City parks board recommends golf course fee increase

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

The fees at the Frank E. Peters Municipal Golf Course will likely be increased by about 20 percent when the Nevada City Council meets on Feb. 6 and considers a recommendation from the Nevada Parks Board to raise fees, for the first time since 2001.

"The city's 18-hole golf course lost about $110,000 last year and the fee increases we proposed are intended to cut into that loss," Nevada Parks Board member Jeff Post told about 15 Nevada golfers during the monthly parks board meeting Wednesday evening.

After a lengthy discussion with area golfers Wednesday the board voted to recommend that the city council accept their proposed new fee structure at the golf course.

During a special city council meeting on Jan. 25, the city council agreed to postpone consideration of the proposed fee increases at the Frank E. Peters Municipal Golf Course until Dick Staihr and other area golfers could discuss the increases with the parks board during their monthly meeting on Jan. 31.

During Wednesday's park board meeting, Staihr told the board that he had discussed the proposed increases with a number of golfers and that they generally felt that the fee increases for senior and adult golf annual passes were the only fees that are too high.

"We are one of the most active groups at the course and spend a lot of money there and try to help keep the course in good shape," Staihr told the parks board.

He said that the senior golf league members pick up litter on the greens and trim branches that are in the road.

"None of the other groups do this," he said.

The proposed fee structure increases the annual fee for adult golfers from $360 to $435 and for senior golfers from $270 to $325.

"This increase may prevent some of our group from being able to afford to play on the course," he said.

Staihr told the board that they felt that an increase from $257 to $300 for a senior pass and an increase from $360 to $400 for an adult pass would be more reasonable.

"We did not think any of the other proposals were unreasonable," Staihr said.

"Perhaps you could help those who cannot afford the increase with some of the money raised with your annual golf tournament," Jane Novak, Nevada Softball Association president, said.

"We have some money from our tournament that could be used for that purpose," Larry Testman told Staihr.

Post said that with the $110,000 in losses, as well as, the $300,000 the city cut from the parks department budget this year, they need to try to cut losses as much as possible.

"You can raise the fees each year, but that won't solve the problem. If you keep raising the rates at some point you lose your base," Rick David told the board.

"You tell me what else is going to be done to cut into the deficit more," David said.

"Has play gone down? We need to run the golf course more like a business. We need to see how to generate more play there," he said.

Post told him that they are looking at several promotions to increase the number of rounds played at the course during off-hours.

John McKinley told the board that one thing they can do to increase play is to cut the high weeds on the course to improve its appearance and to make it easier to find balls hit off the fairways.

The city currently has an agreement with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to return portions of the property to native prairie grasses and flowers.

In 1977 Nevada voters approved the city's 1/2-cent general sales tax and in a resolution the city council stated that for the first five years the parks department should receive about 21 percent of the money that tax raised.

Harlan Moore, interim city manager, told the parks board Wednesday evening that the city cannot find any written authority to continue giving that money to the parks department, so they decided to discontinue the practice.

Moore told the parks board that the first priority must be the fire and police departments and those departments are entirely funded from the general fund, which gets much of its money from the sales tax.

In other business, the parks board approved changing the location of the enclosed shelter house from Marmaduke Park to Davis Park on Centennial Boulevard and approved service agreements with the Nevada Neptunes and Nevada Little League Football.

Mike Hoskins, parks maintenance, told the parks board that locating the enclosed shelter house in Marmaduke Park is not practical because of vandalism problems in the remote park.

"The facilities in the park are frequent targets of vandals," he said.