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HomeMy WebLinkAboutGolf Board Minutes - July 8, 2024 1 (208) 359-3020 35 North 1st East Rexburg, ID 83440 Rexburg.org | Engage.Rexburg.org Golf Board Minutes – July 8, 2024 Council Members: Karl Boehm Paul Sorensen Brian Parkinson Eva Wright Non-Voting Members: Board Chairman Johnson Matt Nielson – City Finance Officer Colin Erickson – City Council Member Brent Mendenhall – County Commissioner Spencer Rammell – Attorney Cameron Garn – Golf Pro Seth McFarland – Golf Ground Greg McInnes – City Parks Manager Justin Beard – City Engineer 4:30 P.M. Golf Board Meeting Roll Call of Board Members: Attending: Eva Wright, Karl Boehm, Paul Sorensen, Brian Parkinson, Chairman Jon Johnson. Absent: 1. Review Prior Meeting Minutes and approve (Action Item): a. June 11, 2024 Board Member Wright moved to approve the Golf Board Meeting Minutes for June 11, 2024; Board Member Boehm seconded the motion; Board Chairman Johnson asked for a vote: Those voting aye Those voting nay Board Member Boehm Board Member Sorensen Board Member Parkinson Board Member Wright Board Chairman Johnson The motion carried. 2. City or County Input Issues a. Review staff recommended fee changes and make a final recommendation for presentation on July 17th and public hearing in August. (Action Item) i. Need to put signs up in advance. Finance Officer Nielson reviewed the recommended fee increases for the golf courses to take effect next season. He said normally the fee increases aren’t reviewed until the fall; however there is a budget public hearing scheduled in August so he thought it would be better to review the fees sooner to give city staff time to change the fees before customers start making purchases for next season. Finance Officer Nielson mentioned he and Golf Pro Garn discussed increasing the Buddy Pass to $229 from $199. They increased that pass last year by about $20 to $30. The golf courses have been extremely busy so there are times when patrons may not have the greates t experience. The Legacy 2 for $32 (9 hole+cart) fee increase to $35. He said 50% of the daily play comes for the two for $32. For the cart rentals he is recommending an increase of $.25 from $8.25 to $8.50. Finance Officer Nielson said for the daily play increases he looked at what surrounding golf courses are charging. He asked the Board Members to keep in mind that the rates he was comparing to could change as well. He said by far the Leagacy and Teton Lakes Golf courses are the best value compared to the neighboring golf courses. Even with the 7% increase on the 9 hole play, which is $20.00 to $21.50. He did not change the Teton Lakes 18 hole junior fee because it was pretty high. Discussion regarding the Youth on Course not reimbursing the course back the $7.00. Finance Officer Nielson said his recommendation is to take the Youth on Course pass at the Legacy; however, not at Teton Lakes. Finance Officer Nielson said the Teton Lakes Club Rental – Premium- Up to fee increase is from $15.09 to $50.00. The premium clubs are expensive so it would be beneficial to be able to recuperate some the costs of those clubs to replace them when needed. Board Chairman Johnson mentioned some of the people renting the premium clubs are the visiting parents of BYU-Idaho students. 2 Finance Officer Nielson continued to review the fee changes. The range fee has not been changed for a while. He suggested to only change the small range from $4.00 up to $4.25 and keep the large range rate the same. The neighboring golf courses charge $5.50 for the small range. Board Member Boehm questioned the need for the buddy pass. He asked why not charge the $229 to each individual. Board Chairman Johnson explained the purpose of the buddy pass is to hopefully bring in patrons that wouldn’t otherwise play golf and once they have played hopefully they liked it enough to become future season pass holders. Finance Officer Nielson recommended they continue with the buddy pass. Board Member Wright asked with the golf courses being so busy is there a way to indicate if the patrons are local or from out of town? She said if there are more out of town patrons using the golf courses it could be because of the cheaper rates at our golf courses. Finance Officer Nielson said they could look at how to differentiate between out of town and local patrons. Attorney Rammell said it is normal for golf courses to have resident pricing versus non-resident pricing. Finance Officer Nielson said the range fee has increased from $600 to $625. Discussion regarding the reciprocal season pass with Jefferson Hills fee. He said he will need to discuss the reciprocal fee with Golf Pro Garn to determine if that is a fee they need to keep. Board Chairman Johnson said since making the small increases on the rates he has not had as many complaints as before when they wouldn’t raise the rates for a couple of years and then they would raise them by a large amount at once. Finance Officer Nielson explained he was more aggressive after discussion with Golf Pro Garn about increaseing the daily play versus the season pass. Both passes increased to an average of about 4.29% and 5%. Golf Pro Garn said the golf courses do not honor the reciprocal season pass with Jefferson Hills golf course anymore; however, they still have the upper valley rate. Finance Officer Nielson said he will delete that fee. Discussion regarding the number of youth using the Youth on Course. Golf Pro Garn said there are a lot of youth using the course because the Idaho Falls Golf Course stopped using the Youth on Course program so Teton Lakes and the Legacy are experiencing a large number of youth golfers. Some of the issues with new golfers is that they rent the golf carts and drive them on the greens so any of the Youth on Course or Junior Golf patrons he is not letting them rent golf carts. Attorney Rammell asked Golf Pro Garn how feasible it would be to charge local residents a lesser fee then patrons from outside Madison County. Golf Pro Garn replied it is not feasible to have to check patrons drivers licenses. For the season passes it would be feasible because they are making a one time purchase per year. Attorney Rammell also asked Golf Pro Garn how many patrons are from Madison County verses patrons from Jefferson, Idaho Falls or Jackson area. Golf Pro Garn replied Monday through Thursday about 80% are local; however on Friday and Saturday about 90% are non-Madison County residents and on Sunday about 95% are non-Madison County residents . Finance Officer Nielson said most of the local patrons purchase season passes so it might be that the daily rate doesn’t apply as often. Golf Pro Garn said more non-Madison County residents will start to purchase season passes. County Commissioner Mendenhall said it make since to charge non-city/county residents more to golf because they do not pay the taxes the city/county residents pay. Golf Pro Garn said there aren’t a lot of non - city/county residents that currently pay for season passes; however, they are paying the daily green fee rates. If the city keeps the season pass at a lesser rate then the neighboring golf courses then he forsees an influx of non - city/county season pass holders. 3 Board Member Wright suggested the non-city/county resident rate be added to the fees to prepare for when the influx of non-city/county residents purchase season passes. Board Member Parkinson said currently there is a preception from a lot of residents that they can not get on the course because non-city/county residents are flooding the courses. If the extra charge for non -city/county residents doesn’t have a huge impact on curtailing the inflex of out of town patrons then at least they have being responsive. Golf Pro Garn said he would be cautious of adding to much of an increase so that increase does not drive away business. Finance Officer Nielson suggested adding a 10% percentage to the non -city/county pass rates. Board Member Sorensen said having a higher rate for non-city/county residents gives the golf courses a lever on future rates . He said he is in favor of an increased rate for season passes and punch passes for non-city/county residents. He doesn’t believe the daily play needs to increase yet for the non-city/county residents; however, that could change in the future. The golf courses are city/county operated; therefore, tax payers are sub sidizing the golf courses so the residents should pay less. Discussion regarding allowing discretion for the Golf Pro to give the resident price to those patrons that have supported the golf courses for 25 years or more. Board Chairman Jonhson suggested the increase for the weekend daily play change to $23 for 9 holes and $35 for 18 holes. Golf Board Wright said she agrees with the 10% increase on passes except for the buddy pass. Finance Officer Nielson continued to review the rate changes. The family pass rate is increasing by 5%. He will present the recommended golf rate changes to the City Councilmembers on Wednesday and a public hearing will be held at the second City Council meeting in August and the County Commissioners will also be there to consider the rate recommendations. b. Input and recommendation from Board regarding FY25 remodel and family bathrooms vs. men/women’s bathrooms in the design (Action Item). Finance Officer Nielson explained at the Teton Lakes Clubhouse where the women’s bathroom is located, they could design it so all three-bathrooms fit in that area, there would be a men’s, women’s and family bathrooms instead of building a bathroom behind the locker room. The bathrooms would be single use. The upstairs bathrooms would remain with ADA accessibility. The bid for the bathrooms could potentially go out in October. c. Other Items as brought forward Staff or Elected Officials 3. Finance Report a. Review of Golf Report through 6/30/24 Finance Officer Nielson reviewed the Budget Report for the golf courses. The forecast for revenues continues to climb every month. The buddy passes last year had $46,000 in revenues; this year it is forecasted to bring in $62,000. The cart rental and daily play revenues continue to increase. There are a few expenses that increased substantially, one of them is the grounds maintenance at Teton Lakes due to the number of projects the ground crew has been working to complete. He said with more patrons using the golf course, they are working on parts and repairs. Finance Officer Nielson mentioned he is predicting a profit of about $30,000 at the Legacy and about $90,000 at Teton Lakes that will be carried over to pay for these projects next year. 4 5 4. Golf Pro’s update of issues/concerns/problems/projects a. All Other Items as brought forward by Golf Pro 5. Golf Grounds Manager update of issues/concerns/problems/projects a. Tee Box, netting, and Range Lights at Tee Box (Seth and Cam to come back with design proposal) b. Update on project to paint under the deck to preserve the primer on the metal i. Completed I believe c. Update on mapping with GIS and our City Works Coordinator to mark the location of the all the irrigation lines and equipment on a map with coordinates. i. More Work to be done here with marking sprinkler heads and noting pipe sizes. d. Other items as brought forward by Golf Grounds Manager Grounds Manager McFarland reported they have finished the third block wall, and he doesn’t think they are going to complete the fourth block wall until next year. They are mowing down the new tee box on hole 6 number two. As they hack down the tee box, they will probably see tire marks so they will need to top dress the box. They have topped off the white and gray sand bunkers. Grounds Manager McFarland reported the middle fork fairways have a better color; however, the fairways are really weak, so they are going to try to aerate in between the tournaments just on the fairways to get some drainage down through the concrete. The moss control on the middle fork is getting better on the green. There was a greater growth of moss in the middle so the greens will grow slower. They are going to start working on the cart path near number 17 to get rid of the bumpiness. Grounds Manager McFarland reported they are going to finish the drainage and the land bridge by tee box 18 where he had stopped the trenching during the winter. 6. Board Business/issues/problems/events a. Other Items as brought forward by Board Members Discussion regarding several altercations at the golf course. 7. Determine Next Board Meeting Date/Time a. 8/13/24 at 4:30 pm 8. Tabled Agenda Items to Consider: a. Consider Landscaping items in the service shop area after completing main parking lot/clubhouse improvements. 9. Executive Session (Statute 74-206)-Only held if necessary, and subsection authorizing the executive session must be stated-Generally held after regular meeting to discuss labor contract matters. (If necessary) (j) To consider labor contract matters authorized under section 67-2345A (74-206A) (1) (a) and (b), Idaho Code. Adjournment 5:06 P.M.