Management of Northwood Golf Course is returning to Rhinelander City Hall.
Council voted Nov. 25 to part ways with Oliphant Golf Management when the current three-year contract expires Dec. 31.
This action was one of three recommendations given to the council by the ad hoc golf course committee in October. One reason for this recommendation was the roughly $90,000 a year that Oliphant is paid to manage the course separate from the city already paying the salaries of the golf course workers.
“The two most significant maintenance items that we ran across on the golf course committee that need to be made as soon as possible are a rough mower for next year and a new truck with a snow plow on it so you can plow the parking lots and whatnot, which together cost right around the $90,000 figure,” Erik Matson, ad hoc golf course committee member, said during the public comment portion of the meeting.
“We felt that using the $90,000 to purchase these two pieces of essential equipment for the city was a better use of the money than giving it to Oliphant to do what our own people can already do,” Matson added.
A request was made at the Nov. 11 council meeting for a one-year contract extension from Oliphant. Alders wanted the option to ease back into city management. Last week’s meeting agenda included a vote on whether to accept the one-year contract. Before the vote Mayor Kris Hanus said, if given the choice, the city would prefer to manage the course in house.
“We’re running into issues with their budgeting recording software doesn’t play nice with ours to that’s making extra strain on our financial department when it comes to budget, when it comes to coding,” Hanus said after being asked whether the city could take over the management responsibility. “Also the additional cost of using a management company.”
City administrator Patrick Reagan said it is “completely doable” from the standpoint of human resources and finance departments, although he has not had any conversations with current golf course employees.
“They’re not my employees so I haven’t had any discussions like that,” Reagan said. “But, it depends on who we’re going to get back in here. We’ll post it. We’ll do it as quickly as possible. We’ll get people in right away. I would suspect that there’s going to be interest from a lot of different places, but we can do it.”
Though a long-term plan was not on the agenda, Alderman Tom Barnett reiterated his interest in the idea of selling the golf course.
“I want to know if we’re able to, I want our city attorney to delve into that,” Barnett said. “I want to know that we’re seriously looking at it because like I said, this isn’t something that is, right now anyway, I think of as an asset for the city, personally. Especially when we’re on such dire needs with our budget. We’re talking about cutting services here and I think holding on to something that the city doesn’t absolutely need is a little unnecessary.”
Alderman Gerald Anderson noted the golf course has at least broken even the last several years, and agreed the city should continue to looking into the possibility of selling or leasing the golf course.
“Oliphant has had enough time to show us if they can make some sort of dramatic improvement and they haven’t, so I can’t picture that happening next year if we give them another year,” Anderson said. “We might as well be saving the management fee and doing something useful with it.”
Now that the council has turned down the management company’s offer, city attorney Steve Sorenson said someone will have to take charge.
“All it means is you don’t have a management contract with Oliphant for the coming year,” said Steve Sorenson, city attorney. “It doesn’t mean you have any contract with anyone else or you have any responsibility to even open the course next year. That’s all stuff that has to be discussed. Right now you have a contract that goes through Dec. 31.
“You’re going to have to put that on your agenda for the next meeting, to figure out who’s going to run that golf course because it isn’t going to run itself.”
The vote was 7-1 against a resolution to adopt the one-year addendum agreement with Oliphant. Barnett was the lone council member to vote in favor.
At a December 3rd special meeting, the council voted 7-1 to make Northwood Golf Course a department within the city government. According to Pearson’s timeline, the city’s goal for having a core management team in place is Jan. 13.
You can learn more about that in the Dec. 11th issue of the Start Journal.
