to “fix its house first,” before changing fees and working to expand services, Neeb said.
The other message Neeb delivered was that, with the city taking over management of the Nancy Lopez Golf Course at Spring River on Jan. 1, no changes in fees will be made this season.
Neeb and the city staff also heard plenty of questions and concerns from the 50 or so golfers who attended the meeting at the Roswell Recreation and Aquatic Center. They addressed most, if not all, of those concerns during the nearly two-hour meeting.
The city had contracted with Carlton Blewett for 12 years as golf pro for the pro shop with the city maintaining the grounds. Last year, the extension options for that contract were exhausted and the city decided to bring the golf course management fully in-house, Neeb said.
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The city still has a month-to-month agreement with Blewett to provide golf carts, as it currently takes about nine months to get new ones, Neeb said.
After the city took over the course, Neeb said, staff discovered there were policies and procedures they weren’t aware of and incomplete records. Memberships, the use of punch cards, equipment storage and personal cart usage are just some examples he gave.
He said the city will honor payment for such services through July.
“Hopefully you have an invoice. If you don’t, we’re still going to take care of you some way, some form because our goal is to get this set up the way it is, no changes to the current operations or fees for this season,” he said.
The return of golf club storage was a concern among many of those at the meeting.
Several people in the audience said they had been told the storage was a liability for the city due to possible theft. One man said he’d be willing to sign a waiver acknowledging the city is not responsible for lost or stolen items to store his clubs at the course.
Neeb said the storage would be returned, but the city is having to sort out the equipment that is there.
“The challenge is we have a lot of equipment over there and we still don’t even know whose it was in the first place,” he said.
“There wasn’t a clean list of who had their clubs there,” Jim Burress, director of special services, said. “There’s 100-some slots but the books don’t show that. We do have some clubs locked up with numbers on them,” he said.
Burress said it would be about a month before that storage area is reopened. It is being cleaned and repaired, he said, including a new heating and cooling system, roof repairs and paint.
The city has hired new staff for the golf course. Eric Chavez is the pro and was most recently a contracted golf pro for Carlsbad’s Lake Carlsbad Golf Course. Lenny Miller is the pro shop supervisor and “Coach” Charlie Ward is also on staff.
Chavez said except for one pro shop position, the golf course is fully staffed and training is underway. Neeb said seasonal summer help will also be hired.
Among the duties of the summer employees will be operating a food and beverage cart. The modified golf cart was purchased for $18,000, with the city council approving in January a budget adjustment for the current fiscal year of $20,000 for the purchase. The cart was delivered on Jan. 20.
The cart has coolers, a cash tray, trash cans and more. Golfers will be able to call the pro shop to order a drink or snack and have it brought to them on the course.
Chavez also spoke about plans to bring more young golfers and tournaments to the course. He spoke of the need for volunteers and said the high school golf teams will be a part of that.
“We want to get them out here and help us with all the junior camps. We want to run probably five junior camps or so in the summertime, get these kids out here playing, get them involved,” he said.
Although Neeb said fees would remain the same for this season, they were nevertheless a topic of concern. Any changes in fees would have to be approved by the city council, and Neeb said those conversations have not happened yet.
Some in the audience were concerned about drastic raises in fees considering the city raised recreation and event fees last year and instituted new fees at the Spring River Zoo and Roswell Museum.
City Councilor Barry Foster said he would like to see a tiered fee system by the end of the year, where golfers from out of town or out of state pay a higher green fee.
“You are a Roswell citizen, you already subsidize this golf course. They’re coming from out of state, they’re not subsidizing it and their rates should be higher than your rate,” he said.
Neeb explained the city has a cost recovery goal for the golf course at 70-30, meaning it should generate enough revenue to cover 70% of its operating costs. The city expects to have a budget of a little over $1.3 million for operating the pro shop and maintaining the golf course in the fiscal year 2022-23 budget, Neeb said. That would mean the course would have to generate about $913,000, he said.
The golf course will likely be closer to its cost recovery goal than the Spring River Zoo or the Roswell Museum, which started charging admission fees for the first time last year. They also operate at a 70-30 cost recovery ratio.
“Neither one of them are going to hit that goal this year, and the city council will make a budget adjustment in order to protect that service. Same thing will happen at the golf course,” he said.
Course maintenance has operated at close to the 70-30 ratio in recent years, Neeb said.
“I believe we can get there when we take into account all the other revenue sources out of the pro shop,” he said.
Some in the audience expressed skepticism that the city could operate the golf course but said they wanted to see the city be able to bring back golfers. Others, however, demanded to know how the city came up with the budget and cost recovery figures, whether or not the city had a plan in place for the golf course and even how much golf Neeb played and if he knew enough about golf to understand the business.
Others were concerned with how the pro shop would be stocked, saying they couldn’t get brand-name golf balls and other equipment in town. Others asked about the possibility of the pro shop offering services such as club repair.
Neeb said the city will survey golfers so it knows what they want and how well the course plays.
“I think everybody here has a certain feeling that we’ve loved this course to death and we need to bring it back to where it’s supposed to be,” he said.
City/RISD reporter Juno Ogle can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 205, or reporter04@rdrnews.com.
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City addresses concerns about golf course - Roswell Daily Record
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