Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-17-2001 GOLF MINUTES � . CALDWELL GOLF BOARD • Acivisory Board Meeting October 17, 2001 City Council Room MEMBERS ATTENDING Boyd Gooper Chairman Shirley Akagi Vice Chairman Fran Craeger Women's Association Representative Larry Rick Men's Association Representative Shannon Ozuna Council Representative Dan Rowell Elvin Simpson Loraine Navis Jeff Osgood MEMBERS UNABLE TO ATTEND None STAFF ATTENDING John Watson Purple Sage Pro • Gordy Crockett Golf Course Superintendent Lenny Stroup Fairview Golf Pro STAFF UNABLE TO ATTEND GUESTS AGENDA 1) Chairman's report 2) Report from John Watson 3) Report from Lenny Stroup 4} Report from Gordy Crockett 5) New or old business Chairman Caoper called the meting to order and took the roll call. 1) Chairman's report Cooper apologized to the board for an error in the minutes for the August meeting. The entire third page was missing. Cooper gave each board member a new revised copy of the August meeting minutes. • Cooper thanked John Watson and Lenny Stroup for bringing their financial reports and for • having a copy for each board member. Cooper read a letter from Virginia Stahle. She said in the letter that she and her husband had bought season passes, but illness had not made it possible to play. They would like a refund or a credit toward next years passes. Cooper asked Lenny Stoup to contact the Stahles and tell them that we will give them credit for next year's passes. 2) REPORT FROM JOHN WATSON John told the board that the St. Judes Children's Cancer Research wanted him to help in their fund raising by taking donations at the course. The board told John to go ahead and do this if he wanted to them out. John said that the final numbers for Purple Sage reflected the time lost by heavy snow on the ground in December and January. We never quite made this loss up and ended the year slightly over 1 J down in total revenue. John said all in all it was a good year. Purple Sage had 55,000 rounds played this year against 60,000 last year. Many of these are season pass rounds. John said his new policy on limiting the amount of alcohol available at tournaments is working out fine. 3) FROM LENNY STROUP • Lenny told the board that he is getting along fine after his hip replacement operation. Lenny said that like Purple Sage, Fairview is also down for the year. Cooper said that when the final numbers are put together that EIJay Waite would give the board a year-end financial report. 4} REPORT FROM GORDY CROCKETT Gordy said that the restroom at Purple Sage is about complete. A discussion was held on how we are going to keep vandals from getting in the new restrooms. Gordy said he would make an arrangement with the janitors to lock the restrooms each night. Gordy said they have removed the mound from behind the number nine green at Fairview and were planting bushes along the street to protect houses from golf balls. Cooper asked Gordy what the water situation was at Purple Sage. Gordy said that water has been shut off and that only fairways, greens and tees are being watered. The roughs are not being watered at all. Fran Craeger asked Gordy if anything could be done about the tree roots breaking up the cart paths. Gordy said this is tough problem. Sooner or later Gordy said that the cart paths would have to be re-done. � 5) NEW OR OLD BUSINESS � Jeff Osgood asked if we c�yl�i h�ve a copy of the golf board meeting minutes osted on our P website. Cooper �aid that Brian �ulbertson, who does our website, would be contacted about this re�u��t. Shirley,�kagi said that she would like to tell the board about a conversation she had with Maypr Nancolas. Shjrley said she asked the Mayor what he felt about the golf board raising the golf fees for r�ext year. He said he relied on the board to set the fees. She said that she and Mayor both felt that`this might not be a good time to raise the fees. She said the Mayor felt it was not too late to change the fee structure back to the 2001 rate. He said perhaps we should re- discuss �he issue and then have a new vote to be sure we were doing the right thing. She said he tk�ought it would really look good for Caldwell to leave things the way they were last year in view of everything that has happened. He said that he feels sure the Council would _ _. go along with any recommendation that the board makes. Cooper said that he had talked to EIJay Waite, the city finance officer, and he said that he wasn't sure the council would like the policy changed. Shirley said (sic) 'the Mayor felt like we can't have the lay-offs we've had. and the economy crunch that we've had, and this changes things a great deal, and he feels very strong about this." Cooper asked for comments from the board. Larry Rick said that perhaps this would be a • good decision. Loraine Navis agreed with Larry. Shirley Akagi said that, like the Mayor and I thought, its quite possible if we come out with another thing due to the situation, that we, the people of Caldwell, feel like we cannot support taking a raise at this time, we may get more season passes and more play than we did. Cooper said he wished EIJay were at the meeting. Cooper said EIJay said he was going to come. Dan Rowell asked if the raise increase was 2%, Elvin Simpson said it is 5%. Fran Craeger said that if the season pass keeps going up she will quit buying one. Cooper said that he didn't like the idea of changing the fee structure after we have already passed it. Shirley Akagi said that people were in a lot worse shape than they were before. Fran Craeger said that there have been lots of lay-offs. Cooper said he thought the Treasure Valley was still doing well. He cited as an exampie how new house construction is going on everywhere. Shirley Akagi said that like the mayor said it would look good for the City of Caldwell to show that we are compassionate and willing to do our share. It can work the reverse for us and make it look like are only after the almighty dollar. At this point EIJay Waite entered the room. Cooper told him about the discussion that was � going on and asked him if he wanted to make some remarks. . • EIJay said that the board had a huge picture to keep in mind about what we are trying to balance. "Some of the areas that I had to look at during the budget process were requests from both courses for equipment that is going to be needed over the next five years. Energy cost to provide electricity to Purpie Sage to keep the course green went up 40% from Idaho Power so we have to account for that from somewhere. I have committed to you that we are going to have a golf course construction fund for a new course. This will provide us the opportunity to stay competitive with other course. We have land that we are paying for out of golf funds, that if we don't have ways to use it, why did we buy it in the first place. We are in a situation where the golf board is going to have to take a look at these passes that are not full price passes and add-on passes. I felt very strongly that this golf board felt that in the last two years, it was in the best interest of Caldwell and the golf board to equalize that pass price. The way to equalize that price is a recommendation from this golf board, to the City Council, based on all these other needs. That's what I had to look at when I made out our five- year plan. I wauld have gone higher. I would have said you need a cushion to buy this equipment, to make it happen, but I didn't suggest anything more than had been discussed in the previous year." EI Jay then said he would answer questions. Jeff Osgood asked if the employee costs were going up. He asked how often the employees got raises. EI Jay said that the temporary workers have not had a raise in five years. The regular full- time employees had a 3.25 J raise two years ago, 3.75 J last year and this year a 4% increase. We've tried to make the clubhouses more attractive with better custodial services. Shirley Akagi asked EIJay if he thought we could not meet this budget at all without raising • the fees. EIJay said that you can get in a bad situation if you get behind then the only way to catch up is to take a big increase. Shirley asked EIJay if he thought this is a good time for an increase with all the economic downturns and lay-offs. EIJay said what he would do if revenues start to fall off. I'd come to this board and say we need to reduce our prices. Shirley said that by then the damage would already have been done. EIJay said, I don't think that is necessarily true. We can tell. We have a report every month that shows where we are. You wiil know before I do what the cash sales and pass sales have been on different courses. I would come to you and say that it is falling off and we need to do something about it. Cooper asked John and Lenny if they would like to comment. John said many courses do not have season passes. Those that do usually have only 5 day passes. This leaves the weekends for green-fee play only. Lenny said his revenue is down in his golf shop. He said the 5-day pass is ar�c�ption. � . � Coaper said that Caldwell has the most generous golf rates in the valley and that even with • our increase we a still the cheapest place to play. If the play goes down on our golf courses it is not because we are not the best buy in the valley. If our business goes down then the other courses will really go down. Jeff Osgood said that if you go over to Falcon Crest in Boise and you and your wife play, it would cost you almost $100. Jeff said He could see how we have to keep up with inflation. Jeff said that maybe we need two passes, one 5 day and one 7 day. Cooper suggested that perhaps we should stay with what we have passed for this year and next year we can discuss any changes we might like to make. Cooper said we could have a vote on it if the board wishes. Cooper asked Shirley Akagi if she would like a vote again and if she did, to make a motion. Shirley Akagi made a motion that we keep the rates the same as last year and not take a , raise this year. Cooper asked if there was a second to this motion. There was no second to the motion so the motion failed. EIJay said he would get the year end financial report for the board as soon as possible. Cooper told the board that they have had a good discussion and that our aim is all the same. We all want to make golf as good as we can, and as inexpensive as we can for everybody in Caldwell. We have to realize that there are expenses and inflation, and we have to look at that side of the picture too. I think that the right thing to do for now is go . ahead with what we have proposed and the raise we have taken. This will give us the opportunity for the next year to take a good look at it again, and if we don't want to raise the fees, we will keep them the same. Also we will have the opportunity to consider other options such as the 5 day pass. No other business, Meeting adjourned. �