Ashland City Council
Work Session Minutes
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009, Council Chambers Conference Room 7:00 P.M.
Purpose: Brookside Golf Course
Attendance:
Council members: Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Steve Stuart, Robert L. Valentine W1, Robert M. Valentine W2.
Mayor: Glen Stewart
Human Resources: Cherie Bailey
Parks & Recreation: Tim Clingan
Finance Director: (Acting), Bill Strine
Fire Department: Mark Burgess
Brookside Golf Course: Terry Valentine
Council Clerk: Valarie Bishoff
Media: T-G Jeff Russ, WMFD
Citizens:
Cliff Hubler
Al Garrett
Sunny Riffle
Anthony L. Watson
R. Dale Kindall
Bob Thie
Steve Paramore
Phil Bush
Jess L. Hamilton
John Chorpening
Larry Willis
Sam Weyrick
Jim Willis
ROLL CALL: Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Steve Stuart, Robert L. Valentine W1, Robert M. Valentine W2.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Paul
Wertz: This is a Work Session on Brookside Golf Course and I am
going to turn it over to Stephen Stuart, Chairman of the Committee.
Stephen
Stuart: Thank you Paul. We appreciate everyone in attendance this
evening too. Just a little bit of background. I think the
City Council; the Mayor recognized that with the financial press of the
city that we needed to look at every aspect of city government.
And one of the components to look at was the long-term viability of
Brookside Golf Course which has been a tremendous asset to the
Community and I think we all agree with that. It was a desire of
Council to have some knowledgeable citizens participate and look at
that long-term viability and we are really fortunate to have volunteers
that devoted a lot of hours. And they are here as a committee
this evening and I would like to introduce them first before I turn it
over to John Augustine.
Brookside Golf Committee Members: 1)Lisa Armstrong
2)John Augustine
3)Kim Edwards
4)Gene Augerman
5)Mike Huber
6)Robert L. Valentine
7)Stephen Stuart
And again starting the meetings in April and continuing until this past
week, this group has devoted tremendous amount of time along with our
Golf pro, our golf course superintendent and our Parks & Recreation
Director. John, I turn it over to you.
John
Augustine: Thank you Steve; I am not sure where I am supposed to
do this. I will move over here so I can see all of you and not
have my back to everyone out there necessarily. The
committee did meet about five times and we received a great deal of
information from Terry Valentine and from the course superintendent
Larry Willis and from Tim Clingan. They gave us about everything
we needed to know. We looked at the rounds played out there; we
looked at the history of rounds played. The transition over the
past ten years. We looked at the fees that the course is charging
now. We looked at the number of outings that the course has and
what the trends have been along those lines. What efforts
have been made by course management to improve the number of rounds
played? I think there is a little history that goes with
this and it is not unique to Ashland Ohio at all. Golf has a
story and history as we all know. It has a very storied history
in Ashland itself. But for the past decade, golf in general has
turned a little away from what its boom was maybe ten years ago.
It is competing with other sports, with family time; families were all
busy with activities. Of course our own economic situation is
something that has affected people’s ability to play or their choices
to play and things at that time. A course is judged by the
quality of the course’s maintenance. And I think without question
there is no public course in this part of Ohio that rivals
Brookside Golf Course. I don’t think of one anywhere around that
is a public course that is operated for profit and is in the condition
or has been maintained the way Brookside has. Now, at that same
time, during the past few years with play dropping, revenues falling;
some corners have been curtailed to bring back the cost of maintenance
at that course. I play out there in a league; I know many people
in this room who play out there in league and the cost of not putting
money into that course is beginning to show. In that, I think
some of the revenue that was generated at that course at one time made
it quite the profitable operation, has gone to other courses around the
area. People are driving to other locations to play. When
they have run the rounds at discount or tried to bring people in; they
have had them lined up. It is not that they don’t want to play
the course, it is just that people go other places. We have a
number of nice courses around the area. It was our charge, I
think, to come up with some short-term and long-term goals. We
looked at revenue possibilities to help offset what we were told was
and rightfully is a shortfall in the ability to cover the cost of the
courses operation. And we have come up with some recommendations.
These are early recommendations. I guess from the city’s
standpoint, before I get into those recommendations, I think that the
course, as Steve has pointed out is clearly an asset to both the
community and monetary value and historic value for the city. A
golf course to be developed from scratch is a very expensive
enterprise. There is a huge amount of intrinsic value in
maintaining the greens, having fairways with watering systems; all of
that stuff. So to maintain that is an investment in an asset that
has great value to the city in its long-term. I
handed out a sheet of paper to each of you and I gave copies to the
committee. We looked at what other golf courses are doing to
attempt to raise revenues from other than regular golf play. And
that thinking I guess is part of the entire golf, I guess I am going to
call it the golf experience. When groups go out to play golf,
either outings or groups of four or groups of ten or whatever goes out
together; they go for the golf experience. And that golf
experience is the quality of the course. It is the challenge the
course presents. And of course it is the cost to play as it
relates back to that challenge. You pay a little more for the
more challenging course. I think Item (1) on that as far as
short-term goals. We are, besides looking at fees from course
play; we are recommending as many other courses do in this area or
anywhere in the state as a source of revenue, that you consider the
purchase of a permit to sell beer at the golf course for those that are
playing there. Now that is not in of itself something that is
going to make people flock to Brookside Golf Course, but it is
something that does attract people to other courses because it is a
normal course of business at other courses around this area. It
is made available for sale. There is no restriction on bringing
beer on Brookside Golf Course and we made a rather unsophisticated
study of how much of that actually occurred by counts in trashcans on a
given week or two. And it is surprising how much there is.
This is just the cans that were left. These aren’t the ones that
were taken home to be recycled. But in a sense, it is a
restriction on how that beverage is dispersed. If the course
controls the entire dispersement of beer, it controls how many each
player would have per side of golf and I am just pointing out
possibilities here but there will be money made on the sale of that
alcoholic beverage and beer and it would control consumption of it by
side, by person. So not only in a revenue sense it controls how
much of it is actually being consumed by people on the course. I
think there is benefit from a behavior standpoint as well as an
economic standpoint. So I think from that sense there is a
significant potential for revenue. I think with that, besides
selling that, that the food area could be expanded to sell hot
sandwiches, French fries and possibly provide a place for people to sit
down after they finish a round; to talk about the round, a place to
eat, a place to do business, if nothing else. There is a
paramount of business over golf. Item (2) we have
looked at some sketches about accommodating the golf course itself with
a change to the pro shop area there. We would accommodate
seating, both inside and some outside. We would expand that area
allowing people to sit down after a round of golf. Here again
thinking that all of these factors will make it more accommodating to
the individual golfer or to the group of golfers to come to that spot
and again, incremental rounds that are bought by golfers at that course
to help cover fixed costs tremendously. The more rounds played,
the more likely it is to be a self-sustaining entity by itself.
Item (3)We have studied the fee structure both in Ashland and
Richland County and Terry has some too ideas on that. There
are other ideas that could be implemented possibly to increase again,
the number of rounds of play. Incrementally it would come off
each round played will help make that course self-sustaining.
Item (4) there is evaluate current revenue estimates to provide
projections. We have done some of that; we haven’t run through
all of the possibilities that we think combinations that could generate
the most revenue. We have taken a fairly conservative approach on
that. But I think the long range priority for anyone that plays
golf in the city is that the course operate and earn at least (Item (1)
long-range) $1 of profit from its annual operation without any city
funding. So whatever plan is endorsed, I think that is important
that we try to do things that are going to bring revenue to this
particular sport and recreation enterprise for the city. We know
that in the late ‘80s, 1989 I believe, the city through the golf
course, bought 64 acres of land immediately south of the front side of
the golf course and that was future expansion for additional
golf. That is not likely in my estimation to happen. (Item
(2) long- range) We are looking at that as a possible sale of that
land. The money used for that came from profits from the
operation of the golf course at that time and was accumulated from
green fees and that kind of thing. We would suggest that that
money be used to make these proposed improvements to the club house to
allow that expansion of revenue from either beer sales or food sales or
just general sales to people who would dine there, eat there, not
dinner dining eating but after a round of golf sitting down having an
enjoyable time there. And some other improvements to the
course itself. Elevate the level of play. Make the quality
of play better. Make the experience of golf at that city course
better. All of this we believe would enhance the number of rounds
played gaining additional incremental income to the city for the
covering of the costs. We will also in (Item (3) there,
long-range) priorities investigate the establishment of an endowment
fund for the course to benefit. The idea being that if money were
left from the improvements we wish to make there at the clubhouse that
that money would go into this endowment fund as seed money to start and
the possibility of selling off the rights to each hole to interested
citizens, groups, businesses, whatever; sort of a naming right thing
for each hole would bring money into that fund and the interest off of
that money would then be used to help maintain the quality of the
course in each years operation. These are some of the preliminary
ideas that we felt comfortable sharing tonight. We think they
have merit; they are methods that are used in other
municipalities. I know some of our folks, Terry has gone up to
Cleveland Metro Parks and they have endowments. They have taken
several of these approaches and they are beneficial to their
operation. They help support; I think, what did they say Terry?
Seven courses or eight courses. They have seven courses in
Cleveland. So these are not new earth shattering ideas.
They are ideas taken from others and other places but they have
application in this particular case. When you look back on time
and the history of golf in Ashland Ohio, you have to include the
benefits that have come, the pride that has come to the city from the
golfers that have come through Brookside Golf Course and through the
Ashland Community in general. Some of our greatest sources of
sports pride have come through that course and the development of young
people in the future citizens and there is no question that the history
is there. My guess is the history would repeat itself if it is
perpetuated. That others will come along, the values of golf
would perpetuate through other young people that come to that
course. The junior program is one of great remark. It has
been a stalwart here in this community for a number of years. So
I guess with that, those were our observations. Those were some
of our general ideas about what we would do and how we would approach
this. We did look at number, we did look at scenarios. We
didn’t spend great amounts of time looking at those but we did have
some numbers on what revenue could be for the course from those
ideas. I guess I am just going to throw it back unless anyone
else from the committee has something else they would like to
add. Does anyone have any questions?
Stephen Stuart: Why don’t we start with questions from Council?
Robert
L. Valentine W1: Well let me express mine and as Steve mentioned
too; we had to make a change in the group and there were two Councilmen
on that and this is the first meeting. I felt as each meeting
went along that the people that were at that meeting had a knowledge of
the community and how important golf was to the
community and each time I went to a meeting, something else was
introduced and I knew they did their homework and I felt very
comfortable in what transpired there. One of the things you had
mentioned and that was the beer sales. I don’t know of any course
around here or any course I have played, and I am not a drinker, but
the point is, I don’t know a place that doesn’t have beer. And I
also know that we have situations out there where people who play, I am
sure the beer just doesn’t come from the air. It comes from
somewhere and so I can’t see any myself, I can’t see any reason for not
doing that. Not having that, I think it, not necessarily is for
nutrition or anything, but it is something that can be controlled and
it can bring money into the golf course. I don’t think it can
provide all the money that we need but I think it will provide a great
deal of the money. But again let me kind of let the people here
in the audience know that you had to go to the meetings, and you had to
hear what these people had to say and the research they did. This
was a very working committee and I appreciate what they did.
John
Augustine: Well I guess I would reiterate again that the number
one long-term priority of whatever is recommended here, it is that this
course be self-sustaining. That somehow through revenues, it be
something that the city is not funding down the road. We know the
challenges that you folks face are great and if we can set a plan that
allows us the time to develop this, it could be a great thing. I
mean I really believe it could be a continuing asset to the
community. If the city decided after 5 years that it didn’t
choose to be a golf course manager; I am just throwing this out; I am
not saying 5 years is what we recommended but it would be much better
served to develop this course; maintain this course, improve the play
on this course because if the asset were to be sold, it would carry a
much higher value for the city down the line. If the costs
are cut; if the revenue falls to cost cuts and people tend to move away
from it because it doesn’t offer those aspects of quality play, I am
going to call it the ambiance of the nice course and it is a nice
course and I don’t want to say that it is not. But it needs to be
maintained and has to be perpetuated a certain level to attract people
in. What we are talking about with beer sales and food sales is
kind of a little aside. It is money left on the table. We
are not taking advantage of that and that in it of itself; I don’t know
if it keeps people away necessarily because a lot of people bring in
what they want to have. But we would be able to control that and
we would be able to make some money off of it. I think all of
those things would come into play when we are looking at trying to
improve the bottom line of the operation of the course.
Stephen
Stuart: I would like to make an apology. I was quoted in
the Ashland Times Gazette today saying that Brookside has served the
city well but it has never made money. Well that is obviously not a
correct statement. You just heard that the 64 acres that were
purchased were purchased with profits from the golf course. I got
a call from Jack Messner today. He was in the Seattle Airport, on
his way to Alaska and very disappointed that I would make a statement
like that so I owe Jack an apology and everyone else. A more
accurate statement on my part would have been, based upon the financial
information that we have been provided for this study, we didn’t see
any years that had made a profit.
Paul Wertz: Is
there anything that you guys discussed in your committee that we can do
to try to bring play in this year. There are days out there where
there is nobody out there. Did you discuss that?
John
Augustine: Yes. It would be difficult to make a change this
year with the remaining season that we have. We would
implement the beer sales as soon as possible, but there is a four-month
lead-time to get that license. The facility has, other than a
couple of coolers, that it would need for that. That would be the
only revenue thing we could see starting right away. If you are
going to start serving food, you need to have a place for people to sit
down to enjoy that and talk after a round of golf. So we would
not see; I don’t see anything we could necessarily this year. I
don’t think raising fees is going to be the thing to do this
year. It is not going to be material to the bottom line by
changing the fee structure this year. Unless somebody else has
something they would like to say.
Kim Edwards: This is a
process; it is not something that is done overnight. I think
Terry has done some things with rounds of play and it was just in the
paper today; $15.00 dollars on Thursdays. Those types of things
are being done currently and I think there is a lot of making some
adjustments to those. It is my understanding.
Lisa Armstrong: Play is up this year, through June.
John
Augustine: I play out there on Wednesday nights in the Courthouse
league and I don’t know how many times we got rained out. That is
several hundred rounds of Golf.
Robert L. Valentine W1: We
got rained out too. That is 12 teams, 24 teams, 96 golfers, 96
rounds x 6 is 600 rounds.
John Augustine: We are going to have some of that.
Robert L. Valentine W1: But we are still ahead of last year.
Ruth
Detrow: Did you consider any other source of.; it sounds like a
big chunk of income you are going to need to redo the clubhouse and
that sort of thing; something besides sale of that land. Land
isn’t selling really well right now; there just is no doubt about
that. I mean if we should fail to sell the land, how do we pay
our bills this year? How do we keep people employed in the
city? Because that is what it is doing. I want that golf
course to stay. I like to play there. It is important for
the whole image of our community but we are in a real mess financially
now. That is the thing that is really bothering me. I know
we can’t just say, let’s just shut it down for a couple of years. I
have been told very emphatically by people who know a lot more than I
do that you just don’t do that. If you shut down a golf course for a
year or two, it is just like starting over. It destroys it.
I know that but it seems as though we need some other source of income
and I don’t know what it is.
John Augustine: We can only
guess that how much play would increase if these other changes were
made. We try to be fairly conservative and in our estimation, we
saw, I am going to say around half of the deficit disappear in 4-5
years. But that is not doing anything today. And that is
with a very conservative uptake each year in play and fees and things
of that kind. We don’t know what the response will be.
There are a lot of people in this town that play golf and they play
golf here and they play golf in surrounding courses. I think just
the fact that the news about this is going to come out may change the
revenue stream just like people make choices to where they are going to
go. I think the other thing is the fuel situation. We may
see people that may decide to stay closer to home and not drive so far
off to play a round when they make a choice. These are all small
things. To say that there is going to be an overnight
transformation; we are not in that economical bracket. We can’t
stand here and say it is going to be great next week. I just
don’t think that can be done. I think perpetuating the course is
operation; is critical for you because of the investment and the asset
that you have. I think that there is a large asset there. Better
times, we will be glad that you had it. Whether you choose to
operate it yourself or not. If someone else operates it down the road,
there is still an asset there that is owned by the city and to
perpetuate it means maintenance, it means investment; it means those
kinds of things. If you walked away from and I am going to say
more than a million dollars because I think it probably would easily
garnish that, it would not be a good thing to do. To protect that
investment would be important. So I understand the side that you
are saying and I can’t diminish that. I understand that. I
think the efforts have to be toward getting this thing down to where it
is at least cost service to the community. We have the number of
recreational venues in this town that offer service to softball,
soccer. It’s part of the community.
Robert M. Valentine
W2: Mike Huber, remember the property that just sold up on
Baney? What was the total acreage on that? That wasn’t for
sale long.
Mike Huber: That went for auction.
Robert M. Valentine W2: Yes and if the price for the whole exceeded the price.
Mike Huber: There was 67 acres.
Robert M. Valentine W2: All right. So what did the whole go for?
Mike Huber: $338,000.00 dollars.
Robert M. Valentine W2: Just to be used as farmland?
Mike Huber: For the time being.
Mayor
Stewart: If you don’t mind, I would like to ask the committee;
did you look at the pro shop sales and are we on target in the retail
sales that are compared to other courses?
John Augustine: We didn’t spend a lot of time on that because I think that; Terry, can you respond?
Terry
Valentine: Sure. As far as our sales have gone, which is
surprisingly, we are doing fine. The percentages are there. They
haven’t been in years past, which has been good. That is through
June. Compared to what other golf courses do; they don’t release
those. I have no idea.
Mayor Stewart: Are there any publications that were put together; some general numbers like that?
Terry Valentine: I could probably get some stuff from the National Golf Foundation or the PGA.
John
Augustine: We looked at more of the incremental income side; not
to say the pro shop sales wouldn’t add to that, but that would not be a
variable that would change the necessary revenue of the course from
what it is now. We were looking at incremental additions in our
focus, mainly. Things that we thought would be maybe left on the
table that could be added in. Pro shop sales might go up slightly
if more people were through there, but year over year the competition
in that field is really ferocious. It absolutely is ferocious.
Mayor Stewart: I would like to ask one other
question if I may. The staffing at the golf course compared to
other golf courses with the similar play, probably if you are looking
at incremental play you probably didn’t look at the labor structure.
John Augustine: Again, that is tough information to
get. We know that some of the other courses around give free play
to people; retired folks that come out and mow greens, mow fairways, do
that kind of work and at first we weren’t sure that that could be done
here but we did determine later that that could be done at the
course. So that is another possible source of some revenue, if I
am correct on that, right Tim? We were thinking that that would
not be eligible or not be a possibility here but it is a
possibility. So there could be some trade off that way. I
think what is done, I know at different courses, they get free play for
the time they spend mowing. maintaining, that kind of thing.
Mayor Stewart: Appreciate that John, thank you.
Paul
Wertz: Terry, the Thursday special $15.00; I have been out there
several times, that place is busy. And I have gone out on
Mondays, no one is there. Is there any thought or consideration
opening it up to a couple of other days a week, during the day?
Terry
Valentine: Well, we just had our Junior Golf program end.
So Mondays are now open. So certainly that is a consideration.
Tuesday mornings are senior men, Wednesday we have our Ladies day and
that is why we did Thursdays. Now Mondays are open, Fridays are
open.
Paul Wertz: Your maintenance and upkeep is
going to be the same, no matter if anybody is there playing at
all. If you have somebody playing, at least there is some money
coming in.
Terry Valentine: Sure, I agree.
Citizen
from Audience: Question. How far did you go back when
starting to find out that this golf course paid itself off since the
first 9 holes were there and then the additional second 9. You
have to take in the cost factor buying land that you don’t have to buy
anymore, you already have it, so it is already added 50-60 some acres
which is an asset for the future as far as I am concerned. Right
now, selling the land off is probably not a smart idea. I would
like to be positive and move forward in the future, I am sure we will
have some tough times, but figure out the amount of play that you are
paying vs 9 holes vs 18 holes. Golfers are funny, they talk about
the money all the time, but yet they want to go play a different
course. Since the day is pretty busy with the discount, I would
like to see you finally do something.
John Augustine: Mayor, we
are all in favor of scenarios of pricing that would give us more
advantage to bring people back to the course because the rounds were
there, we know that people play upwards of 40,000 rounds a year when
the course was at its income peak. You can put anything on it,
the economy, the change of lifestyle, the change in whatever caused
people to move away from that many rounds. I don’t with the
response that you get with the $15.00 dollar rounds and people show up
like crazy, there are still golfers around that are ready to play and
for a value, they will show up just like what was said. But when
there is no money in it after you pay $15.00 dollars, if none of it
sticks; it is kind of a test to see if you can draw golfers in and you
can. That is what I think he has proven more than anything else
is that price sensitive, yes they are. Will they come to the
course? Yes. Is the quality there? Yes. Will it draw
people at a price? Yes. What price?
Citizen from
Audience: Well, we are also talking about softball games; we are
also talking about swimming pools. Now how many citizens use each
one of these facilities. What is our cost of every other entity
that is out there? We keep adding entities, which is wonderful,
its great. But why don’t we have a cost factor here? Why
don’t we charge 50 cents for every body that comes to a ball
game? I know it is going to be a cost factor and you will
have to have somebody sitting there. You can’t close the
gates. There are a lot of different ways to go about this.
I think we are forgetting and putting the golf course in a section all
by themselves and the other entities within the city are not playing
for free, but they are playing.
John
Augustine: We have discussed that and we discussed the
possibility of doing some integrating with other sports entities that
are available. I guess the golf has always been looked at a
little differently. It is a full cost sport. Most of the
other sports involve kids and this involves kids but is largely an
adult sport. I haven’t had anybody call me to go play football
for a long time. And now if they asked me, I decline. But to play
golf, yes. It is all valid, there is no question. There is
a lot of scenarios that could be viewed and reviewed that is why we
looked at that as an incremental possibility to help this particular
enterprise to sustain itself. We really think long-term that it
needs to do that. Somehow. There is value there.
There is asset value and there is intrinsic value to the community, no
question.
Citizen from Audience: Have you also
checked to see what happens if you decided to sell this course?
Are you going to have to pay the government back?
John
Augustine: We did look at that. That adds complications to
that very aspect right there. Nobody proposed that that be
done. We looked at ways to try and build the revenue so it can be
perpetuated.
Citizen from Audience: This other 60
some acres that you purchased, was any of that money any kind of
government money? Was that actually a profit from the golf course?
Yes. They don’t have anything to do with that money.
John Augustine: That is a fact that we know. The profits from that course only were used to purchase that land.
Citizen
from Audience: We were $30,000 dollars in debt in
1945. And now how much are we into the general fund every year
now?
Mayor Stewart: You want me to answer that? The budget this year for the Golf Course subsidy is $141,750 dollars.
Citizen from audience: Okay, now has that gone up every year?
Mayor
Stewart: We have diminished it this year. It has been higher and
the golf course had to reduce what they were doing this year to live
with that area. Now I am being told by Tim, that they are hoping
to have some carryover out of that $141,000 to get them
kicked off for the beginning of next year, is that correct Tim?
Tim Clingan: That is correct.
Mayor
Stewart: So will $141,000 be spent this year? Their
approach to what they are doing this year and the reductions that have
implemented this year are not to spend $141,750. That is in their
line item as a golf course subsidy. It has been significantly
higher than that in years past and it has been in many years past,
there has been no subsidy. I don’t know, the committee studied
this Jess. I don’t know when that transition actually took
place. I do know that back in the ‘80’s, early ‘80’s the golf
course occasionally would come to us as Council and we would loan them
some money to kick the year off and before the season was over, it was
all paid back.
Citizen from Audience: At the end of the
year, where you had money; did that come back to the General
Fund? Or did you allow that to stay in the Park system? At
the Election Board, our money disappears at the end of the year.
If we have any money left over, we send it back to the County
Commissioners.
Mayor Stewart: Which funded your
fund to start with. So you’re funded by the General Fund, so
moneys that came back went back to the fund that funded you.
Tim
Clingan: What the park does now is a certain percentage comes
from the Income Tax and it goes to the streets and the rest goes to
General Fund. We keep that balance. Anything we have
carryover, it stays. It becomes a forgiving balance for next year
and we can include that in the appropriations that is also true with
the golf course. Also true of the swimming pool. So that is
technically how it works.
Bill Strine: The only thing I
thought may be a little misleading is the Park gets the Income Tax
money, not the golf course.
Tim Clingan: Right, just the park gets the allocation. That is a separate account.
Stephen
Stuart: Glen, the $141,000 plus subsidy this year, is that coming
from the general fund or is that coming from the Park and Recreation?
Mayor
Stewart: That went from the general fund to the Park and
Recreation. That was in addition to some swimming pool money.
Tim Clingan: If I could just say, also the Parks percentages went down enough to cover the $141, 750.00.
Mayor
Stewart: The Park’s percentage of Income Tax. Which Income
Tax is $7.5 million projected for this year to run the General Funded
Departments of the City. So it did go down to Parks and
Recreation there is no question about it. It went down to the
Street Department no question about it. But we have not laid off
any Firemen or Policemen. I am pretty stone-faced about that
because that is a fact. Now we haven’t replaced some Policemen
and Firemen that have left but we have not laid any off.
Citizen from Audience: I don’t want you to think I am critical.
Citizen
from Audience: I was at the golf course since its inception; I started
working there in 1971 so I have some knowledge of some history from
that period of time. When it was a 9-hole course, it was not
profitable. I remember George at the time had to convince Council
that going from 9 to an 18 hole would turn a nonprofitable course into
a profitable course. And it did. We did run profits
there. What happened is, there is a demand for golf and we
started to run deficits in rounds played, what happened is,
particularly over in the Mansfield market, there was a change in
ownership on three courses over there and he plowed millions of dollars
into those courses to improve the quality of those courses and then
there was also the new course that is over, a high end golf course, so
that drew some of the available rounds of golf back over to Mansfield
that we were getting at Brookside Golf Course. Now one of the
nice things about the downturn in the economy, is it puts stress on a
lot of pay to play golf courses and quite frankly some of them are
having the same kinds of discussion about whether or not they can stay
in business and there are golf courses over in Mansfield that are;
those that had originally taken play away from us are now at the point
where they may go out of business.
John Augustine:
I don’t know, do you know Terry, I think one of them has been sold and
the other one is up, Coolridge went out of business, Woolridge is
certainly draining and Oaktree was sold this winter.
Citizen
from Audience: Again, one thing that is going to happen with two or
three golf courses over in the Mansfield market; if they disappear and
turn into houses, the demand for golf will still be there with nobody
looking around for someplace to play and we may get those rounds of
golf back from Mansfield market that we had lost. So there is a
possibility if we swallow hard, we may find ourself in a position to
reap the benefits of that market.
John Augustine: Terry
acquainted us with that scenario that if a fair amount of play
historically had come from Mansfield and that had drained away over
time. Now with changes in golf ownership and courses not being
able to make it. We could see it come back to here.
Citizen
from Audience: And to address your point Glen. The National Golf
Foundation, they will come in and analyze the books on the Golf Course
and determine the profitability and where they are out of whack. These,
are the other golf courses of the same kind in the area. It costs
money for them to do that but they do it. It is one of the
services. I think Brookside Golf Course would come out pretty
well in that analysis. You are getting good bang for the buck.
Citizen from Audience: Does the golf course own their golf carts?
Stephen Stuart: Yes.
Citizen
From Audience: It looks like if the senior rates were a little
more competitive… Seniors drive for the most part. They are going
to rent a cart, making those rates more better in the day time in the
off hours. I think it would increase play quite a bit.
Citizen
from Audience: There are a lot of seniors in the city of Ashland
and I am one of them. I play out there. I play a lot of
different places, but I have also been out there during the
daytime. Four of us would be out there and we would say, “ My, a
private golf course?” How do we increase play during the day?
Seniors have always looked for a bargain, whether you are in Florida or
whether you are in Akron. Certainly when they charged $15.00 you
heard what happened. And I wondered right long for some time; the
Junior Golf was done by noon, am I right? I often wondered why
they didn’t have something from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m., something before
leagues start or at a much more reasonable figure. I say
reasonable 20-22.00 dollars. The $22.00 dollar one down there, I
don’t think that is keeping a lot of people away. A lot of people
have been going there since, including myself. Other places
around have much lower rates to go to if you wanted to drive
there. It certainly would be nice to go close by. So if
more people are out there on the golf course during the daytime,
seniors don’t play on the weekends unless their son comes home or
something like that, they try to stay out of there pretty much, so
there needs to be something to encourage those many, many seniors who
are out there who are ready to play golf but they need like Mondays,
Tuesdays, Wednesdays. I know they have seniors in the
morning. But I am talking about open golf now. That is open
to people who aren’t in the league or in this or in that. There
are lots of time in the daytime I have been out there when I though, I
can’t believe how free this thing is and they aren’t making any money
when it is like that. I remember some years ago in the
Junior Achievement thing where we had a little ticket and you would go
to a lot of different courses and there are several courses I do
golf. I remember checking with this local golf course trying to
say is there some reason why you are not on this Junior
Achievement to let people know this is available and they said well, we
checked it out and we can’t make any money. When I talked to Mr.
Woolridge when he was still living, he used to say, “I am not even
going to mark this, come on back.” Now why would he say, come on
back if they weren’t making any money on us? It only makes sense
to me that somebody was and he wanted us back and a lot of places we
went they did the same thing. We were feeling that during the
daytime when nobody else was around. So if you give seniors
something, an accessibility of time and reasonable rates for that, they
will come as he found out on the Thursdays and I think at $22.00
dollars, it certainly increased a lot more than that was a year ago or
2 years ago. I think you should take some good strong thinking on
this. A lot of seniors will go if they could get access to that.
Citizen from Audience: I agree with everybody, it
would be a tragedy to lose the golf course. Ashland doesn’t need
to lose anymore of anything. We lost some businesses; we
certainly don’t need to lose the golf course. I think the golf
course serves from very small children through the charity that runs
out there to the seniors that play there. I have been in business
for 35 years; what I am hearing here this evening, some of it I
understand, and some of it I don’t because I am not in the political
realm of it. I have not heard anything that has any reference to
marketing the existing facility that is there. In other words,
someone asked how soon can these changes take place as far as a place
to dine, which I think is excellent to get a sandwich. I have
always though that. In the mornings out there, it would sure be
great to go up and get a hot cup of coffee and grab a doughnut.
Not some thing that is packaged up because it is convenient. I
think there are some little things that looking at the internal
marketing being I am business oriented, I look at it totally maybe
differently. I think as far as the course itself goes, I think we
are very fortunate with economic times that we have, and I think we are
fortunate the course is in good shape as it is. Could be in better
shape? Yes. What course can’t? What I am talking
about in truly marketing, I think I am making reference to who contacts
all the outings in the area that are not having their outing at
Brookside on the possibility of bringing them to Brookside or are we
letting it just fate take its course? If anyone has been in
business you automatically know that if you let faith take its course,
it may not be the result that you look for. There are a lot of
outings that I think if they were solicited and the way to promote
them, that is a big pop. With some small adjustments, some
outings could be brought there. The one outing that I know of for
sure is Rolling Acres. Personally, I have nothing against Rolling
Acres, but I think it is a tragedy that an outing went from here, as I
understand it and went to Rolling Acres. Just an incidental
thing; but again, it is revenue. Every bit of revenue counts. And
somebody asked, how soon could we start to get revenue in? In
this age that we are in; I can’t imagine personally that when golfers
sign up, whether it be fore their league play, open play or outing
play, that we don’t have their email addresses. I get emails from
around all kinds of areas. E-mails can be used to promote items
in the pro shop. Emails could be used to promote groups that are
playing there; in other words, if you look back in my day when I had an
outing and you had some things you might be able to do to promote my
outing which would be contacting or just blasting to all these people
that there is going to be an outing. I think internal marketing
could be a slot that is being missed. The staff is already
there. There is plenty of staff there to do some of these
things already. I am concerned about Brookside; I spent a lot of
years there playing it. And there is Junior Golf. I love to
see the kids, the comradery that goes on there. I don’t know if
Brookside Golf Course has a mission statement. And the mission
statement in my eyes meaning, so they can train all personnel there,
golfers first. That would set up the training of people, whether
they be people behind the counter serving them coffee and it is going
to become more prevalent when you start serving food and as you start
serving alcohol it will even make more golfer friendly. So those
are things I think can’t be missed internally. I think some
things can be put out there when there is going to be a golf
outing. Not everybody reads the paper. Not everyone reads
tell and sell. And we all know that media sales are going
down. So it is not going to be the answer, but the real estate
people have a neat little idea of putting a sign and putting some
literature in it, why could we not do the same thing to help promote
golf outings. Some type of a realtor type sign at number #1 or
number #18 hole, outing and such and such a group is going to be
there. And the application is in there. I see the
folders out there. They are on the back table, which some people
never set at. Some of them are on the counter where people may
not go up to. It is going to be something; even if you do all of
these other things, I don’t know any business that doesn’t need
marketed and promoted. I have a real concern that if we do the
right thing as far as marketing the organization after all these things
are done that these will help. I think, what a shame, that
there is not any more play here; I pull into the parking lot and it
bothers me being a business person; I think golly, there should be more
play here today; it is such a beautiful place. It needs to be
more Golfer oriented. I think that is a key issue. How to
bring people back.
Questions or comments?
Citizen
from Audience: I don’t know if it would work or not but I would
like to see maybe seasonal passes to the course. Even from
around $400.00 dollars. To break even you would have to play 18,
18 hole rounds to recoup money. And if you had, just say 30
people, that is $12,000.00 dollars that could be fertilizer money or
equipment repair money. Will it work, or won’t work, that I don’t
know. I know a lot of courses have a seasonal fee, called a
seasonal pass and they have all rights to rounds. The other thing
I would maybe like to see is early morning or even Saturday and Sunday;
I know they have a 1:00 rate and usually the play picks up during the
day on the weekends but maybe like 6:30 am to 8:00 am for a working guy
who wants to play early morning and still enjoy the Saturdays with
family. I live on the 14th hole Golf Course. For 12 years I
would see everything that goes on past my house so, those are a couple
of things I have always had in my mind that I wondered, could they be
looked at? Could it work?
John Augustine: All the ideas
that you brought up; we have tossed these ideas around in our
committee. To really develop income scenarios off of these ideas
would take more time than we have to really develop but there are
opportunities out there. I think there are and I forgot what
Tennis player it was; but he made a million dollars on a camera sale
saying, “Image is everything”. And in golf, image is
everything. It makes a great deal of difference. The
quality of the course, the quality of the clubhouse; the quality of
play; how people are treated at the course. Word of mouth sells
Golf rounds. And people talk to each other about where they had
good service and where they had a good round of golf. It is not
that they don’t get it now; but there are things that could be done to
enhance play; I think all these folks have great ideas. We have
revenue potential there. The beer idea is just a supplement
to these other ideas. That is a side that would come. It is
not necessarily going to keep anybody away but it is going to make the
experience better for some folks that show up there. I don’t know
that I have anything else to add to this. Thank you for your time.
Questions or discussion?
John Chorpening: I was wondering if the golf carts actually pay for themselves?
Paul Wertz: They do. Yes, they do. That is a big moneymaker.
Terry Valentine: Green fees and golf carts make up the bulk of the money.
John
Chorpening: When I would play golf, I used to walk all the
time. I remember everyone riding in golf carts and there is a
certain rhythm. When you add golf carts to that rhythm, it sort
of messes everything up. Walkers are pushed by the golf carts so
you need another course just to walk on.
Terry Valentine
: That is quite possible. Probably 75-80% of the people
right now, that is just a figure; use golf cart rentals.
Citizen
from Audience: It has been touched on here about the
seniors. Well who does all of this traveling five days out of the
week? It is seniors. Because nobody has a job. The
seniors are the ones that should be concentrated on. That is
where the money is. They got it.
Citizen from Audience
(Steve Paramore): I have played a few rounds at Brookside.
I have worked in the pro shop. Mayor Stewart, addressing the
question you had for Terry about the retail sales in there. To be
honest with you, in my time, from age 14 to 22,23, 24, 25, somewhere in
there, I spent my time in the pro shop. I would say the majority
of your retail sales are going to be about two feet away from the
counter because most of the people out there purchase golf balls.
Your other big sales in the pro shop are going to be concessions.
There is too much competition with Dicks, Wal Mart, everything
else. You are not going to sell whole sets of clubs out at the
golf course, so in my time out there, I have seen shirts in the
clubhouse go from Ashford down to brands that I don’t even recognize,
so we are not selling really expensive stuff in there. So I think
they do a wonderful job in they’re trying to be competitive to the
market. Also I think at one point when I was working we had 82-90
seniors on a Tuesday morning; that is their league morning. I
think you could have that every morning in the summer during the week
if you charged the correct price. I know people can go to; the
course we are forgetting about is Mohican Hills. We are talking
about the Mansfield market. We have a course, I don’t know if it
is in our county or in Wayne County; but you can go down there for the,
I have heard words like Ambiance and experience. To me, it is a
much better experience for the same price at Mohican Hills
currently. If you drop the price, which, I guess you guys make
that decision, if you drop the price, you make the experience worth the
money out at Brookside. I guess I did go to the doom and gloom a
little bit there about closing the Golf Course. I think I spent
more time at the golf course from age 9 to 21 than I did anywhere else
in the world. And to know that there is maybe three or four or
five kids out there that might not have that opportunity. And I
know you people don’t want that to happen. But coming from a
person that coaches the golf team, even though there is another golf
course in town, my golf program would go to shambles. We would
lose every bit of tradition that it is currently. So I think
when, and I am not sure what your name is, but I have seen you on
Tuesday mornings a lot, if we don’t make the $15.00 dollars on
Thursdays, if you did that three times a week and increase volume; I
would take volume over the course of being empty at $28.00
dollars. You have to increase your volume and right now if you go
to Mohican Hills, their volume is solid everyday. I don’t play
there but I can guarantee you it is tough to get a tee time on
Saturdays and Sundays. At Brookside Golf Course right now, I
don’t think it is that tough to get a tee time. In 1989, you
couldn’t get on that course until 6:00 p.m. So, it wouldn’t take
a whole lot to get it back to its heyday if you just thought more in
volume than in price. I thought I heard a little bit ago somebody
saying increasing the price for the rest of the remaining part of the
season, I think that would be the worst thing you could ever do.
Especially all the amount of league they would miss this year. It
would just be unproductive I think. And I know that there,
probably this facility, the golf course is probably the most flexible
facility I have ever seen in my life. They have four high school
golf teams that are able to play out there. I suppose now you are
probably going to want to increase the price for us, but some of the
people I know would not be in the endeavors that they are in now if
Brookside wasn’t what it was. I am in full agreement although it
is not my age bracket but I would say we need to cater to the senior
golfers because it is no mystery why there are 82 golfers there on
Tuesday mornings. And let me tell you what, they will play extra
nines, they will purchase a beer when they are done, they will buy a
sandwich. That was kind of astonishing to me to hear about
renovations to the clubhouse; I thought when they painted it looked
good. I miss the brown.
Paul Wertz: Thank you Steve.
Citizen
from Audience: Being treasurer of the senior league for a number
of years. At one time we had 100 seniors in that league and now
we are down to around 62-63 every Tuesday. I keep records on how much
that generated with what we are doing now. Our senior league is
anywhere from 9-10,000.00 dollars in fees but that doesn’t include the
carts. I think our league is basically the biggest league going
out there. So that is how much money our senior league on Tuesday
generates.
Mayor Stewart: Valuable. I would
like to personally thank the five members of the citizens committee
that facilitated and worked through this. I appreciate Steve
Stuart and Bob L. Valentine Sr. for they are the designated golf
committee from my appointment and I appreciate you two having the
foresight to go the next step to bring in a nice cross section of the
community to look into this. This was not an easy task. I
think I have a page full of notes. I have heard a lot of these
statements made individually over a period of time. But I kind of
have a collective group of statements this evening and you know, it has
been very positive from my viewpoint. The challenge is to make
sure in some manner that we can preserve this asset. I don’t have
the answer to that yet. I am absolutely not saying that the golf
course is going to close. I don’t want to be misquoted that way;
I don’t want it to be thought that way. We have a challenge to
see how we can keep things going and improve it. I think it is a
mutual challenge between myself, the Council and the Golf Course
Management. I think we have had good input and it has been
positive and I appreciate it and I appreciate Bob and Steve and I
appreciate it to the five outside group that worked on this.
Paul
Wertz: I appreciate everybody coming to voice your opinions because it
helps so we know which way we want to go and with where we have to
go. Anybody else having more to say?
Ruth Detrow: I
think it is encouraging that that many people took the time out of
their day to come and tell us that they want to see the golf course
remain. We are faced with the problem of where do we get $141,000
dollars to subsidize it and is it worth it. And certainly you
have gone a long way toward showing that the community thinks it is
worth it. We still have to figure out how to come up with that
money. I do appreciate you all.
Robert L. Valentine
W1: You know recreation is the integral part of this
community. I was very fortunate, I was out there as assistant,
and I was called the assistant recreation director for about 27 years
to Vaughn Higgins. You sent me a note Mike, to Vaughn Higgins
when you built the first nine. And then of course I was out there
when they built the second nine too. For some strange reason I
love golf. So the point being, let me express what the others
have said too. I think a lot of good ideas and I think a lot of
good things came out of this and I think a lot of these things have to
be put into effect. I hear this idea that now we have Mondays and
Fridays available, that has to be looked into. It really has to.
Citizen
from Audience: I just wanted to say that Ashland is so fortunate to
have a Junior League and you talk a lot about the seniors and I am one
myself. I have been getting out there myself but I have a 12-year-old
son that is in the Junior League and this is his third year. As
history has said, we have had many youngsters go through the ranks and
have been on the golf team and they stay in things like that. We
are recognized in this area and I think our Junior Golfers are our
future golfers. They go to school here so when they live here
they are going to play golf to improve their game and I can’t say
enough about how well the hands on is for this Junior League.
These kids pick up the skills that they need and carry that all the way
through. They learn the right things young. I just can’t
say enough about the program. These kids are our future.
They will play here while they are growing up. We are just lucky
to have it and the volunteers that run it.
Kim
Edwards: Just to tag on to that; that is not just for Ashland
City Schools; I want to point that out, all of the community schools,
all of the county schools. My son was Hillsdale golfer. It
impacts all of the school programs.
Citizen from Audience: Kids this year are the best-behaved kids that we have ever had.
Tim
Clingan: Not just the golf course, but the whole Park &
Recreation department, all are subsidized with City Income Tax
dollars. That is why we have as good of programs that we
do.
Motion to adjourn Work Session by Paul Wertz, moved by Robert M. Valentine W2, seconded by Robert L. Valentine W1.
Ayes: Ruth Detrow, Paul Wertz, Steve Stuart, Robert L. Valentine W2, Robert M. Valentine W2.
Work Session adjournment at 8:20 p.m.
Submitted by
Valarie F. Bishoff
Clerk of Council