05/18/05 Budget Study - Laserfiche WebLink

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Budget Study Session May 18, 2005 Mr. Ollendorff responded that this statement was not accurate. The Park Commission subcommittee developed four different funding plans, which Mr. Wagner has stated knowledge of and he wasn’t even there. The committee and the staff developed four alternate funding schemes. Ms. Brungardt responded that “schemes” is the problem. She feels that we needed to be much further down the line as a community about funding something like this. She believes she has received the answers to her concerns. Mayor Adams said that as he understands when this whole process started with the Park Commission, they came up with this concept of what to do with Ruth Park. They knew what the budget restraints were with the City, and they tried to find a way to finance the Ruth Park redevelopment. They also looked at what Ruth Park could use to help stimulate other things going on at Ruth Park. One of the things they realized over many years is that there needed to be a safe, organized system of having a driving range. The current, existing system is not safe, and no matter what some people think, so they came up with that. They saw that a teaching facility, i.e. driving range, could generate an enormous rate of profit and that profit then could be used in the redevelopment of Ruth Park. It was a self-funding policy position. That is what he felt they came up with and it was not dependent upon regular tax dollars. When Mr. Ollendorff became City Manager, one of the things we set as a goal for Ruth Park was that the golf course had to take care of itself. It could not be a money pit like the swimming pool is. Let’s be honest, the swimming pool is never going to generate enough revenue to maintain itself and probably no swimming pool in the country does, but golf courses can. And if golf courses have the right amenities, they can make enormous profits. That is what they were attempting to do, as he saw it and as he read their reports. What happened at the Council, was, that for whatever reason, the idea of the teaching facility was rejected and without the teaching facility and without the revenue stream from that facility, there was no way to move forward and do the master plan. We could have approved the master plan, sure, but to what benefit? As you were saying, you’d be telling the people we were doing something but by the time we did, it would probably change, without a way of funding it. There is no way of funding it, without the teaching facility. Ms. Brungardt said that the teaching facility was going to be funded by personal risks that were going to be taken on the part of one person, as far as she understood it, who was willing to take out loans and open this business on City property and run it with the blessing of the City. There were things about that were not comfortable. Mr. Ollendorff said that Ms. Brungardt was correct and Council didn’t like the plan, but don’t say that we brought you a plan without a funding mechanism. Ms. Brungardt replied that there was a tremendous amount of liability for the City whether or not the money was coming from us. Ms. Brungardt asked if Mr. Ollendorff would admit that that particular funding plan placed a great deal of possible liability on the shoulders of the city. Mr. Ollendorff replied yes, but what he is hearing is that Council did not like the Page 5