City Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. I call this meeting to order on March 24th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. Will the clerk please call the role? Mayor Sharon McDonald here. Mayor Prom Josh Rearen is absent today. Commissioner Baxter Patillo here. Commissioner Steven Bernett is not here. Does anybody know if he's going to be here? No. Okay. Commissioner Warren Robinson here. Commissioner Al Ernnandez here. Commissioner Mark Tapley here. Madame Mayor, we have a quorum.

Thank you. Um we are going to have um Pastor Jerry Martinez do the invocation and um Commissioner Baxter Patello do the pledge of allegiance. Good evening commissioners. Good evening mayor and good evening citizens of Alagordo. If we can bow our heads and close our eyes, please. Heavenly Father, we come before your mighty and majestic throne, Father, with a humble and sincere heart. And Lord, we just ask in your son Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Christ, in his name of all names. We ask Father that today you put favor to all of us who are here today to do what we need to do. Father, for the commissioners, for the mayor, for all who are involved in running this city, for all of our citizens, that you bless us, Father, that you give us guidance and that you give us the the knowledge and and the confidence to do the things that we need to do, Father, to make this community uh go forward and progress. Father God, we're just thankful for all the things that you bless us with, that are blessing us with, have blessed us with. And Lord, we just ask that you be here with us tonight and allow us to be able to go on with the city's business in the way that we should, in the right way. And Father God, for those who are ill, Father God, I pray for them that they get healing. Lord, for anyone here that is sick, Father God, you are the master giver of life. You are the one that we can come to when we need whatever we need, whether it be our health, anything that we need from you, Father. You take care of our needs. So, Father Aba, thank you very much for all that you have done for us. There are no words to say how much we thank you and how much we love

you and how much we praise you and give you honor and glory. And I ask that the Holy Spirit, the Ruak Hakadesh abide here tonight and allow this meeting to go smoothly and peacefully and in harmony. In Yeshua's mighty and holy name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Can I get a motion for the approval of the agenda? So moved. I will second.

It has been uh moved by Commissioner Warren Robinson and seconded by uh Commissioner Patello. We're going to go for the vote. And the vote passes 5-0. Uh, next we are going to have presentations. statutory compliance with the New Mexico Open Meetings Act, governmental conduct and ethical standards for the uh public officers training by New Mexico Municipal League. Uh and that is going to be in the hands of Clinton Nicely.

Thank you, mayor. Uh members of the commission, my name is Clinton Icely. the risk services director for the New Mexico Self-insures Fund, New Mexico Municipal League. I also have a number of other uh functions I fulfill for the organization. I'm a liazison for the New Mexico Municipal Judges and Attorneys Associations, respectively. I'm a registered lobbyist for the league and anything else uh that our communities need with respect to training uh and education. Although my day-to-day function is mostly related to claims. So that's usually what you see me here for. I do do a fair amount of presentations which I enjoy uh just as much as anything else that I do. And the one that you're about to see, the longest version of it I give is about 2 hours and 15 minutes before there are any gasps from those who are here in attendance. This is a much much excerpted version of that type of presentation. But hopefully uh at the end thereof uh the folks who are in this room and in your shoes have a better sense of the considerations that you'll need to make in your role to fulfill the requirements of the various sunshine laws that apply to you as a commissioner in our state. I always like to start with the why. That's sort of the biggest question that gets asked about the various sunshine laws applicable to public officials in our state. And I think the answer to why, at least for me, is pretty simple. And it's the idea that if public dollars go out the door, and I assume all of the dollars going out the door here are public by a function of what you do for your community, uh then there's a general right which our legislature has weighed in upon in passing some of these laws that courts have agreed with in the case law they've issued as opinions in the time since these laws have been

passed that say the general right to know if the public is supporting the services that you provide on their behalf. half. They get to know what their government is doing. You'll see that permeates nearly every sunshine law in the state of which there are about five or six, two we're going to talk about today. Uh but you see that time and time again through things like policy declarations and statute. Again, the opinions you see from the judges who are asked to weigh in on these topics and uh the administrative regulations that attach to each of these statutes. So, I said we're going to talk about two tonight. We're going to talk about one more than anything else because I think it's the most pertinent to what you do. It's the Open Meetings Act. And then we'll talk a little bit about the Governmental Conduct Act as well. And specifically for our discussion tonight, how it attaches, how it interrelates with, and how it complements what you see in the Open Meetings Act. So, first question when we're talking about what the Open Meetings Act is, what it does, what it requires is when. And there are really three things you need to require that an open meeting uh be accessible to members of your community. It's really a three-pronged approach. It's a very long uh uh long uh articulated part of the statute, but I've highlighted here. I've bold-faced uh what I consider are the three basic tenants or requirements or prongs of what needs to be a predicate for any open meeting. The first is actually the first two clauses. A quorum of members of a policymaking body. That's number one. That's what you need. Number two is that public meeting has to be held for the purpose of formulating public policy. That's requirement number two. And the third thing that you need um at that meeting is for the discussion of public business or taking an action to occur. So if those three things happen,

there's a really good chance if a court gets asked to weigh in on it that it needed to be done openly and it needed to be done with the opportunity for your public to participate. Does that make sense? Um what is a policymaking body? That's part of that uh part of one of those three prongs that I talked about. It's basically um everything you think it is and a little bit more. That's the way that I describe it. So, it's this group, but it's other groups that you've assigned or delegated to do specific functions, too. Here's an example of an excerpt from uh an attorney general opinion as well as the last version of the DOJ compliance guide, which I think they're due to issue again sometime in the next two or so years. You may be aware that they issued a compliance guide for the Inspection of Public Records Act last year, but they're a little bit overdue for OMA. It's been 11 years now, so it's still good guidance in terms of what they what they're likely to do when they weigh in on these types of topics. But the general concept here is um excuse me, even a non-stutory committee, something that you put together, a body that you delegate certain functions to, there's a good chance that that body will have to adhere or observe what's in the open meetings act as well. A quorum, this language that you have before you is about as brand new language as it gets. You may be aware, you may recall that the legislature adopted the largest amendment or change to the municipal code in a few decades last year. And this is the way the language reads today. Majority of members of a governing body currently serving. They added that language right there in the middle. Currently serving. There are some hypotheticals that we might unpack a little bit later talking about what currently serving does to that language, but um suffice it to say uh as as Rachel noted a little bit

earlier, you've got enough folks here to conduct and transact public business tonight, which we're always happy to see. And the third action. What is action? Well, it's a little bit more than just voting on, for example, approving the agenda or the minutes from the last meeting of your governing body. It's also transacting, discussing public business. If you're doing that somewhere that's not here, you have to observe other requirements that are in the act. We might talk a little bit later about rolling quorums, how you can run into some issues that might fall out of compliance with the law there. But taking action is not just voting on something. Uh it also involves talking generally about the public business that you're conducting whether that happens here or outside of these meetings. Okay. Next big question is how? Well, the question courts are going to ask if what you're doing is ever being challenged is did the public know? Did the public know that you were doing their business? Well, the easiest way for the public to know is to conduct as much of it as possible in this setting. And so, public bodies have to provide certain things in advance. So, the folks who are here to observe uh how their tax dollars are working on their behalf need to get a few different things. First thing they need to have is meeting logistics that needs to happen as far in advance as possible. The DOJ did issue some guidance on this recently. They did the training in October, I believe, of last year. couple of changes they made or a couple of updates uh that you might see reflected in your OMA resolution is a requirement that notice go out 7 to 10 days in advance. Um 72 hours in advance for all meeting materials. It needs to be accessible. Most folks can drive here and sit in the audience. Some folks can't. So you need to make it available

for folks who lack the certain um uh you know lack certain abilities to be here otherwise. you need to make it accessible for people who have audiovisisual shortages that need to be made up for and um other ways to access it like broadcasting it online. That's what a lot of uh organizations and municipalities now do. Um the third really big thing you need to be is specific. We'll talk about a couple of examples of what looks unspecific and might be uh might be subjecting your municipality to challenge uh in a court. meaning folks have to be able to pick up one of these at the front of the room, read it, and understand what you're going to talk about during that portion of the meeting. Okay, couple of examples. I've put together a very, very basic agenda at the very top of that slide and I've got a couple of questions. Is item two sufficiently specific? Item two says approval of minutes from the March 21st, 2026 meeting. And that's just a hypothetical. Yeah, it probably is specific enough. What if it just said approval of minutes from last meeting? It's a little bit less specific, a little bit more uh open to challenge if someone alleges that they don't know what was going on or they didn't receive adequate accessibility or notice. How about that second question? Would it be appropriate for the governing body to approve a budget adjustment request during item four? What's item four? New business. What does that mean? Well, nothing if you don't describe it, right? One of the nice things about your agenda is when you go to new business, you see everything is described with particularity. If it just says new business and you just decide to talk about whatever you want to talk about, yeah, that's a really good way to have you challenged as not being in compliance with OMA. Here's one that comes up all the time.

Where should you put public comment? Now, a couple of things here to keep in mind. One, public comment's not actually required under OMA. Not a lot of people know that, but municipalities who do that, who provide the opportunity for their public to give input on their business, are doing a great service to the folks who are in their community. But I think if you're asking for my opinion, and it is an opinion because it's not in statute, but where you should put public comment as close to the beginning as possible. There's really two reasons for that. One, as electeds, uh, one of the most important things in your role is to be right here, uh, every other Tuesday or however you organize your meetings and sometimes be here late into the night to discuss really important topics for how those public dollars are going to be obligated. It's not the public's job to do that. So, don't put them at the end, right? The other consideration here is they may have things to weigh in on that could affect your vote later. Right? If you're voting on a really important topic later and you need to hear from the community, shouldn't you be hearing from them before the vote instead of after the vote? So, it's a respect and input issue that I think can uh really help you shine as brightly as you can uh by putting that as close to the very front as you possibly can. Does that make sense? Next big question, what happened? Right? What should be in the minutes? I get questions sometimes, how close to verbatim should minutes be? Um, there are competing schools of thought on this. The general best practice, current guidance is they shouldn't be verbatim. They should just describe with particularity everything that's included as an indent in this portion of statute which is date, time, place, attendees, proposals, and general records of decisions. Okay.

Okay. A few more examples on what we just talked about. We'll talk about um a couple of sentences that you might see something similar to in minutes of your public body and whether they're appropriate or whether they are dangerous to challenge. First one, member Doe moved approval of the agenda for the January 21st, 2025 meeting. After a vote, a majority of members approved the motion. What's missing there? What's that? The number.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you need a second, right? You need somebody else to weigh in on that. Number two, member Smith moved approval of minutes from a previous meeting. After a roll call vote, the members voted unanimously to approve. That one's a little bit better, but you might consider putting which previous meeting minutes were approved. Right? Sometimes meeting minutes are changed. Right? But if someone incorrectly puts who motioned first, who seconded, how the vote went, sometimes you have to amend those minutes. And if that's what you do, that should be spelled out here, too. See, member Jones moved approval of the contract for landscaping services. Member Green seconded the motion, and after a roll call vote, the members voted unanimously to approve. This one looks pretty good, right? You've got a first, you've got a second. There were no no votes. everyone voted in favor of it. As long it was noticed properly on the agenda and the public had an opportunity to weigh in on it, you're probably passing muster with a description like that in your minutes. Okay, another real hot topic in this area, closures. How do you close a public meeting? Well, you need a couple of things. Just like with any of the other criteria we talked about in the statute, you need a majority vote of a quorum, the legal authority needs to be clear and on record. There are only certain ways that you can close a public meeting. It has to fit in one of those buckets. The vote shall be open. You can't show up and say, "Well, we just decided to close a meeting, so we'll see you later or we'll see you whenever." And the vote of each member shall be recorded. So, what that last item means is you probably need a roll call vote of some

type if you're going to close. Scripts are a-ok. Okay. What I mean by that is, is it okay if you read something off of a paper citing the legal authority and providing the exact sentence to go into close session? Not only is it okay, I think it's a okay, I think you should do those things. Those are the types of things under OMA that get challenged the most. Did the governing body close the meeting? Did they have the sufficient legal authority? Did they go through the sufficient steps to close that meeting? Well, the best way you can do that is to talk to your clerk, city attorney, and read a script. And then that last piece is really important, too. Postclose session statement of no activity. What does that mean? Well, either at your next meeting or if you come back into open session to conduct other public business that you affirm for members of the public that you did not take any action in the close session. Why? because you can't. The only time you can take action is an open session. So, you need to cite that you took no action. And what's the second piece? This part's just as important. That you only discussed in close session the matters that were specified in the motion to go into close session. That one really insenses the judiciary. If you go into close session for X and Y, but then you end up talking about Z, A, B, C as well. Not good. That's one of the ways you can incur uh wrath that you didn't sign up for. Okay. What are the most common ways that organizations go into close session? Well, one is limited personnel matters. Hiring, promotion, dis demotion, dismissal, assignment, resignation, anything that fits under that criteria and the other of course is pending

litigation. Something you'll need to consider with respect to this exception to the open meetings act is it needs to be threatened or pending. You can't just dream up litigation that might happen a year from now. There needs to be something articulable that you can say, right? Did a plaintiff send you a torque claims notice? Did somebody tell the governing body, we're going to sue you if you don't do this? Is the litigation active? Pending is a really important prong, too. Do you just want to talk about litigation that happened a year ago and it's over with and nothing else has happened since then, but you just got to get some things off your chest? Not sufficient to close the meeting for that purpose because you're going to have a hard time showing that it was pending. Okay, I said we were also going to talk about the Governmental Contact Act 2 and how it ties to how it interrelates with OMA. There are a couple of sections here and again we're excering uh a presentation that can be much longer because there's rabbit holes in every part of each one of these statutes. But I've selected a couple of excerpts that I think are important to keep in mind. The first is conflicts of interest. Who gets to determine whether you have a conflict of interest? The answer is you. But the language in that statute says how to do it. Real or potential. Well, we can talk about what real ones are, but something that's not always thought about or remembered is potential.

Does it have to be actual for you to disclose it? No. You need to think a little bit further ahead. And some of these modifying words in statute, in regulation, in rule, in conduct codes, um, they're all over the place. And you can blame the legislature for that if you'd like. But I think there are generally three categories of conflicts that you should be thinking about all the time. Real, actual, or true. That's one category because that word, all three of those words are used sometimes to describe basically the same thing. Is the conflict actual? Well, then yes, you need to disclose that. What's the second word here? Potential. Maybe the conflict isn't real yet. Maybe it isn't actual yet, but it has potential to be a month, two months from now. Maybe you haven't acquired a financial interest in something, but you're about to. You need to think about that and you need to talk about it in this setting. The third category that you won't see here, but I think is just as important is perceived. Sometimes other folks on your governing body, on your commission, might perceive you to have a conflict of interest in a certain area. Sometimes the public might perceive that conflict too, even though it's not potential, even though it's not actual. That doesn't mean you can't participate in a vote on that subject, but you should be talking about it openly. You should acknowledge that there's a perception that there's a conflict and if it's not, explain why it isn't. Those are the sort of transparency interests and bonafides the courts want you to think about and want you to execute in your roles here. Confidential information. Where might confidential information be shared? Maybe between you and your attorney. Certainly in close session.

This portion of the statute implores you not to share confidential information elsewhere because it could impair the public's interest. If it's litigation, how could it impair the public's interest? Well, if you're sharing confidential information that makes plainif attorneys or plaintiff's position better in that litigation, yeah, that could harm the public interest. I realize because I'm a lawyer, those are the types of things I think about when I think of confidential information, but there's all kinds of things that fit under this umbrella. It doesn't just have to be attorney client privilege or attorney work product type information. Could be anything that's meant to stay within this group. Any data that uh you're working on that for other reasons under this same umbrella of statue that it's important to keep close to the vest. you got a specific section in the statute saying don't do it. Think about that. And then state agency or local government agency authority. When you're thinking about other sections of this statute and things like codes of conduct and rules of procedure, which we'll touch on in just a few moments, remember what's in statute's a floor. It's not like a ceiling. You can do more. You can be better. You can be more transparent. You can protect yourselves. and be uh more open than what the statute requires you to be. And I'm not just saying that because I think it's a good idea, which it is. I'm saying that because that's what statute says. Okay. Common challenges. We'll go through a couple of scenarios. Okay. You've got a 10 member governing body, obviously larger than the one that we're in the room with now. Considering adopting a resolution authorizing approval of a fee schedule

for municipal services. Six members are present, four vote yes, two vote no. Is the required quorum present? No. No.

Isn't it determined by your bylaws? Well, your bylaws can provide a uh can provide a higher uh a higher ceiling than the floor that's provided for in statute like what we just talked about. But what does the statute say today? Majority of members of the governing body currently serving is a quorum. All members present at a meeting are counted towards the quorum. So in that example we just gave, we're assuming all 10 are full, six are present. Is six more than half?

Yeah, you can require in your bylaws or your rules uh or your codes of conduct or your resolutions a different number. Some organizations do that. Uh but in a vacuum, yeah, six is more than half. And you'll see this you'll see some some interesting math exercises when you talk about quorums. This is not intended to go down some rabbit holes about how the math works, but more than half is the right term. And the reason for that is some folks on when presenting on these topics will say one more than half, but if you've got a five member governing body, half is 2.5. So unless there's a way to be a half person that I'm not aware of, that doesn't make any sense. So more than half is the way to think about it. And again, brand new language. I have boldfaced everything in subsection B of chapter 3, article 12, section two that went in there last year. Uh, one, currently serving to help with some of that math. Uh, and number two, all members present at a meeting are counted towards a quorum. There were open questions about, well, if the mayor's not voting on something, do they really count toward a quorum? And the answer is yes. At least it is today. Okay, scenario number two. Governing body goes into close session on a budget question about whether they can afford three additional FTE law enforcement officers citing the section of the open meetings act. What do we think? Is it okay to go into close session and discuss 3FT officers?

Nope. I would say no. Yeah, probably not. Right. It's probably not sufficiently specific for what's provided for here. I've been to quite a few DOJ trainings on this topic and unfortunately there's no black line they put anywhere in there, but you need to try to be as specific as possible. You need to try to say what their roles are. There's no requirement that you say what their names are when you're going into close session, but you should just say at the very least what you expect their roles to be. And you also have you also have some issues here with this is really not intended for budget related discussions. It's intended to provide primarily at least in this example for the hiring of a specific person, but it shouldn't be uh something that uh relates and or devolves into a discussion generally of what budget you have. But what about if you use this exception to consider discipline of a specific officer? Well, then yes, that what that that's what that section is designed for. Okay. Scenario number three. Commissioner wants to place on the agenda consideration of an ordinance providing for additional animal control regulations. Mayor disagrees. Says we don't need this ordinance. Well, who has the authority to add items to an agenda?

Two commissioners or one or the mayor?

Two commissioners or one mayor. See, that's a really interesting answer because it shows that you all have thought about how that works here in your community. Not every community does. Sometimes I receive some blank looks when I ask this question and that's okay. But the correct way to approach this is to think about it in advance. To answer this question specifically, I would put it in your rules of procedure. I would decide at the first business meeting each year how items are placed on the agenda so it never becomes a controversy. Have a discussion about it that meeting first, second or third week of January. Enshrine it formally and then you know and how would you handle this situation? Well, refer back to the rules of conduct that you passed earlier that year if you've done it correctly. Here's the section of state statute that I think you should rely upon to consider passing those rules of procedure subsection A5. Okay. Next scenario. Member White, I move we enter close session to discuss that one procurement case. What do we think? Is that sufficient?

No, probably not. I think the public could say, "We're not really sure what you're talking about." Why? Because the public probably doesn't have login to Pace or an Odyssey. They probably don't read a bunch of law blogs, but they might want to know what procurement case that is. What about if we said instead, I move we enter close session to discuss pending or threaten litigation on the Jones matter. Is that motion sufficient? Pending.

Well, it's better, right? But what are two things you still need? You need a specific citation to statute like we talked about earlier. And number two, it needs to be pending or threatened, right? We talked a little bit earlier. Did the case resolve two years ago? Probably not pending. Are you worried about a case that might happen, but no one's really indicated they're going to pursue litigation? Well, then it's probably not threatened. Okay. things that are less common but not uncommon. Rolling quorums. Has anyone heard that term before?

That's right.

Yeah. There's all kinds of ways you can create a rolling quorum and then all of a sudden find yourself out of compliance with OMA. What if you're exchanging a bunch of emails between each other about principally the same issue that will affect your community? Well, that's probably transacting public business in a way that requires notice, in a way that requires specificity, and in a way that requires the public to participate. You can do that through email. You can do that through text message. You can do that with phone calls. If you're a commissioner, if you're a member of a governing body, you should be able to rely on your staff to help keep you informed going into your public meetings. But as soon as you start talking to each other about it, remember soon as you get to more than half, then you're probably transacting public business in a way that you're not supposed to without all of those prerequisites we talked about a few moments ago. Recusals and abstensions. Um, I'm not going to pretend everyone enjoys the same things I do, but this was a big nerd out in in the legal community about two years ago. Are recusals and abstensions the same thing? No. No, they're not. There was there was a contingent that thought that it was, but thankfully I think we've we've resolved that tension or that disagreement. But no, they're not the same thing. And that's in statute now. Recusal's true or perceived. If you've got a true or perceived conflict and you have to recuse yourself as a result, what do you have to do physically?

Let people know. Not only do you have to let people know, but you have to leave the room. That's in statute. Last year, if you are recusing yourself from participation on an item, you literally cannot be in the same room as it's being discussed. Now, when I was with you at training, you always told us that you shouldn't abstain if you don't have to. You really should go one way or the other. That's correct. Okay. Right. I remember.

Um I don't want to suggest that abstensions are uh weaponized when I say that because I don't think they are, but you're in your role to weigh in on these topics. And sometimes it's uncomfortable to weigh in on these topics. Sometimes you might not want to weigh in on these topics. But unless you've got a really good reason uh to recuse or abstain, which is different, uh you should be weighing in, which requires a gay or nay vote on whatever that topic is on your agenda. The abstension is just the absence of a vote. You don't have a reason to recuse yourself because you don't have a conflict of interest, but you can't vote on that item for some other reason. Why was this a big topic? because I used to get into I won't call them arguments, but I'll call them spirited back and forths with other attorneys who uh uh thought for for some reason that abstensions went with the majority or counted as a no. Well, an abstension is the absence of a vote. So, if there's no vote, it's not a yes and it's not a no. So, an abstension is a non-conlict related reason that you can't vote. What kind of financial interests matter? Well, I mean, some language you might see in statute is a substantial financial interest, but I think you should disclose all, right? If it doesn't meet the thresholds that are described in statute, you should probably talk about it anyway, especially because some of those financial interests might result in a perceived conflict of interest and you're going to want to weigh in on that on the front end. That's much better than explaining why you didn't weigh in on it after a vote has taken place two, three, four months later. Who gets involved on enforcement related issues? Could be a lot of different

oversight bodies. Could be the DOJ. Could be the state ethics commission. Could be the district attorney. I know we're only talking about two sunshine laws here tonight, but section 199 of the procurement code makes willing violations thereof a felony. So, there are criminal implications. If you're not doing procurement correctly and you knew you weren't doing it the right way, what about the state ethics commission? They can refer for criminal prosecution or they can prosecute themselves. 250 civil monetary fine for each penalty up to $5,000. May not sound like a lot of money, but it's a lot of attention. It's a lot of time. What's the best way to not have to worry too much about who gets involved on enforcement? Heir on the side of openness. Heir on the side of transparency. Heir on the side of your public being as informed as they possibly can be as to what you're doing, how you're doing it, what your interests are, if there are any. Recusing at the right time, thinking about abstensions, making sure they know about meetings, making sure that the agendas are specific. making sure that when you're closing public meetings, you do it the right way. Making sure you're saying the right thing when you come out and doing everything you can to involve them in that process. There are some communities, one that I'm in the room with right now and governing bodies who I think do a really terrific job of elevating these interests, but you have to study them. I know I went on for about a half hour, so about one/4 of the time that you can spend talking in depth about some of these topics. And there are a lot more

examples, a lot more rabbit holes, and a lot more scenarios that are a lot more difficult than the ones we talked about here tonight. But that's why we implore you to take advantage of the programs that we provide on your behalf. Most of the time when I'm here, I'm here to talk about claims. we go into close session and obviously we can't talk about what happens in close session but they're designed to help keep you apprised as to how litigated matters are proceeding in your community but we have 36 events a year the next Molly I encourage everybody here who can attend to attend it's middle of June June 16th and 17th but I'm really glad that over the last couple of months I've had a chance to connect with Mayor McDonald as much as I have to say if you need one-on-one training if you want me to come and do a an an excerpt or a shortened version or hey, if you want me to do the long version instead, that's what we're here for. We enjoy doing these types of things. Sometimes there's a sense that the law never changes, but there were really material changes to the law. Just last year, the municipal code looks way different today than it did just two years ago. OMA is going to receive a new compliance guide, which means the Department of Justice may change how it interprets some of the best practices that I talked about here tonight. So, you probably need another one of these in case that uh that guide, which should be coming in the next couple of years, says something different than what the best practices guide they issued in 2015 says. There are more than two. We could do a whole section on IRA. The procurement code is 199 sections. That probably deserves its own two, three hours. But that's not what tonight is designed for. It's designed to give you general overview of things that you should consider when you're transacting public business. Not only because of the requirements to make things open,

transparent, and accessible to your community. uh but also how the governmental conduct code and uh act and rules promulgated thereafter um really ought to make you think twice about how important those things are. Mayor, I'm happy to take any questions, but um that's the long and short of it. Thank you. Any questions?

I I I have a comment. Uh, I've been to Molly 1 and Molly 2, which is the municipal lease training, and they do an excellent job. And I was never so focused in my life when I went. And they said, "The government's actually in your hands if you run it well." And if you mess up, like Clinton told you, you got to take responsibility for that. You have to take responsibility for your the decisions that you make. So, this is pretty serious. Uh and when I went to the training, I came back a a little bit more uh tenuous uh about what to say and what to do because these are all outlined uh for us and continual training like you just mentioned. We really need in professionalism. Uh there's usually accountability. People have to say, "Well, how'd you perform this year? How'd you do? How many mistakes did you make?" it wouldn't hurt us to go over these things uh and be accountable for the service that we we give to the public. Uh thank you again. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you, mayor. Uh thank you other members of the commission. I apologize. My voice is a little more nasely tonight. I'm on the back end of a non-contagious um infection, but I hope it wasn't too hard to listen to. But thank you so much. I hope to be back again soon and I hope to see uh uh folks here uh for Mali in a couple of months at which I'm sure I'll be doing something similar but probably a little slower.

All right, thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, next on the agenda, we have a presentation by the golf uh, course management update from Bradley from Michael Bradley, the golf course uh, superintendent and Belinda Bass, parks and recreation director. Madame Mayor, commissioners, Dr. Hernandez, I like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss something that I hope is near and dear to everyone's heart here, and that is Desert Lakes Golf Course. your municipal golf course. I arrived in August.

Louder, please. Could you

got you? Sorry. I arrived in August of 2023 and found that the greens te's had uneven surfaces, large bare spots, and were infested with poa annua, bermuda, bermuda, and other grasses. The irrigation pumps were in extreme state of disrepair and imminent failure. Leaks, breaks throughout the golf course. Large areas had been shut off by previous staff. Some valves have been removed entirely, meaning that large sections of the irrigation irrigation system had to be shut down to complete the repairs. Mowers out of adjustment with reels that have reportedly had not been sharpened for approximately 5 years were in use. Incorrect mowers for the types of surfaces being mowed. For example, green mowers on TE's and collars, rotary mowers being used for TE's and green surrounds. Many of the pieces of equipment were broken or inoperable. Sprayers were missing components. fairway mower that could not be adjusted. There was no management PRA program in place in August of 23. No planned mowing schedule. The watering schedule was sporadic, partly due to the pump issues and partly due to perceived water and availability. Long times between soil aeration on greens and teas and the course in general were there. More than a year had passed since the previous aation. Soil testing was conducted to find what was in the soil and what was not. They reflected extremely high levels of salt over 2,000 ppm. The uh high levels of trapped nutrients bound up in the high levels of salt making the soils nonfunctional.

increasing compaction. It made the organic matter irrelevant. The cation exchange capacity or CEC was nonfunctioning. And that's critically important because it's the movement of the actual nutrients and particles in the soil to the plants. Water testing was conducted to find out what was in the soil and or water and what was not. And the water levels themselves have a high level over 1,000 parts per million of salt. The water is alkaline. The water is hard due to the high levels of calcium carbonate. After analyzing the soil and water test results, the following conclusions were drawn. Much fertilizer had been added to the course that remains in the soil and cannot be absorbed by the plants due to the being bound by the high salt content of the water and by transfer the soil. Previous management had followed the philosophy excuse me that the course just needed water and fertilizer without understanding the aon the aronomy or agonomics or how to make the nutrients available to the grass by flushing out the salts. So the first six months fixing the systems, the new Rainbird irrigation pumps were installed. This was put into motion by previous staff but overseen by the current staff. The new pumps were very powerful. The old pipes suffered drastically. We had multiple failures. implementing the new management plan, course care, equipment maintenance, properly training employees on equipment usage, treatment applications, and course care 101. There's a photo of one of the new pumping stations that was installed.

2024, the plan and design of the new irrigation system began. Rainbird pitsy training for myself and the irrigation tech. Trialled and implemented in products to improve the water and soil quality. Reed and plugged many of the greens. Spent much time fixing or attempting to fixing leaks that plagued the the system after the installation of the new system. 18t box is a prime example of that. the new pumps with the same water. The uh these phenomenal pumps that we have brought us consistent water, but the water that we have drastically affected the pumps and the filters. The picture on the left is an actual filter screen that resides inside that stainless steel tube that says Rainbird. Both stations have them. They were both ruined by our water. Now they have was it was completely warrantied by Rainbird and we're under uh different types of products trying to to alleviate all of these issues. 2025 the installation of the new irrigation system began and completed in October. CFM CMF global HDP HDPE welding certification. All the new piping in the ground is HDPE. Six of the staff were trained and certified to weld HDPE pipe. Pump house renovations began for the health and longevity of the pumps. We received three new mowers, two greens mowers and a T collar mower. And the automated effluent water intake system installation began.

There are a few photos there of the actual irrigation process and supplies being dropped off and HDP welder. You can see that the uh the top left picture was what the pump house looked like prior to renovations and the rest of them are how it looks now. 2025 continued. The maintenance uh building received an electrical service upgrade to accommodate tools that we use real grinders, welder, air compressor, equipment testers, as well as safety. Uh Otterbound, the Otterbine are pond fountains. We have a testing station that allows for repair inhouse and to test before it goes out in the field. It was installed There's a picture of it on the right along with one of our new boxes in the maintenance facility. Programming the new irrigation computer system. Every sprinkler has a barcode and a special identifier. Every sprinkler has to be scanned and imported into the system and can be monitored from the main computer. The irrigation tech superintendent can control the system for maps on their work phones. Watering rates are carefully monitored and adjusted according to need. This changes according to weather and seasonal factors. Greens are monitored with the use of Spectrum Technologies TDR 350s which is a handheld moisture meter. The weather station was installed to work with the irrigation system as well. The left picture is the TDR being used.

Chemical injection started on the back nine. Uh the injection into the irrigation system after the pump to improve the quality of water to flush salt from the soil to make fertilizers in the soil more readily available to the plants. We are now hitting our stride with a new irrigation system, new influent controls, new quality, water quality measures and more. The windmill projects are complete providing air diffusion from the bottom to the top helps improve water quality and will help in reduce the actual odor from the water eventually. Aeration on the back nine with the otterbines we are at completion. They provide aation on the surface and near surface keeping all the water moving helps to improve the quality and again will reduce odor over time. There's a few pictures of the windmill process with their diffusers being placed airators. What is happening right now? The effluent intake system is progressing at 75%. The SCADA automatic control valves or valves that control the water intake are in the ground installed. Some software and electrical remain to be done. When it's completed, it will mean it will mean that we have no more overnights for the staff to open and close valves to fill the ponds and that the the ponds stay at level. Toro sprayers have been repaired, upgraded, and are back in use. Used primarily to apply PGRs, some pesticides, and fertilizers. Most of the seed ordered for the course

receding has arrived, and the new cedar that was ordered in 2025 is arriving in 543. It should be here tomorrow around noon. There's some uh pictures of the actual effluent water intake system valves that are in ground and controls that are in place currently and the seed and that's a picture of our cedar that we do not have yet. The irrigation uh what's happening now continued is our irrigation system audit. It ensures that the system is functioning correctly. It calibrates sprinkler through throw, rotation and water applied. We use a USGA water conservation playbook. It's a resource used by golf turf professionals amongst others. Part of the best management is part of our best management program and aids in the evapo transpiration calculations to determine water application rates and more. There are some tools used in the audits. Solutions are sought and uh for our unders sized and clogprone pump intake components. We have found solutions and are process being purchased and delivered that will allow us to pump at full capacity with self-cleaning mechanisms will keep the pump supplied with adequate water while preventing shutdowns from clogs. Added bonus well they will actually uh aid in surface irration. The greens arification went really well this spring.

The uh sand bunkers are completely edged. We have some chemical edging to do, but as far as the primary cut edge, it is finished. Car path edging is actually ongoing now. We uh used our Monday maintenances or maintenance Mondays rather to uh rehabilitate part of the chipping green in a sand bunker at the chipping green as requested by some patrons. What's happening continued the maintenance building improvements phase two was actually office expansion to house irrigation and SCADA control computers in a climate and dust controlled environment. Maintenance shop improvements phase three is enlarging the equipment maintenance area including a grinding machine area separate from the shared workspace health and safety compliances pump houses. We are in the process of preparing to actually add shed additions to each pump station that will house the chemicals that are injected into our irrigation system because the pump stations. There's no room inside those buildings for these chemicals and they need to be protected from the sun elements and bandals or curious animals or whomever. Um the chemical storage improvements we with proper uh ventilation and proper storage features we can come into compliance. The shop renovation uh phase four is planned. It's to separate the employee break room from the actual equipment

maintenance area. We'll provide a heated and cooling area for the employees which is required for worker safety compliance. We'll provide a clean area free from fumes, dust, noise, and debris from the adjacent adjacent equipment maintenance area. We'll also pro serve as a training room. There's some po photos of how it exists right next to our um maintenance. So, as the golf course superintendent, I keep um business cards at the pro shop for them to hand out if anybody has any concerns. I hold in office meetings and on the course meetings and meet with the pro shop staff uh to answer any questions or address any concerns. Uh and when when we know in advance uh typically we'll put out the custom polls and flags for special events and holidays. Our BMP is best management practices. It is tailor made for the Desert Lakes Municipal Golf Course. It is climate, cultural, and sightsp specific to us. It's a guide for the staff to be efficient in an environmentally sustainable manner. It's currently on display in the maintenance facility and the park and recreation director's office. It will soon be on display at the pro shop and we are working trying to work towards an online version. We are we have revisited the master plan that was uh passed in 2024 for the golf course. Some issues have been addressed. Others need revisiting. Specific items to revisit in the master plan or the greens conversion. The sooner the

better. Bunkers. Conversion of several sand bunkers to grass bunkers. The driving range project is a high priority. and old number four, the Greened Fairway. We want to improve the entire practice area for structured practice. And when completed, we would like to uh put a plaque dedicated to Grant Dow for his years of service to the development of golf in Alamagordo representing you as the superintendent. I am the president of the real grand golf course superintendent association which is the charter of the golf course superintendent association of America. I am chapter delegate and grassroots ambassador for the golf course superintendent association of America board member of the southwest turf grass association. We were asked to uh participate in several events locally. I was asked to serve on the APS agricultural education CTE advisory board. We had a booth at the A uh Alamordo public school career day. We're planning on being involved in the career day on NMSU local campus in conjunction with Career Quest USA and the spring FFA convention in Los Cusus. We are planning what what may likely be the state's very first first green project for September and it's a walking learning lab on the science of golf that we use daily in turf management and we have programs available for all grade levels. The state of New Mexico has never had one.

All of these are trying we're trying to do to actually grow the workforce. Let people know, hey, there's a career in golf. There's a career in the city's golf course. There's something you can do outside of what you don't know. And that's the end of my presentation. Um, do you have any questions? Mike. Oh, yes. So, uh, we met a couple weeks ago. Yes, sir.

One of the main concerns you had right now with the watering process. A lot of people don't understand or or don't know the the spin cleans are probably a big issue. They're huge. You were talking for what three weeks? Well, we're still probably uh four to five weeks. Honestly,

I know I know that the order's been placed, but when we placed the order, everyone else was placing orders and I don't know um the pecking order or you know how many were put in in in place before us. Um they were hopeful say four weeks, but I'm I'm still going to I'm five to six is realistic in my mind. We're still trying to track down other components. We had uh a company that was supplying the hose that said they could supply the hose and they couldn't. They were wrong and uh so we're looking at other possibles right now, but that we should have that nailed down this week. Yeah, I know. I've tried to uh communicate all all the pl our pumping issues to the pro shop. um so that if they have if they get addressed or if they get asked a question, they can address it as well and because they're quite helpful with that. Anything else?

I just wanted to say thank you uh for what you do. Uh you've got your handiwork out there for everybody to pick on and I appreciate what what you do for it. So I did have a question uh as far as the irrigation project. What did you learn from that? I think

you going to be honest. I believe I believe things were done out of order prior to uh myself and even Belinda coming on board because you know we were blessed with finance grants and um everyone knew that well okay we the pumps are are hideous. I mean they they were bad. I mean, honestly, if you were to walk around them once they got out of the ground, you would think, "Woo, I'm glad I had a tetanus booster." Because they were horrible. And when we actually cleaned out the wet wells for those units, there wasn't sediment from like pond water. It was rust and decayed metal. It's what we brought out. So, they were in bad shape, but I I feel that uh I don't know if it was a knee-jerk reaction, but I think maybe going with the purchase through CES was a mistake because that that set us back probably, I don't know, $350,000 right off the top that we could have used elsewhere. But as everything else I I think went really well. It's you know last year we we drained the ponds, tore apart the spin cleans, which maintenance I don't know when had it, you know, there's no records of when it was done before. uh had everything functioning flawlessly and they seemed to work for uh about three months before they were starting to show uh issues. And in all honesty, the spin cleans that existed when those

were bought, they were rated and constructed, regardless of how they're what material, they were meant to be in clean water. And our water is anything but clean. We're addressing that with what we have now and it'll we'll be able to throw all kinds of water because I am itching to put all that seed in the ground and we've got lots of it. Um but yeah, I hope that did that answer your question? Yes, sir. Thank you.

Uh another question I had for you as far as the history of affluent water use on the course and the present and what you think the future looks like. How would you describe it? Well, uh, if I'm not going to go back to the slide, but if you remember the slide on the analysis of the water, it was over 1,000 parts per million. Now, I don't I don't uh I can't tell you how much that fluctuates in my testing. I gave an average. The soil, however, is over well over 2,000 parts per million. And the while the water level itself isn't concerning as far as it would be if you were to drink it obviously, but um cuz salt water's 35,000 parts per million. But over the the number of years we've used it, it has made the soil nonresponsive, nonsupportive to much life. the the the plants that are hanging on are hanging on. Um some areas are actually doing better because they receive overspray from when we're putting out acids to wash rinse through and to help alleviate the salts. It will get better when we're actually able to completely pump through. But with any, you might as well say it's a hazardous chemical. With any acid, you have to have a reliable system. And when the when the pump can't put out the water and it shuts down, but the actual chemical pump doesn't know that,

you'll build up a pressure of acid in your line. And it's far too new of a system to actually, you know, start eating holes in. Um but its effect on the soil the water is drastic. The the chemicals that I have used or plan to use and started to use for a few months last year I saw really quick results on the backline. that it treats the water and the soil. And the rates we're going to put it out will cure the soil as close to being normal in a year, 12 calendar months, not not a season obviously cuz we could probably push it, but why why hurt the the existing plants? But it will actually help trees thrive. everything every vegetation on the the course will get better for it. Um then the next year it's just treating the water so that expense goes down.

Thank you. Yes, Mike. Real quick. Thank you. Mike, real quick. So, for our new commissioners, and there's three potential um managers in here, can you just give a 60-second elevator speech? Your background, your education, just

uh Yes. Uh I started in golf in uh actually started in high school in 1989 and caught the bug. graduated from the Murray State University in Bachelor of Science and Agriculture in the area of aronomy with an emphasis in fine turf management and have worked consistently in golf with the exception of 10 months that I tried to escape it and failed miserably and came back because when you love something, you stick with it. Um, and I truly love the golf course and I I truly love making it presentable and playable to the golfers and the community of Alamogordo because that's what they deserve and it will only get better. Now, as soon as we can start pumping water and put seed in the ground, you know, I'm anxious to see everything turn around. I have a question, but it's for Belinda.

Pardon? I said I have a question, but it's for Belinda.

How you doing? Good. You uh out of the presentation that you did last year, uh all the things that you wanted to implement, where are we at on any of those?

So, actually, this presentation did address quite a bit of that. So, we've got the windmills, the aiation is going. We're still seeking grants and funding for the pond realigning and for the um driving range improvements. Uh so, those are kind of some of our big things. One of them is for the NPDES compliance and one of those is just to offer kind of that golf adjacent activities and we need new driving range nets for other obvious reason reasons. So, we're we've never stopped working towards those things. We're constantly seeking out funding, uh, putting our names in the hat for any anything that comes up that we can apply for.

Anything else for me? Thank you.

Okay. Um, next on the agenda, we have the presentation for the RFP 2026 001 Golf Course Operation and Management Services. Um, they are as follows. Maximum Golf, American Golf, and Keer uh, Keer Sports Management. So um so Maxim Golf will go first and if um America American golf and camper sports can follow Belinda to the conference room. So maximum golf and then keer and

yeah following your instruction. So for procurement purposes just so everyone understands that we have to keep them kind of sequestered so that no one company has the benefit of hearing some of the questions and everything's fair and equal. So that's why Maxim will go first then they'll leave the room. We'll have the next presenter come up. They'll leave the room. Then we'll have the next presenter come up and then um on I after that they can all come back into the and watch our riveting meeting. So hello. Hello. If you'll introduce yourself.

Thank you madame mayor and uh honorable commissioners and staff. And I think what I'm looking at is a lot of golf interested citizens in the room which I think speaks well about the community and and golf here in the community. Uh my name is Brian Menace. I'm the founder and principal of Maxim Golf. Uh Maxim Golf U is a golf management company. We're located in Kansas, but we operate throughout the Midwest uh and into the Mountain West. And so that's a very flattering picture of me there. That's from several years ago. Uh and I have with me today Griffin M, director of marketing. So we're we're just really thrilled. First of all, we want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to come and be with you and share with you a little bit about our company. I also had the awesome experience of eating some pistachio ice cream today for the very first time in my life in the comfortable shade of the world's largest uh pistachio. So, I thought that was pretty cool. So, uh you have a beautiful community. Griffin came down and visited um uh a couple weeks ago and looked at the golf property. And so uh you know, we I think we've identified a lot of the challenges that uh the golf course property uh faces. Uh but I want to spend a little bit of time telling you about us and who we are and and what we do. And so, uh, our company primarily is focused on small city municipal golf management projects. Uh, we have 22 properties in our organization. I I own four, a couple in the Kansas City area, one in central Missouri, and one out, uh, in a suburb of Salt Lake City. Uh, but the rest of our properties all lie in small cities. And by small city, I mean cities of about 40,000 people or

less. And we've devoted our time doing that uh since the inception of Maxim Golf. I've spent my life as a as a golf uh professional and golf operations professional. Uh I started I grew up in Chilikati, Missouri. None of you know where Chilikathy, Missouri is, but Oh, you do, Madam Mayor. Well, well, it's the home of sliced bread. So, just FYI, want you to make sure you know that. Uh, but uh uh my grandfather put a golf club in my hand at the age of four and and I fell in love with it and I was very fortunate to grow up in a small city that had a golf course. Chelatti is about 10,000 people and it you know it changed my life. Um, and it gave me obviously not only uh a vocational uh direction in my life, but gave me the opportunity to compete as a as a young student athlete, uh, as a college athlete, as a plane professional, uh, not a very good one, by the way. And so, at the age of 23, I did what I thought all washed up professional golfers did. I went to Phoenix, Arizona, and started teaching golf to other people. And that set that really set me on a direction uh for the rest of my vocational life. And so I had the great fortune of working for two very instrumental people in my life and in Phoenix in my time my 12 years in Phoenix. One is Henry Deloer and um the other is Sephil Ravenswood and they they they really taught me what the golf industry is about. And so I tell all 300 plus of our uh team members that we're not really in the golf business. We are in the people business. Golf is a place uh that is instrumental in bringing people together uh from all walks of life, all backgrounds, and all ages. I mean, where else and what other sport can you think of that a year-year-old

grandmother can play golf with a 10-year-old grandson? Um I've got six grandkids and we drive them by things like basketball courts and baseball fields and they say, "Come on, papa. let's go do that. And I look at that and think that looks exhausting. But golf is something that, you know, crossgenerational people can do together. I think the other thing that's important to understand is what golf does for communities. Uh this golf course provides an unbelievable amount of important activities for people in this community and visitors to this community. It supports uh obviously charitable fundraising efforts. It uh supports student athletes. And by the way, uh the Tigers uh are are pretty good. You have an unbelievably good 5A golf program here in your community. And that's something you should be very very uh proud of. Um, my concern and and the reason that I have focused my uh these last years of my vocational life on this work is because golf in small communities, a lot of people don't know this, but uh 22% of all the golf courses in the United States live in communities of 30,000 people or less, 25 miles away from a major metropolitan market. And when golf when a golf course closes in Kansas City or wherever, it's a sad day. But when they close in communities this size, they they rarely ever come back. And the ripple effect of the community is devastating. And so that's why we focused that. I previously was the chief operating officer of the seventh largest golf course company in the United States called Great Life Golf. And when we sold the company uh when I was 50, I decided I want to spend the rest of my time giving back and working on golf uh in this in these particular markets because it's very

very important uh that we have it. And so I just wanted to say that to you just so you understand kind of what's driving us uh to do what we do. And so uh you can see that if somebody wants to go to the next slide that's a little bit about us. Um what's that? Yeah. You want to do this one? Yeah. Okay. Griffin Mod. Everybody, he's a good guy.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Um I'm actually gonna go off script here for a sec. Just the way that he spoke about um how he grew up in golf is is when I think about growing the game. Um I got my first golf club when I was 7 years old from a head pro at a municipal golf course that's no longer here anymore. And I really didn't put the pieces together until I was just listening to him. But um I was in Massachusetts when I was growing up and and my wife and I just moved into our first house. Um, and like that my parents dropped off all the boxes of stuff that I had stored up at their house and with that was my seven iron from back in the day. Um, it just brought back so many memories of of how much I love the game, how much I got to spend time with my dad out there. Um, and here I am 20 years later still working in the golf industry and and how much of an impact that had. So, we really have a huge focus on trying to um, not only get young golfers into the game, but just all golfers into the game because it provides an experience um, just that that's really unmatched. Like Brian said, you can't go out and play tackle football at 65 years old anymore, but you can go out with your grandson, you can go out with your, you know, your son and, you know, three generations or even four sometimes are able to go out and play together. So, what we do at our company is we want to remove the the barriers to entry. Um, at a lot of our courses, we have free rental clubs. So, that way those people who can't afford them or just don't have them and want to try out the game for the first time, they are able to go out and see the golf course and actually, you know, try and swing a few times, um, see if they like it. And then um it's also just familyfriendly that allows you know the youth to get together and just everyone to come out to the golf course um and spend time together.

Yeah. It's important to understand that, you know, if you want to teach your child to play basketball, you can go to Walmart and buy a $20 basketball and find a hoop and do it. Uh if you want to teach them to throw a baseball, you can go buy a $5 baseball and a $25 glove and teach them to do it. golf, junior golf is a challenge, right? It's a $200 set of junior clubs and a $100 golf class. And so we we we work hard to remove those barriers and and that's worked very well for us. So um you know, at Maxim, we strive uh to make sure that we provide a very high level and friendly environment. And I think we've been I think we've been tremendously successful. You know, the mission at G Maxim Golf is to provide the highest level of quality golf, recreation, and social experiences possible, and I think we do a great job of that across our brand. Our our team members are committed to our mission, and they work very hard to do that. I think, you know, um I don't think that's a challenge here. I I think, you know, u only met them briefly. Griven's had a chance, but guys like Grant and uh Jason uh you know they've devoted their lives here uh I think 30 some years I think you told me Grant um and you know our visitation even today to the golf course is it's a friendly and inviting place and that's something you should be proud of and I think that that's I think that that really um has been embodied there. Uh I think the biggest challenge obviously there in in you know moving the golf course forward are not so much the continuation of these things. I mean obviously we care about you know we have a we have a saying in our company that we will be neatly kept swept and scrubbed at all times. And so we we have we have really good practices to do that. Always tell people too if you want to know a little bit about us you know

our our portfolio is online. I know we were asked to provide references, but we would encourage anybody that wants to know more about us to simply just call any one of our clients and ask them how do we operate? What do we like? What do we like to work with? Um what are our people like? How do how do our team members respond uh to people that come to our facilities? We don't care who you call. And I think you should be able to do that, right? It's easy to get maybe one or two I even I can get one or two people to like me. So, uh, to get a reference, uh, is to me it's meaningless. It's really about being able to call all of our clients and find out how we work consistently across the board. And I think, you know, from what I can see that that that's not the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge really, I think, in growing uh growing the revenues and growing the demand for this golf course um are getting the golf course in really good shape. And I I listened to uh Mr. Bradley's presentation and I agree with it. I I think the challenges that we see at the golf course um they they are significant and they're holding the golf course back uh from from being a a real destination location. You have one of the coolest destination opportunities just on the outskirts of your community here at White Sands. And I I know that there's a lot of visitors that come to this community uh to again see the world's large largest pistachio. And uh the other the other great things about this community and some of those people are golfers, right? More than 10% of them are and you want them to come to a place that you can feel very proud of and th those things can be fixed. And it sounds like this city uh has made a tremendous amount of investment to get that done. And I think that you know we want to say something about our

you know our proposal to you is that you know we we are known for excellent agronomics in our in our company. I think I have three of the the best agonomic leaders anywhere in the country and Toby Burkhard and Brian Nearman and Matt Reinhardt. And you know while we presented a proposal that says that we would manage the golf operations as as one type or you know proposal A and proposal B that we would manage the golf operations and the agonomic operations if that's something the city want us to do. I want to be clear that proposal A and proposal B offer our services to help and work with Mr. Bradley and work with Miss Bass to get the golf course in the best possible condition it can be in. We bring a lot of intelligible resources to the table to help them do that. And many hands make a heavy load light. And I think that the more acumen you have uh in the room uh is is helpful. We don't necessarily need to have control of it uh but we would like to be a support structure for it. And so if if we're fortunate enough to be awarded the opportunity, uh we we want to be an active participant in helping the golf course be the absolute best it can be. And so uh couple other things that we do I think are unique to us. I started a program several years ago called Veterans Ventures. Veterans Ventures really what it does is it transitions military veterans to civilian golf careers. And while it's while I founded the program, it's not a maximum golf initiative. It's a it's a golfwide initiative. There are a lot of major companies that participate with us, but basically what we do is we work with veterans that say, "I have an interest in working in the in the golf

industry." And so what we do is we employ them through a one-year apprenticeship. We pay them. We put them through a one-year online uh vocational training program through Mid-American Nazarine University. We pay for it all and for any veterans that need to, you know, need to move close to one of our golf course opportunities, uh we help them with their housing costs. So, it costs these veterans nothing to get involved. We love hiring veterans. Uh these veterans to a tea, uh they know how to get up early. They work really really hard. There's no job that they're not willing to do typically and um they are very purposeful. I think they've learned that um you know maybe it's an aid in some of them but they certainly learned that through their military training and their time serving our country and we think this is one of the best ways we can give back to the people who've given us the freedom to you know operate and provide golf to our communities. And so um yeah so here's kind of what we think it looks like. uh the first 90 days obviously working with staffing um you know again I don't know if these guys would ever want to work for us but we would certainly love for them uh we would certainly love for them to do so. Um I think you've got I think you've got some really talented people here and I think that that would be tremendous uh to have that opportunity to talk to them about that. But obviously getting staffing in place. Um system of alignment. I think you use four up system which is great because that's what we use universally at our properties. So that's great that really no transition to be made there. And then Griffin is a brilliant marketer. I think if you just go online and look at Maxim Golf and look at our properties, look at our social media platforms, you'll see that we are very

very good at promoting ourselves to golf interested public. um 3 to 12 months uh launch clinics and community programs help the city with capital planning and revenue growth. We work with all of our cities uh again, you know, all 14 of them to help them strategically plan for the future. There's nothing worse than coming into a budget year with a major problem than you hearing about it for the very first time. And so we're we're really good at looking out ahead and trying to get an understanding of the infrastructure needs that the golf course is going to have. And it's going to have some. You've been facing a tremendous amount of them recently. Uh and you made some significant investments and those investments need to be protected and preserved. So uh again, thank you for having us. We're probably not the best presenters, but at the end of the day, I would leave you with this. People ask us all the time, what why have we had success? And and I will tell you why. It's because we are very missiondriven. We love what we do. We wake up every day. Um, I own the company and founded it and I'm here. I'm the person you will call when you have a concern, a criticism, uh, a compliment, a hope, or whatever it might be. I'm the person that gets the phone call. I'm That's why I'm here today. I could have sent Griffin and a couple guys and a couple girls that look a lot better than I do and probably speak better than I do. But that that's really I think the secret of the success of our company is that all of us are very very involved. We consider these type of opportunities a real privilege. And the other thing is we work really hard. This is what we do. We work really hard uh at making it great because this is the mission for us. We're not in the golf business. We're in the people business and changing people's lives and that's what G provides to people. It changes their lives. So, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Um I was just going to ask the question. Do do we want everybody all of the uh companies in at the same time to ask the questions or or because I have quite a few. You can ask now or if you can ask at new business when you get to that item, it's your call. Okay. Okay, then go ahead. And now the procurement person says now. Thank you. Okay. Um the first question does anybody else have? No, go ahead.

Uh the first question is um uh tell us a course uh like ours that you've improved and what were your numbers before and after in the revenue growth in the rounds played in the expense control and the timeline? Yeah, Neoso, Missouri would be a great example. Spring Valley. It's the name of the course in Neossho, Missouri. What's that? We just rebrand. Yeah, we just rebrand. It used to be called Neoso Golf Club.

Keep me Keep me online. Keep me on track here. Um, you know, when we took over the golf course, it had significant golf course condition issues. Um, not not as probably as severe as as you have here, Desert Lakes, but but pretty severe. Um we've been there about two and a half years. Um revenues are up about $350,000 year over last year. So it was it was ekking out about $500 $550,000 when we got there and uh this year it'll do just under $900,000 in revenue. It sits in a community of 12,000 people. Uh the rounds played I believe we did Griffin you might know better than I do but somewhere around 14,000 and I believe we're right at 21 or 22,000 rounds today. I think Green Hills and Chilikadi is a great example. Um Green Hills when we took it over um I don't remember what the revenue was. I think it was around 380,000 $400,000. uh this year it'll do just over uh 3/4 of a million dollars. Uh it was losing uh sustained loss of anywhere from $150,000 to $250,000 a year. U and we have cash flowed the last four out of five years operating that golf course. In the year we didn't cash flow and back in 24 we lost I think $31,000.

Okay. Um the next question is um what authority do you need and uh what stays with the the the city?

Well, we consider ourselves partners with the city. Um, now it's fair to say that we we managed some city operations where I think maybe we got hired because the city manager uh in one of the smaller communities got tired of answering phone calls about the size of hot dog buns and um you know what's going on on number four green and things like that. And so uh but we we are partners with the city. It's your asset. We work for you. That's the bottom line. We work for you. Uh we're going to advise you. We're going to hope that you take our advice, but when you want to do something specific with your asset and you believe that's in the best interest of the property that you own and the taxpayers, then we will unshath our swords and we will start swinging it in that direction to the best of our ability. But a collaborative effort is always best. It's always best to have a really strong collaborative effort between the city and a third party management company like ourselves.

And does that include um you know anything that is uh dealing with pricing control uh staffing decisions uh vendor selections and private parts? So yes. So that's that's a complicated question. So let me talk about pricing controls first. Um we use uh at all of our properties except for one, we use a yield management dynamic pricing structure. This is where the golf industry is today. You should yield manage it. Uh you don't know uh what's what's the fiscal budget year here? Is it a calendar year or is it a what when does it start? July 1st to June 30th. July 1st to

July 1st to June 30th. Just like in Moly, Missouri. I can tell you that on June 30th, uh, when budgets have to be in place, there's no way that you have any idea what your golf course is really going to be worth on October 3rd or March 5th of the following year. It's impossible to know. There's all kinds of things that can affect that. That's why when you buy an airline ticket or stay in a hotel, it depends on when you book, when you're going to stay, how far in advance you did it, and that's the way golf tea times should really be uh sold to the public. But again, that's a decision uh for this council really to determine whether or not those tea times can be yield managed. But they certainly have influence. I find, you know, the customer sets the value of any anything and everything. We might think we set the value, but our members and patrons, they really set the value. They're the ones that write the check and pay the green fee, whether it's 30 or 40 or $60 or whatever the case may be. And so, they they kind of vote um on whether or not it's priced correctly or not. And we like that flexibility because it helps us move up and down. when it comes to procurement uh and vendors uh again the city city would have control over that if there's anybody they did not want to do business with or specifically wanted to do business with I owned uh a very prominent club in Lawrence Kansas called Alvar Country Club I was one of many shareholders but I was the operator of it and uh we we hired a golf management company Billy Casper Golf not in business anymore so I can I can call them out by name and they came in and said, "We only buy Office products from Office Depot. We have a national account with Office Depot." And we had an Office Depot in town. And I argued with him. I said, "The problem is we have a member

named Bobette Peterbball who owns Minute Man Press Office Supplies. And it's she's going to probably be about $600 a year more to buy office supplies from Bobette from versus Office Depot. But we should do it because Bobette spends like $15,000 a year at the golf course. She holds her Christmas party here. She has a golf tournament here, right? She's a loyal, committed patron. And um they said, "Well, that's not how we do it." And uh Bobette took her $15,000 a year and joined Lawrence Country Club across the town. It's a terrible decision. And so we we we will avail all of the procurement. And obviously when it comes to buying golf cars, when it comes to, you know, working with food vendors, when it comes to working with golf shop merchandise vendors, we have a lot of buying power and we want to extend that opportunity to the operation, but we don't mandate it. And then uh staffing uh in our contract, if anybody's looked at, we provided a sample contract. We allow for the approval uh so a joint approval of the head golf professional or director of golf whatever those titles may be a food and beverage director and a superintendent. So in other words the way it works is you can't make me hire somebody I don't want to hire and I I can't make you hire somebody I can't hire somebody you don't want to hire. So maybe there's a reason, right? And so we have a collaborative agreement in the contract that says on these key leadership positions we will agree that the person that we are hiring is both acceptable to you and acceptable to us. I think I think I answered all three of yours mayor.

And then um the next question is what incentives do you have to actually improve performance? And that's in the areas are they uh paid um uh flat fees, revenue share and performance bonuses. Yeah. So we do a performance bonus. We've done them two ways. We've done bottom line performance bonuses and topline performance bonuses. I think in this particular instance, a topline performance bonus makes sense. So what we would do is look at your historical revenues over the last several years. We would set a benchmark and again I I don't remember it was a million. What anybody am I allowed to engage the audience here? Sorry. A million three is that per for what?

Well, let's call it total golf revenues. It's the total revenues coming in. Total revenues including food and beverage are nearly 2 million.

Okay. 2 million, let's say. Okay. And if we have responsibility for all those, we might say that, okay, if we get to 2.2 million, we get 10% of that difference, right? So, in that case, it'd be $100,000 or $200,000. I can't remember what example I used there, but we would get 10% of that as an incentive bonus. And that's something we work on collaboratively in the contract. But yeah, we love incentive bonuses. I think it's great. We incentivize all of our people. We pass those bonuses down to the people that make them happen so that they're motivated to do well. But the ultimate motivation is to have a long-term relationship. Maxim Golf has never lost a client. everybody. Anybody else that's got some wood, please knock too probably get a call tomorrow. Um, but I think that's because we again we the ultimate motivation is to have a longstanding relationship and renew those agreements year-over-year. That's the ultimate motivation is to do something really spectacular and really special with this golf property so that it makes it really hard for you to fire us at the end of the term of the contract. And my uh final question, I do have more, but for the uh the time frame that we're in,

oh, let him wait. I know I know most of those guys. Uh what does the transition from the current uh contractor to your management company look like?

Well, we always we always say it takes 90 days to make a really true transition. uh it's just it's not a snap of the fingers by any by any stretch. We can begin operating um immediately, but a true transition uh involves things that that are ongoing that they can't be determined at the deadline of signing a contract typically. Now, if we had a contract and we knew we weren't going to start for 90 days, many of those things could be accomplished. But if you know, if you're saying that, you know, hey, we're going to make a decision tonight. We've picked who we like and we're going to have them on May 1st. I would tell you that it would be reasonable to expect that a full transition uh really happened probably sometime in in June or early July. Again, we can begin operating on day one of the contract. That's not a problem. But there are a lot of transition items that take place uh that have to be that have to be really be thought through and we have a very exhaustive transition list uh that we provide. Uh the most important thing though is to is to have key staff on the ground and we have we'll have our staff here as well from our corporate office in in the beginning to make sure that we make a smooth transition and give the on ground staff the support that they need.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just have one question for you. Uh sure. I I know it wasn't in the RFP, the maintenance aspect. Uh what what is important about having complete control of the golf course, all of the functions?

Well, um Commissioner, that that's a challenging question. I I would say that it it isn't always important to have complete control. It really depends on it depends on the collaborative effort. if there's not complete control. Um, you know, I again I listen very closely to the presentation and and I would agree with the things that were said here about the challenges that exist for getting the golf course in really good condition. And I want to be very clear that that would be uh if we have any influence that would be our goal is that it become pristine. And I don't believe that I don't believe there's anything that can keep it from doing that. uh based on my experience, I'm not a I'm not a trained aronomist, but I'm uh I'm pretty knowledgeable in this field uh because I've worked directly in it uh as well. Um you know, affluent water is a tricky tricky thing. It really is. Um you know, high sodium content is is a problem for grass. Um the golf course I managed uh in Phoenix, Arizona called Palm Valley Golf Club used affluent water and it was a challenge. I mean consistent arification, right? Applications of gypsum and other things that can go into the soil to you know to help uh make make that plant healthier, right? So it can absorb those things. Those are things that are going to take time uh to do. Uh we just we want to we we really want to have a seat at the table. And I would tell you, um, we probably aren't real interested in managing the golf course if we don't at least have a voice at the table. I'll just be frank with you about that because our reputation is very important to us. And again, if you look at our product and you can easily

do that, you can make any phone calls you want. Uh, we are very good on the agonomic side. And that's not to say that you're not. you have some significant challenges, but we believe that we have a lot of intelligent people working for us that can work very well with your intelligent people to figure out how to how to solve that problem. Have you ever been a partner with a golf course where you didn't have a seat at the table on the maintenance aspect? Yes, one time. And that's why I won't do that again.

You can't sell We can have the friendliest people in the world. We can have the best lettuce and the softest buns at our hamburger joint, but if our hamburger meat isn't any good, it doesn't matter. It matters not. And this community, these student athletes, these tournaments that are raising money, these people sitting in this audience, they deserve that and it is accomplishable. I I assure you we've had in-depth conversations with our agronomic team about are we stepping into something we can't help fix and they have assured me absolutely not that can be fixed. Thank you. Thank you.

So with your experience with those 11 municipalities uh on the transition front, how would you describe that and what would you say you need for a transition? Um well, we need we need a real open dialogue and time with the city staff. Um we need to understand uh the you know the team members operating there today, what their um what their desires are to continue working there. Again, um you know, it's our opinion. We don't know these guys real well, but from what we know of them and in our short brief interactions, I think they're tremendous people, I think they do an absolutely excellent job. I think we can help them. We can undergard them uh to do an even better job and provide a better product. Um and so we need we need access to those people. We need to find out what their intentions are. So if they say, "Hey, you know, Brian, sound like a nice guy and all, but I'm not going to work there anymore for you because I don't want to do that." Then, you know, we we need to we need to get that done right away. We need to find out who is going to lead this place going forward because that that's the most important thing you can do is have the right leaders in the agonomic position and in the golf operations position. It's a two-sided coin and they both have to work really well together if you're going to be exceptional. And so, um, I think good communication with the, you know, whether it's the parks and reccks director or whether it's also the city manager or whatever the case may be, we need a lot of communication between I think communication solves 99.9% of every challenge you ever face.

Thank you.

Question. So, um, without a seat at the table or complete control of the maintenance part of it, what would you think your chances are for, um, the four-year contract? I mean, for surviving it? I mean, Mr. Hernandez, again, I I think um here here's what I would say. Anybody that wouldn't want us to have a voice, at least a voice. A voice is different than control. If control is not an option, that's fine. And we don't really, to be fair to you, we don't understand that dynamic today. We just presented it that way in case that was something that was going to be desired and requested to let you know we can do that. We can perform that duty. Um, but if if we don't have a voice, and again, I wouldn't understand why anybody wouldn't want us to have a voice. I I want to give my team members a voice with me. I don't run my company that way. I know everything. Do you're going to do it my way,

right? I don't run my company that way. Uh, sometimes I have to make the hard decision and they don't always agree with me. And then, you know, I have to suffer the slinged arrows by Griffin when he says, "I told you that was a bad idea." Right? But many hands make a heavy load light. We should be at that table. We're experienced operators. I got I got 40 Oh my gosh, this is terrible. I've got 47 years of working in the golf business since I was nine years old. I I I have some things to say. I have some things to share. our agonomic leaders. We run some pretty impressive properties. Uh the ones that I own, I've got my own skin in this thing called the golf industry. Uh and there's some prominent clubs, uh with high level expectations, $100 around green fees. Um we know what we're doing and I think it would be unwise for somebody to say, "We got this. We got this. We don't need you. We don't need your help." Um, I don't want to I don't want to work in that environment. These these are not two separate businesses. This is one business.

Did I answer your question, Mr.? Yes, sir. I just I'm just asking because I mean I've seen the condition of the grounds for daily for the last 10 years and I don't know that I could um run a golf course like that. Yeah, I wouldn't want to. It's very challenging. I think that's why most of these people are here tonight.

Well, again, I think that, you know, Google is a powerful thing. You can look at the reviews of our properties and they're not perfect. We're not perfect. We don't know everything. There's things we can learn. We'll learn things when we come here. if we come here. That was a little presumptuous, but um but we do know a lot and we do want to share that. We want it to be put to use. The municipal course that you managed that you said was the most similar to ours was which course? I think it's Spring Valley in the Osho, Missouri. Thank you. Spring Valley Golf Club. And you said Green Hills, too.

And Green Hills in Chilikathy, Missouri. I'm from there, so they like me. That's I mean you can call in they they'll say nice things about me but um I think you know um it's not similar but Sylum Springs Arkansas there's uh Sylum Springs is a community of 25,000 people and uh there's only one golf course in that community and when we got hired to manage it it was dead and by dead I mean dead there there was no grass on any of the greens and You can you can look at you can look for yourself today just three years later what that place looks like.

I just have one more question. Uh so keep those guys waiting, Mr. B. I love it. Maybe they'll just leave.

The topic of private carts came up uh about the the city proposed to take over the golf course internally and uh they proposed to take away private golf carts. What is your take on that? Well, again, that's a city decision. Uh, we I I wouldn't I wouldn't encourage that decision to be made. Um, I believe private carts should be compliant, right? And there should be an appropriate trail fee pay play paid. Um, today you only have, I think, a fleet of 40 gas golf carts, uh, club cars. I don't know whether you guys like those things. 50. I don't know whether you like those things or not, but I'm not crazy about that particular model. Um, but private carts can serve a great purpose. Uh, because it can help you keep your fleet down, especially if you have a large contingency of members that like to have private carts. Private cart privilege. Private carts are a privilege, right? They're not a right. They're a privilege and should be treated as such. Those people need to pay a trail fee. They need to be compliant with making sure that we know who's sitting in the adjacent seat, right? Is that not a member? Have they paid a green fee? I mean, all these challenges that are so fun dayto-day, aren't there? Those are some fun challenges. Um, uh, and we're very strict about that. Uh, but private carts, uh, we, we manage several properties that have private carts. Uh, and you know, I it's not been a challenge for us to do so.

Okay, my turn. So, these guys asked a lot of questions that I have over here. A lot of uh concerns are like tournament play leagues. What are your take on that?

Well, um definitely believe in league play. League play is very important. We've often tried to develop as many leagues as we possibly can play. You know, you sit in a world, right, where you've got members or passholders or both if you distinguish them in some way and you've got public patrons. Since the COVID boom, golf has never been more popular in the United States. Again, I've been doing this almost 50 years. I've never seen anything like it. You never know who's going to walk through your door today to play golf. And it's awesome. I mean, it's one of the greatest things I've ever seen. Uh I never thought it would come to this. And so balancing weekend play when most people are available to play that one time a month on a Saturday, the last thing they want to do is, you know, call up the third time effort in a row and sorry, we have a tournament. So we we've been very uh we've been very deliberate about making sure that we keep plenty of daily feed tea time opportunities available to the general public. And we've moved a lot of our tournaments to weekdays. I know a lot of companies and charitable organizations over the years said, "Well, we have to do it on Saturday. We have to do it on Sunday. We have to do it on Saturday." The truth is, uh, that's it's it's not universally not true, but it's many times not true. We move those tournaments to Mondays or Tuesdays. And by the way, this golf course should be open every day of the week. I don't under there's no reason for it not to be. I mean, maybe for a short period of time to try to get the golf course some infrastructure things done, but this golf course should be open every day of the week. Um, we've moved those organizations to those days when you really care about cancer and playing in the cancer tournament and you get it six months out, you you take the day off and you go support the thing and play in it. And so that's important to me that you keep plenty of daily fee

opportunity available, especially you're the only golf course around, right? And disenfranchising these young people, uh, these older people like me from being able to play golf on the weekends that don't have the money or the time to to buy a membership is very important. And I I find that most members, they understand that and they respect that. And so we've had to cap memberships. We've had to move tournaments uh to find the right balance to make sure that people that play golf infrequently have the right kind of access to do so.

Um if you decide to go to your establishment and You're not so maint. Mr. Bradley says May is really really dry and we need to put the card in the car. Is that an issue?

Um well uh not if he's right. We not might not agree, but I would tell you I just again I don't know Mr. Bradley. I don't know if he's still here. Is he still in the room? No. No.

Poor guy. Okay. Talking about him. I I I want to I again I don't know him. Um I want to believe that we would work well together. Um, we we are we are pretty aggressive in our organization about release releasing golf cars onto the grounds uh whenever possible. Um, some I I would tell you 95% of the time superintendent are more restrictive. I've only met about 5% of the superintendents that like let him go. you know, you know, when and and be wrong, right, when they maybe shouldn't have done that. Um, a good superintendent looks at the golf course like it's a mirror. They see themselves in it and they want to protect it. And, uh, but we also have to protect the business. And it's hard for people uh to look at the golf course and think, well, I'll be careful where I drive. and and they don't always do that, right? I understand that. But that's part of this business. Uh we want, you know, we want to we want to be generous to them uh in those efforts. I can tell you right now when you tell somebody, this is what's hard about the golf course not being in good condition, right? You can't drive out there and they're looking at it like really like really what am I going to hurt? What am really am I going to am I going to leave a rut in the dirt of the fairway? Right. It's like a bunker that has a please rake the bunker sign in it and there's weeds everywhere. It's like what are you talking about? That's why you you got to get the golf course in good shape. Also would recommend, you know, at some point

getting lithium battery golf cars. Uh you've gone to a lot of expense. Um, I don't know whether you own that fleet or not, but I'm a big believer in lithium. The the cart barn uh definitely is electrified. Now, whether it's electrified properly or not, I I wouldn't know. Um, but lithium battery golf cars with GPS uh control monitors on the golf cars. You you can restrict that thing from day to day, keep them where you want them to go. We did this in Moverly, Missouri. We had members, they would cut across this area, and we you can't do that. I'm gonna I'm gonna kick you out of here if you keep doing that. And you know, we can't see them do it, but we know they're doing it, right? We got these golf cars and man, did they complain, you know, because it just went boop and died and they're like, "What is going on?" Like, "We told you couldn't drive through there, so we just solve that problem for you." Um, you know, so there's many things you can do, but the answer is we we try to be as unrestrictive as possible. That way when you when and you get the golf course in good shape and you're generous to people, then you have the right and privilege to ask them, hey, don't you got to stay 30 yards back from this particular green, right? You can't drive in that native or waste bunker area or whatever the case may be. You have a lot you have a leg to stand on.

I think you kind of answered this question. We didn't always have that kind but um GPS I mean is that something that in your Absolutely.

Absolutely. It it does it does two things right. It serves the golf consumer well. Now, the member, right, who's using one of the city's carts, right, as part of their particular membership package may not find a lot of benefit out of the screenplay. And of course, we have all kinds of tools like our Gallas app that tells you how far you are from the pen and how far you are from this bunker. All kinds of tools, but they're they're very helpful, right? Because it's showing the golfer what's what's in front of them, how far am I from the green, and if I've never played here before, that's tremendously beneficial. But it's sending feedback to the golf shop, right? I can see where every cart is on on on the property, right? It's very valuable tool in managing what's happening on the golf course because maybe your marshall didn't show up that day, right? You can send a message to somebody that says, "Mr. Tapley, seriously, you got to catch the group in front of you." Right? You know, and it's a very non-confrontational way to communicate with it because nobody likes that moment, right? It's embarrassing when that happens. And so, um, it it gives you feedback about the performance of the card. I'll give you a quick story. At Dubstread, of course, I own. We had a golf tournament and four guys who all knew each other playing in the tournament, supporting the tournament. One of the guys ran over the other guy's legs. They drank too much. He ran over, caused a compound fracture in his leg. Okay? And he sued us. And 30 days later when we got the lawsuit, I pulled up what had happened with those carts because it saves the record, which is exactly what his buddy did. Went up the hill, spun around and, you know, played chicken with him and ran them over. That's important information to have, right? Versus I don't know what happened. The golf cart malfunctioned, you know, whatever, right? or it happened somewhere else. Or I broke my leg, I fell in the creek, whatever else. This these are valuable tools and it's

the wave of the future. Gas, you know, who knows? Is it cheaper? Whatever else. I don't like working on gas golf carts. Um it's hard. Um you know, plugging them in takes time, but so does filling them up once a week. And if this place is really busy, you're going to fill them up a lot. And um I'm telling you in the future e easy soon they soon none of these companies will make a gas car in a fleet model. They really won't. I I'm convinced of that. You have any other deal breakers? I don't think so. I want to know.

No, I I don't think so. I mean I I would just want you to know and I'm sure these guys say the same thing. And these are two very good companies, by the way. Uh, you know, I know Steve Lesnik and Steve Skinner who who run Keer and Jim Hinckley uh runs American Golf. I consider these guys contemporaries and and and friends and um you know, but I want you to know this. This is what we do. We work specifically in this area. I think that's something that that matters. We really want to be here. I mean, we're in the Mountain West and I've spent a lot of time in the Southwest personally as a golf industry professional. Um, you know, I think there's nothing but huge upside here and I would love to be a part of that. That would be exciting to us. This is you're not just going to be number 75, you know, golf course to us. This would be a very high priority operation for us. We love turnaround type of deals and I'm speaking agonomically here, right? Again, I think the golf operation has been run really well. Um I think we could still help in that area, but um it'd be a privilege to be a part of it.

Thank you. If there are no more questions. Okay. All right. Well, I I will. Um, we don't mind being sequestered, so to speak, but will there be any other interactions between us tonight? You'll be able to come back in during the night. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. I was going to say if I wasn't see

Thank you. Did you did you get any calls on this week? No, but I talked to a lot of people prior to and it has to do with the maintenance of the queens. So, I basically have a house at the end of number 10 that I take care of the lady. She's left me in the house. And so, last 20 years the last 10 years of it

had to replace her fence two years ago because of the water and stuff, you know, and she talked about the golf course. That same water's going to allow America. Good evening. If you would just state your name. Hi, good evening. Uh, my name is Paul Balum. I'm with American Golf Corporation. I can control this.

I can control the pres. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, thank you very much for the opportunity to present our qualifications and vision for golf course operations and management services at Desert Lakes Golf Course. Again, my name is Paul Balum. I'm senior vice president with American Golf Corporation. I'm joined today by uh Scott Skazola right there. Um, he's our vice president of business development and a New Mexico State graduate. We won't hold that against him. uh and Mark Lillberg, our national director of aronomy and golf course maintenance. Uh American Golf has been an owner, operator, and manager. Get that to go here. There we go. Sorry. American Golf has been an owner, operator, and manager of golf courses for over 50 years. The largest segment of our business is operating golf courses on behalf of municipalities and related park districts with 35 of our 42 golf courses operated on behalf of municipalities. Municipal golf courses are terrorist city park assets and our approach is to operate municipal golf courses so they can be enjoyed by all city residents, golfers and non-golfers alike, and create experiences that foster community. With our 50 plus years of service, we've established long long-standing relationships with our operating partners, including more than 20 municipal contracts that date back more than 40 years, evidencing our qualifications in delivering exceptional municipal experiences and profitable municipal golf operations. American Golf has over 2,300 team members with an extensive support network, including nearly 80 team members a few short hours away from Elamagora at Tanowan Country Club in Albuquerque. Among our many industryleading innovations, American Golf was the

creator of T- sheet management analysis, the practice of managing pricing and demand to increase golf course utilization and not lose unused tea times. Much like when a plane takes off and there are empty seats, you never get those seats back. As well as we're the inventor of Players Club, the leading loyalty and game improvement program in the industry today. We believe strongly that Desert Lakes Golf Course and the city of Alamagora will benefit greatly from both programs in terms of increased revenue, improved guest and customers experience, and positive profitability. We provide full service management of all golf, retail, food and beverage, and facility maintenance operations. All designed to provide exceptional guest experiences and ensure long-term financial sustainability and community value of all our client courses. Mark and his team provide central economic support, including expert programming and agonomic best practices. As a result, our 42 companywide golf course superintendent do not have to go it alone, and they benefit from the sharing of experiences, protocols, and vendor relationships. American Gulf routinely manages over 12 million of capital projects annually, including currently the design and construction of two electric rental cart fleet storage facilities designed to convert gas fleets to more customer and neighborfriendly electric carts. Something I know we're considering for Desert Lakes Golf Course. We also provide extensive retail, food and beverage, human resources, finance, accounting, and reporting support. Our management approach is for our dedicated on-site general desert lakes general manager and superintendent to be backed

by our 20 plus person corporate support team with numerous years of operating experience behind them. I personally will be celebrating my 30th year with American Golf this coming May. And you can see our support team there. our operations director, Quinton Rizzik, is also a New Mexico um prodigy. Um his family is is based in uh Albuquerque and has been with us for a number of years. Slide six illustrates our projected staffing plan for Desert Lakes Golf Course. And we are committed to interviewing existing candidates currently employed at Desert Lakes with the hopes of integrating that team with the American Golf team to build on past successes and continue to improve the operational standard for quality and customer service. Our proposal includes incorporating all management functions of desert lakes including golf course maintenance under one operator. We believe this this puts all departments interests in alignment and offers the best strategy to provide a high quality product in the most efficient manner. One sole source operator creates strong synergies across all operations, driving expense savings through purchasing power, payroll efficiencies, and standardized business drivers. In my 30 years experience, I have not been involved with a public golf course that closes one day a week. As we discussed earlier, tea times the golf courses main product are finite and losing one day's inventory eliminates 14% of city residents opportunities to utilize Desert Lakes Golf Course and eliminates a major driver of revenue to offset operating costs. We are confident our team, our programs, and our oversight can revitalize Desert Lakes Golf Course and keep it open to the public seven days a week.

As previously discussed, the Players Club is American Golf's loyalty program designed for public golf access. We have countless success success examples of our Players Club program in engaging and retaining golfers through off- peak discounted green fees, cart fees, free range balls daily to improve their games, and several other member perks. All for a reasonable monthly fee that makes the Players Club members home course their definitive golf course of choice. Our in-house marketing team develops and oversees tailored content for social media channels, designs print and email marketing advertising that is professional and appropriate, and perhaps most importantly, ensures that websites and landing pages are up-to-date, informative, and userfriendly. Our marketing team also provides concepts for non-golf and community events designed to bring wider audiences to our properties. And this team provides the media to promote those events. Those are some examples of the events that we um utilize to get non-golfers to come out to our properties, including live music events, Easter brunches, trivia nights, um movie nights, etc. American Golf has transitioned numerous golf courses into its portfolio over the years, including two courses on October 1st this past year and remarkably three courses on New Year's Day in 2023. Our entire organization gets behind bringing new courses on board and we are confident we will have similar positive results transitioning Desert Lakes. Our cost proposal is for a flat $100,000 annual annual management fee with an incentive fee component calculated as a percentage of positive cash flow generated by American Golf at Desert Lakes. We are confident Desert Lakes

will achieve profitability within the first 18 months of our operation. Our strategic goal is to provide highquality golf and recreational experiences to the residents of Alam Magorda while also making Desert Lakes a net contributor of positive operating profits to the city's general fund. The following pages is our projections. Um and we do we do feel very confident in these projections as we've seen this type of growth at the the courses that I just mentioned that we have taken over in the last two years. Um tremendous revenue growth and also expense efficiency. So, um, we're we're very comfortable in making this proposal and believe that we're putting some skin in the game here by, um, building our fee both off of a generally a lower, um, fixed management fee with an incentive fee for performance when the city does better. That concludes our presentation. I'm happy to take any questions and also Scott and Mark can jump in on their area of expertise. Okay. Is it okay if I start? Okay. Um uh the first question is um show us or tell us a course like ours that you've improved. Uh what are the numbers before and after regarding revenue growth, rounds played, expense control, and timeline. So, um we have three courses that um are very similar in scope and size um that we've taken over in the last two two years that have in excess of 25% revenue growth. Um that's a combination of um rounds growth but also in many cases an improved rounds mix. So, like I

mentioned before, the unused tea times are no longer going unused. So, we're increasing revenue because we're managing the T- sheet better so that, you know, someone who wants to play at 3:00 in the afternoon doesn't want to pay what they would have to pay at, you know, 7 in the morning or at noon. And so, we're filling those times at perhaps a lower dollar rate, but adding those up to higher revenue for the golf course. Um, and that in turn also also increases rounds. Um, we also see our players club program um, average about 500 players club members at courses and we're seeing driving range revenue as a result of that increase by 50% to 100%.

Would you tell me those course names, please? Uh, sure. Um it's Alandre Golf Course, um Marshall Canyon Golf Course, Konabi Golf Course, which is a much smaller golf course than Desert Lakes, but also one that we had we had taken over. Um and we're in the process of uh transitioning El Cureso and what was it? Victoria Golf Course. You said Alandre Marshall Canyon. Yep. Kenobi. Uh, K A N A B E A B E and Eliso. E L Eliso.

So, two words. E L C A R I O SO. And actually, Konabi, I think I misspelled it. It's K N A B E. Sorry. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Uh question number um two and I think you gave us your plan for the first 12 months uh on the actual sheet. Um yes actually we provided uh four years of projections. Okay. Um question number two what authority do you need and uh what uh stays with the city? What authority?

Yes. What authority do you need now to take over the golf course? And then um basically what stays with the city and what stays with you?

So we we would take over the golf course after the signing of a management contract. Um we would hire all the employees. They become American Golf employees immediately. Um and then we would need to utilize the existing equipment and the existing golf carts. Um that's immediate. Um the title of those items will stay with the city. Um, and over time we can work with the city to use our preferential pricing um, with our national account vendors to purchase or lease new golf course maintenance equipment. We have we have a great u program with Toro, some of the best pricing in the industry because of the the amount of equipment we purchase from them. We also have a national account program with EasyGo. Um, similar, you know, tremendous pricing because of the the volume we do with them. So, when we're ready to either replace the existing fleet with gas, preferably we look to um replace the existing fleet with an electric um fleet, um EasyGo's RXV um Elite is our our golf cart, electric golf cart of choice, and we we have about 3,000 golf carts in our fleet, and it's less than 10% of our fleet currently is is is gas. So, we're big fans of it as well. um and would be happy to work out work with the city to come up with a plan to bring that fleet in and also extend our pref preferential pricing to be able to make that happen in a cost-effective way.

And how do you feel about the private cards?

Um it's not very common with public golf courses. Um, but I think that, you know, given that it's something that has been ingrained in in, you know, the Desert Lakes environment, um, we can definitely work within it. I think the concept would be we'd probably grandfather those carts in that are currently allowed and and not allow, you know, new carts to come over time. Um, one of one of the challenges with with the um um your privately owned carts is it's actually harder to police where they go on the golf course when you know you're trying to rope off certain areas or keep carts a certain distance away from greens. So that's the balance we'd have to manage through, but but we can certainly do that. Um the next question, what incentives do you have to actually improve performances in the area of are they um are they going to be um flat fees and um what is the revenue share and the performance bonuses? So, we're proposing a a base fee, which is a a flat annual flea fee that does not escalate over um the term, and we would have a um percentage of positive cash flow from the property as an incentive fee. So, our incentive here um you know, a $100,000 base fee is, you know, on the lower side of of a management contract. um these days. Um but we we believe we can come in with that lower fee because we do truly believe there is upside and we believe our incentive is where we're going to make as a city makes more upside will make upside in our incentive fee and that will also that also eliminates the need for any escalation in the guaranteed base fee because we do believe we're going to be able to

deliver for you and participate right alongside the city. Okay. And then the performance bonuses um in in a other than the incentive fee. Yes,

we do not have a perform the only folks who would have a performance bonus other than the incentive fee which is a essentially a performance bonus for the company. Um the only other folks who would have a performance bonus is um your the management staff as part of their compensation structure would have a a you know on-site management staff as part of their compensation structure would have a a bonus program. All all of our general managers, superintendents and some of our other department heads do have some type of a incentive bonus structure.

Okay. And my uh final question uh what does the transition from the current contractor to your management company look like in the timeline and do you keep uh current staff? I know you said that you would hire golf operation, food and beverage and what is the city's responsibility to make this a seamless transition? Uh we very much would like to work with the current operator um to you know interview his teammates um his staff and interview those folks to to join our company. Um we could get a transition done in as little as you know 30 days. Um we would move very very quickly to do so. Um I think what we would need some help with the city on is um you know interviewing any city employees who are working on the course maintenance staff should they wish to join and and you know meet the meet the requirements um of our of our interview team. Um but beyond that, you know, we have a full human resources department behind us. Um, we're very capable at at posting jobs, um, assigning temporary personnel, um, and and, you know, making sure that we can deliver in a timely manner to transition the property quickly.

Thank you. Thank you. Do you manage any courses without uh, do you manage any courses without the maintenance? No, we do not. No. And why is it an important part for you guys to have the maintenance?

Because it is the the number one product of the facility and because all the other departments, you know, by and large rely on the success of the golf rounds and and and that's relies on the quality of the golf course maintenance. um we feel like we we need to be in charge of that otherwise um our other businesses would be too too at risk and it wouldn't be worth um it would be a you know not a viable bet for us to take on um operations that rely so heavily on someone else's expertise or or lack thereof.

And I'm sure you've seen our golf course. I I don't know if you guys went and looked at it or not, but yes, we did. Obviously, you've seen it and it needs work obviously. Uh that that's probably one of the number one topics among the golfers. Yes. Uh I've probably played with pretty much everybody out here, but and it's it's a discussion that always comes up. Sure. So, is that a deal breaker for you?

It's not a deal breaker for us. March, you want to speak to, you know, one the challenge of the irrigation system has been resolved, but feeling what uh, you know, what we can do in the next 6 to 12 months to 18 months to um improve the conditions and and why we're not scared of it. Um, definitely the uh irrigation system improvements is is key in uh getting Can you just introduce yourself as you're talking? Mark Lillberg.

Thank you. American Golf National Director of Aronomy. Uh the the irrigation system is the most important thing. It's it's what's going to keep the turf viable and what you guys built is is very nice. Um I see a lot of potential on uh a lot of the areas that are not grass right now to turn natural. Um the goal is to make sustainable and um a economical approach to getting your course to standards that will hold um repeat customers and always want to come back. So I apologize but o overall very very I believe the irrigation system is is is is perfect. So we just have to work on our build upon that. Yeah, I apologize, but kind of got confused on the question a little bit with with where it went.

No, no, you're good. You're good. But to your to your point, uh, Commissioner Brandt, it it's not a dealbreaker for us. We we we we're up for the challenge. So, if you were happen to recede on the city side, how would you go about that? Would you shut down nine holes for 6 weeks, then open up and then shut down another nine holes or would you just rope off current or certain areas?

I think the plan would be discussions among, you know, our leadership and you guys to figure out the best way to continue bringing revenue in and also improving the product because we have uh a very poor golf course right now. It's making my a head spin with all the the blame games and stuff that's going on. What's what's wrong? Uh but with our solid foundation of of integrating seed with with hydro seed or intra seed slice seed um obviously Bermuda grass is probably the choice here for for long-term sustainability. So that's that's what I'm looking at. But uh I don't think we need to close. I think you know there there'd be some temporary obstructions for carts. Um, but overall I think it's a uh a workable product. Integrating naturalized areas instead of trying to get grass growing on the various perimeters of the golf course really isn't isn't a viable move right now. I think maybe maybe uh phase two, phase three, if we're if we're successful and that irrigation system is is working well, you know, we definitely could, you know, hit turf wall to wall, but to eliminate some of that future use of water, which is important, we we need to really look at some areas that are not grass and say, you know, is it as it go native? We do blue gramma or any type of native species to to uh reduce watering and reduce uh inputs on maintenance. Um and also get like a ground cover to to get that that um when you have exposed soil and and sun radiating it like every single day like here it's not it's exacerbates the issues of high salts. You know it's not going to it it it doesn't cool. Um salts get get raised you know exponentially. So, uh, getting something viable there is is what we want to do. And closing closing of course is not what we want. Like you said, Mondays we we we don't want to close. We want to improve every day um with with great economic practices and and kind of keep it open to the public. So,

yeah. As an owner and lee of golf courses, we understand the the risk associated with running golf courses. And what we bring to the table in our management contracts is that mentality. You spend your money like it was our own money. And we do not want we want to limit interruption to the public and we want to limit interruption to the ability of the golf course to generate revenue. So, um we we have lot of experience, you know, rrooting folks, um you know, doing things in phases, um to minimize the impact on the on the public golfer and still achieve um the results from grassing, renovations, etc. um that we do over time. So, we we again to to to reiterate, we would not be looking to close the golf course for grassing. So, I just want to make sure I understand what the key factors are here. Uh, sounds like electric carts with GPS are a must for us.

No, not a must. No. Okay. Um, but it is a it is a nice option. And, you know, electric carts are, you know, low low to no emissions. Um, they also don't require like, you know, oil changes and other petroleum products either because of the electric, you know, engines themselves. And they're they're quieter for the not just the golfers, but also the neighbors of of the golf course, those residents that live on the golf course. Um, and um it's u you just generally a more enjoyable um um experience for the golfer and the neighbors. But, uh, again, we we do have a small number of golf courses that still have, um, gas carts. We're looking at ways to convert those. Um, but, you know, we we still operate with them. You know, it would it would be a decision that we would make together. Obviously, the city would have the ultimate say in it because it's a financial decision. Um but discussing when is the right time to to bring that into to priorities um and and do that replacement and it's something we we very much could help with um because we've done it many many times.

Uh control the maintenance is that a must. That is a must. Yes. Yes. Uh open seven days a week is a must. Um I I think it is because it it's the right business practice. Any other musts? Um, no. Just I'm assuming the city does own the the existing maintenance equipment and the cart fleet. Just have

not the carts, right? Okay. So, we'd have to come up with a solution for the either leasing the carts or working something out with uh with Doug. Um the um you get have having the maintenance equipment I think is a must because that that would be the harder thing to ramp up with. Um you know in in the market conditions right now there's usually a six to eight month lead time on ordering new m golf course maintenance equipment and what? Yeah. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Okay, I've got one a couple. Um, tournament play is um is pretty important to this community. It has been for years. What is your take on tournament play and leagues in in in your structure?

Yeah. So, and it's particularly important at municipal golf courses um because we do have a lot of, you know, local golf clubs, men's and women's clubs, etc., and leagues that we do cater to. Um, and it's it's, you know, very important because they are active um, golfing residents that we do want to cater to. So, we're very much in favor of that. Um, tournaments, I think we we we'd like to grow the number of tournaments, but we also want to balance that with not interrupting, you know, your residents play. Um, but I from my understanding and and Scott's experience with Desert Lakes from many years ago, Desert Lakes did a lot more tournaments than it currently does. Um, and there there likely is an opportunity to do to do more. Um, and if we are or when we are open on Mondays, we'll have more, you know, utilization or or more capacity to be able to host those as well. So, yeah, we're very much in favor of it.

Okay. Um the golf carts, uh you I mean I assume you're you're going to have a golf cart fleet. Is that part of it or is it is that something that you're thinking that the city is going to have? Um yes, ultimately the golf cart fleet in a management contract would be an expense of the city. Um and and you know it it's built into the the the you know into the projection. So, the question is, do we do a lease or is there some way that we um um you do do an outright purchase for it? Um but yeah, those would be assets of the city. The golf carts would

Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. Thank you very much. Much for an all night. Still got to go to work in the morning and I got to work late tomorrow night.

I've had my caffeine. I'm ready to go. Dinner for about two hours ago. Yeah. Quit doing that to yourself, man. Do that every time. I left work straight from work and came here. Hit that 7-Eleven on the way in. Good evening. Good evening. If you will just state your name for the record, please. Uh Josh Ward, vice president of business business development with Keer Sports. Michael Russ, regional manager with Kemper Kemper Sports.

And Michael Singleton, uh general manager at Painted Dunes Golf Course. Are we all set to get rolling? Yes, we are.

Awesome. Well, first and foremost, I want to say thank you to everyone here for taking the time and staying this uh this late this evening to have a conversation with us and really have a a really in-depth uh look at a possible option as you look to find the right partner for the city as you move forward uh into the next chapter. You know, we are are really excited to be here and Keer Sports for what we do. We're really passionate about community. We're really passionate uh about what we do every day and involving the community, the vision of the city to really finding the best path forward for every single community and every golf course that we work with. And we know you have a difficult decision today. You're looking at three different uh companies and all three of those companies vary differently between resources, experience, reputation, and so many more things. But Keer Sports really is bestin-class at all three of these things. And so my job today is to give you a little bit more information about Keer Sports, explain those reasonings why we're one of the top management companies in this industry. But one of the things you won't hear from us today, you won't see a proforma. You won't hear us talk about specific financials within our presentation. And the reason for that is is that there's just truthfully not enough information. We are a transparent company and you're going to see it in my presentation that transparency is one of the most important things that we talk about at our company. And there really isn't a lot of information today to be able to provide all of that to you. So, it's not just us, but any firm giving you information. uh unfortunately there's just not enough to be up here to say arguably that we're going to be able to drive x amount of money to the to the city. And so what we want to do is work with you on the vision, what's most important for the city and for the community as this golf course moves forward. And so for Keer Sports, what makes us different? What really all of

this centers around are five very unique things. So the first for the first thing for us is our passion. Passion is a core of what we do. And it's not just that we love what we do, but it is a part of our slogan. It is our vision for what we do. And it's matching our vision with what the community's vision is for the golf course, the community asset, whatever we're working with. Because when those visions work together, that is when real magic happens. And so we're passionate about what we do and we take that to all of the properties that we go that we go to. The second thing is transparency. As I just mentioned, unfortunately in this industry, you'll notice that there's not a lot of transparency in fees in how resources work. And we want to be different in that aspect. So our approach is to be transparent everything we do from reporting to our resources to understanding the vision that you all have and making that a priority as we move forward. The third thing is we put your brand first. We make sure that the Desert Lakes brand is priority. Nobody from the community, no golfer is going to see Keer Sports anywhere on property. The only place that you see Keer Sports is on the paycheck for the employees. That's it. All of our loyalty programs, app development, all of those things that we do is focused on building your brand and your reputation. The fourth thing is that we pro we promote experiences. So, our team is focused on driving great customer service at every single one of our properties. We're one of the only companies that has a true service platform, a training platform called true service that that stems all the way from the general manager all the way down to our outside service team. It's so that way every person from the community feels like this is an asset and a second home for them. It is a core of what we do. It's that old school

member for a day experience and we want everybody to have that experience when they come into the golf course. And the last thing and arguably the most important thing is about resources. What you'll see is that a lot of the decision on what management company is best as you move forward boils down to the resources that your property gets and how those are allocated appropriately. And we are bestin-class at that. We are the second largest management company in golf in the golf industry, but we provide resources at a microscopic level to ensure you get the most attention to detail as possible. And I'll touch a little bit more on that in a minute, but it's always focusing on your property, ensuring that we're coming on property, that we're being attentive to the needs of the community, and we're listening. And what these these five specific things do, what it's really led to for us is being, as I mentioned, the second largest management company in the space. And we're the fastest growing organic management company in the space. Right now, we have over 200 partners, 70 of which 70 plus of which are municipal partners. Right now, we have a 98% retention rate. And one of our most proudest pieces of all of this is our net promoter score. So, if you know how net promoter scores work, there's a a ranging scale. And you have people that if you're 7, 8, 9, or 10, you're a promoter. And we got to achieve a 69 rating on the NPS4, which is 25 basis points higher than the industry standard, higher than Chick-fil-A and Apple. And some of the golf courses that we work with are some of the most known golf courses in the United States. Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley, Chambers Bay, but also local properties. Uh just like Mike Singleton's property here down at Painted Dunes in El Paso. And Mike, did you want to comment on a couple others that we have?

Yeah, I think a great comp that we have here locally would be a Colonial Park Golf Course over in Clovis. Um there's some interesting similarities between the two properties right now. Um in fact, you are a leg up on them. They've they've completed nine holes of an irrigation system renovation, whereas you've completed all 18. Uh the financial performance and the integration with the community there has been tremendous. We've when we first started there, we went from about 21,000 rounds to now over 35,000 rounds of golf played. So the community has come back and so much so much so these surrounding communities where their golf courses may be teetering on on solveny they have also returned back to Clovis and so it has become not just a local municipal effort but it has grown throughout to almost about a 60-mi radius. Um the financial performance there has been tremendous. Um without getting into huge numbers, I I can tell you it's been about a 5 $500,000 swing between where they were and where they are today. And and yet the community support has been unmatched. Um, I would highly encourage any of you, you know, don't take our word for it, but talk to our clients, talk to the city manager in Clovis and find out about that relationship and uh, you know, and to see how how we've exceeded their expectations. It's even so much so that they are now fasttracking rather than the city subsidizing programs just to keep the golf course afloat, they are now already planning, you know, new cart paths are going in, the other irrigation system is going in. now they are financially stable enough that they can go ahead and reinvest into that property for the long term. So, um yeah, it's our clients that really are the ones that tell the story for us too.

Yeah. And to continue to add on to that, our average tenure with our properties is over 10 years. As I mentioned before, we have a 98% retention rate. And one of the things that we're doing the most right now, actually 12 properties out of the last 18 months have actually been properties that we've taken over from other management companies. And in the same time frame, we haven't lost a single one to another management company. And we do this because we focus on the relationship. It is not just about X's and O's. It is trying to understand and be a partner for you and for the community to listen to understand what's the most important thing as we move forward and to work together to understand that vision and build a plan for the future that's ever changing. But when we can share that philosophy and that vision together and be a true partner, then really anything is possible. And that's why we have so much success at all of these partners that we work with. And you'll see on the slide here just a brief example of what our resources look like. I mentioned before I I I talk a little bit more about that. So at Keer Sports, you will get access to over a dozen different people from the transition all the way through our normal working structure. But every single day you have five particular people that are focused on your property. And these five people are your regional operations executive looking over the overall operations, accounting, sales and marketing, food and beverage and uh aronomy. I say around food and beverage for so each one of those people even though we have over 200 clients each one of those resources maxes out at 8 to 10 properties each. So that way your property is always being visited. It's always a top of mind. It's always being communicated with. And that is so crucial when you look at the resources for all the different management companies that are presenting. How many courses are they working with? What kind of resources are you getting for the

money that you're spending? And truthfully, Keer Sports is bestin-class in that approach. So, we wanted to talk about a little bit about what our plan would be. I told you I'm not going to talk about financials, but I want to talk about the plan for Desert Lakes. So, the first thing is is we need to enhance the product. There's been a lot of conversations about the golf course conditions. We need to work together to continue to elevate the conditions of the golf course. you did a great job by building a new by enhancing the irrigation system, but we need to continue to invest in that. Our proprietary systems are going to allow that to to to go a little bit further, a little bit faster, and our procurement services are going to allow your dollar to go further when we start looking to purchase for the aronomy side of things. The second thing is we want to maximize the experience. So, I talked about our true service platform being one of the only training platforms in the industry. So we are going to train the staff to ensure that customer service is the number one thing on their mind that everybody who's walking in front of them that is the most important thing to them is the person standing in front of them today. That is our focus and we train and we also monitor we put in procedures and we uh evaluate that to always have continuous conversations with our staff on how to get better. We're going to integrate with the community through programming, through instructions, through school programming. There's a lot of different ways that we're going to work together to to really enhance the community offerings at Desert Lakes. We have 70 different municipal properties today. It's a toolbox. There's a lot of experience there. Now, is each one of those perfect for Desert Lakes? Maybe, maybe not. But we will take that as a basis toolbox and start to mold that appropriately so that way we can find the right programs that fit to grow the game to make this a community asset as you move forward. And then we want to be financially stable. We want to make sure

that the community is not subsidizing us. It's a core philosophy of what we want to do and we want to be a good partner in doing that. Reporting accurately, timely, listening to your needs, conducting town halls, all those different things. We want to be a great partner for you and the community. And then we were also asked to talk about important milestones. The first thing I want to talk about here, arguably the most important thing is the transition. That transition time frame is so critical to the relationship. It is when the staff gets to know our management company, when the community gets to to to notice our our management company to interact with us. Those first 90 days are absolutely critical to this. We have over a dozen people and a checklist that's over 250 items long to ensure that we don't miss anything along the way. We then go back and ask our owners to survey us on our transitions. And right now, our transition score is a 95% approval rating. That's how much we focus on the transitions. We're going to complete our trainings and do surveys with the community to understand what the the community believes are the needs of the golf course. And we're going to look to do that within the first 30 or so days. By 30 to 60 90 days or 30 to 60 days, we should have our programming enacted and and really put into place. Our social media marketing, our youth camps, all these different things that we can do to engage the community should be live by that point. By 90 days, you should start seeing a true impact on the golf course from a conditions perspective. And then continuously throughout the relationship at month end and at year end, we'll make sure we provide correct, transparent, and appropriate reporting to the city. So that way, we're always planning for the future. We're reinvesting in the future, and we're communicating on what's the best path for this golf course and for the community as it moves forward. Try to fit that in as quick as 10

minutes as we possibly could. So, thank you for your time. Are you ready to take questions? Yes, please.

Okay. Um, the first question uh that um I have is show us a course like ours that you've improved. Uh what were the numbers before and after and the revenue growth, rounds played, expense control, and timelines? And if you want to use Clovis, that's fine. I may not have all of the specifics, but I can I give you a very uh you know kind of high level on that. Uh we began in 2020 was when we started working with the club at that point. Uh their EBIT line their their uh profit line was a negative $417,000. So that was all being subsidized by the city just to keep the golf course afloat. that time their revenue was about se uh revenue was about uh 685k is what their revenues were at that point. Rounds were at 21,500. Uh as of current right now we are sitting and this is uh based on on where we sit right now through February uh we're projecting $168,000 of profits for them in 2026. uh revenue now has jumped from 685K to 2.3 million and their rounds now are went from 21,500 to over 35,000 rounds. So um most of this was attributed to course conditions. Um you know certainly programming was a big part of that different things along the way. Um and but course conditions were a major focus point. Um, we even had to we with the superintendent that we actually took up through the ranks. Um, Clovis is not an easy place to to bring people into. uh if you're looking for uh you know as far as hiring and bringing in top level professionals, we found an eager exciting superintendent who wanted

assistant superintendent who's actually our mechanic who absolutely was eager to learn and he worked with our aronomy team and he worked closely with a lot of uh a lot of questions that he asked, a lot of information that was provided and absolutely has been now a true superstar in those ranks as a new superintendent. So the support was there, the opportunity was there, the initiative and the drive was there and that's been a key part of the success. Um so I hope that helps. Anything? Oh yes it does. And the timeline was that um that was over a six-year timeline. Six year.

Um the next question is um what authority do you need from the city? Uh and then uh what do you want to stay with the city as far as you know how you divvy up the uh the things that you need on the golf golf course? I would assume this question is more focused towards the the maintenance side of things. Um actually it's for um pricing control, staffing decisions, vendor selections and uh private cars.

Okay, perfect. So I'll take a stab Mike if you want to jump in. Um, so we want to work with the city, as I mentioned a lot in my presentation, we want to have a a really great communication and be a partner of yours. So it's a way I'm going to answer this is to say that we have experience and knowledge. We've got a lot of comparable golf courses. Our job is to come to you on a lot of those different pieces and say here's what we think. What do you believe? What do we have to enact? And then we take that back and create a plan. So pricing is a good example of that. I would say that we have opportunities to present to you ideas for pricing. Now, we work with municipalities in a vast array of different ways that say we control pricing or the city council controls pricing. So, we can do either one. We don't necessarily have to stand up here today and say that we have to do it or we're not going to be able to be successful. Our I think what works the best is for us to be able to come to you all and say here's what we think is going to work best. Do you agree? Is this something that can be accessible to the golf to the community? Is this something that makes financial sense? Can we create can we build utilization? Can we do all all these things that we need to do to be financially stable with it? Um so particularly to to the uh the rate question that's up for I I'll say a conversation of how that necessarily wants to happen. We would certainly want to have input in that. Um, from a a maintenance perspective, obviously, we'd like to have some type of control on that on the product specifically, uh, just because it's going to be very difficult to control a product that you can't control. So, we want to make sure that we have all the different pieces to be able to price that accordingly, specifically ensuring that we have the ability to fix the golf course or do different things of the golf course that need to be done. Um, I know there was a couple other things that I probably didn't hit on.

Have to have may have to have you repeat those, too. uh staffing decisions, vendor selections and private carts. Okay. Uh staffing decisions really is is about finding the right kind of service mentality within our teams. Um that comes from training that comes, you know, that's from top down. Just that true belief that that we are there to serve and everybody must take that service component. Um when it comes to number two was the uh pardon. No, we had one between

vendor vendor agreements. Um we do have an array of preferred vendors that are used through keer sports. um that does not completely eliminate all other of other vendors, but these are vendors that we have negotiated pricing with that we can take advantage of the economies of scale with the size and the scope of products that are being purchased from key vendors and that obviously gets passed right along to each each property. So there is value in that. Um in terms of of private carts, um every property is a little bit different. Uh private carts certainly can be a great fit. Um it does reduce the need for a greater cart fleet which would reduce some expenses. It does need to make sense in terms of you know making sure that it fits within the overall scope but we have many properties that do have private golf carts, privately owned carts. I understand there's a trail fee component here which is which is recommended but um no there is no need to have to to move away from that that type of program if it's currently working. Um the next question is what incentives do you have to actually improve uh performance and that is um are they um paid by a flat fee uh the revenue share and the performance bonuses.

So from an incentive perspective I believe the way that we put in our proposal was that our incentive was still so to speak to be determined. Um our job is to uh work with you all to find the the best approach for that. And what what I mean by that is is that there's going to be certain um metrics that are more important to certain cities and and communities than others. And so we want to really understand what the most important metrics are. And so usually the way a typical incentive structure works for us is that it'll be a portion of either uh net operating income or total total revenue and then we will we will work together to find those metrics of what makes the most sense. So a lot of properties do survey results. So what kind of survey results are we getting from the community? How much total revenue did we get? That's usually an easy one or total rounds. Or how much programming did we do? What was our actual utilization with with doing youth camps? How successful were we are with that? So, we're able to work through a couple different KPIs to understand these metrics and then have a weighted understanding of that to then say this is what the potential pool is. And that pool would be a percentage of net operating income of total revenue.

Okay. And the um final question is what does the transition from the current contractor to your management company look like in terms of the timeline and I know you gave us a brief uh timeline on that. Um do you keep current staff golf operations food and beverage and what is the city's responsibility to make uh sure this is a seamless transition for the uh golfing public?

It's a great question and frankly it's it's a very important question. As I mentioned, the transition period is extremely important, not just from a community perspective, from a staff perspective. We want to make sure that the staff feels welcome and they feel that they understand they have a place to be. Um, so we will offer employment to every single staff member that's there today. We have a 99% retention rate with our staff when we're transitioning. It's something that we do we do look at. We do um under we do put the metrics to and we do have numbers to report on. So, we're at a 99% retention rate when we transition properties. A timeline timelines can vary, right? And so we are able to time we are able to transition in as little as 2 weeks, but I will tell you the longer the transition is, the more successful the transition usually is because it gives us more time to dive deep into all of the the bones that are buried in the backyard, so to speak. Um, so we will bring a group of people to the property, start engaging with the staff. The first thing, the first and most important thing is we engage with the staff right away. Let them know, here's what the benefits look like, here's what your pay looks like. We usually do a onetoone match. Whatever they're making today gets moved over to our company because for you all, you've been successful with the golf course. They're doing a good job. We want to keep that continuity. And so that's the step one for us. Um once we go through that process, we we we work with them on their benefits. We get them really comfortable with Keer Sports. That's then the phase where our 250 item checklist really starts to to break through. It's to understand all of the different reportings that have come through over the last few years. get all the financial pieces. It's to really break this down to a microscopic level to ensure nothing is missed that we we turn over every stone because if we don't do that, it comes to bite us in the you know what a few months later and it's important that we focus on that and that's what allows us to have very successful transitions. Um Mike, anybody want to add anything to that? So, I I think it really it's again it's something that we focus a lot at and I should say we will be on site to do

that. We're going to have over a dozen people that will be on site throughout the transition timeline to ensure that you when you're dealing with staff transitions, we don't want that to be done over a Zoom call. So, our team will be here, our human resources leads will be here to have those conversations. Our regional operations people will be here weekly through that transition. So, this is not something that's done from afar. And again, that's where I go back to one of those key pieces I talked about my presentation. It's about the resources that you're getting for what you're paying for. And we provide those resources at a level unlike anybody else. We're here. We're going to be present. We're going to be here so the community can talk to us. And during that transition p transition phase, even more so where you might not see us leave because it's that important that we're here doing the work, being on the ground, and ensuring that nothing is missed.

Okay. Thank you. Uh so the maintenance is a the maintenance is a big issue a hot topic I guess I would say here among the golfers and uh why is it an important aspect for you guys to have uh the maintenance part of it

yeah I'll pose it back in a kind of a similar question if I asked you to uh I if I came to you and I said I have an opportunity for you to run a restaurant you get to take all you you're going to be responsible for all the profits and losses of the restaurant, but you don't get to control food. There'd be some conversations about does that make sense? And for us, the product on the golf course is so vastly important. It's from a community assessment perspective, it's from a survey perspective, it's from what what the community what we're trying to become. And so from a from pricing, from the the amenity spending, all those different little pieces come directly from the product. And so we need to make sure that we have that product in a good spot. Now what is good, right? That's an interesting question. What is good? Good can be a lot of different things. Good at Chambers Bay, which is a top renowned golf course, is is going to be the different standards than what we have here. So we need to understand what does the community where is this fine line at of what is wanted by this community that's playing the golf course so much. And then when we find that, we need to continue to make it repeatable because we can't have a situation where all of a sudden we're good for a day or two and then we drop off and then we're back to being good for a day or two. So by us being able to control all of those different factors and it also allows pricing to be really implemented in a lot more favorable way because of our national buying power as we mentioned, but being able to control that allows us to control all the other pieces. So that way this can really become a full asset. So we can really compare and and understand all the different pieces that are going in and complement each one of them effectively.

You want to I'll say as far as just progress from probably majority of the golfers would say would be good. Uh regardless of the course condition, we're always out there playing no matter what. If it's Friday Skins game, mafia crew, whatever it is, tournament, we we still support the golf course no matter what. And I think we just want to see progress.

We completely agree. And if we weren't successful at doing that, we wouldn't have a tenure with our clients that's over 10 years long. It's or 98% retention rate. They'd fire us. And our brand is something that's so important to us. And a lot of that comes from the conditions that we're offering. And again, it's different everywhere. You know, does Mike have the same budget at at Painted Dunes that Stream Song has in Florida? No. But we work within those boundaries to find what's the right approach for this golf course. And how do we be successful at that? That's why everything we do is bespoke. It's custom. It's focused on this particular property. Even though we're big, we because the way we do resourcing, it's all focused on this on you all. And how do we build that appropriately? Uh do you guys manage any courses where you don't have the maintenance?

Uh we do. So uh the Portland golf courses in Portland, Oregon, we actually partner with I believe it's five of their golf courses up there. Um and so we we do have that structure. Uh I will tell you it's a it is a bit of a fight. Um but we do have the structure so we know how to work within those boundaries. What's what's the relationship like with that?

So it's an interesting question. I will be very transparent. Um it's uh it we have a very good relationship with the city because we're doing very well financially speaking. Um frankly that team we just had our our leadership awards and the Portland team won team of the year out of all 200 golf courses. It's a well functioning team because we got the right people there and the right leadership group and the city sees that. The city understands we can't control all of the different pieces. Um, and so within the confine the confinement of our relationship, the relationship is good. Everybody, I believe, understands that it could be a lot better if we could control the the maintenance there. Um, there's two golf courses where it's quite subpar and our our rates are struggling, uh, utilization struggling, but they're better than they've always have been because we're doing programming and we're working around it to find solutions. Um, so we do the best we can. We build that relationship even under certain restrictions there, but it can always be better. And we are continuously having conversations with the city of Portland to see about, okay, can how has this progressed? Can we continue to help you? Can we provide procurement to help try to move that needle? But it's a difficult conversation.

And do you have at least a seat at the table? We do. Okay.

We do. So what we've done with at city of Portland for that kind of the seat at the table, we've instituted a mutually agreed upon rules of kind of engagement so to speak of these are the minimum qualifications that are needed by the superintendent. Here's the different u kind of conversational rules that we have to have cart path only if it's too wet. all these different pieces that we both have to mutually align on because what you can't have is you can't have a golf course that's soaked in rain and a superintendent saying that unfortunately I shouldn't you shouldn't have golf carts out there and yet the management company on this side saying just let it go everywhere because then what you're going to do is in a week from now you're going to have really bad course conditions. So we've created a mutually understandable kind of rules of engagement on how we work together to ensure that that relationship works. Again it's it's productive. Is it as good as it could be? No. But that's the structure that they needed to have happen and we worked within those boundaries.

Thank you. Do you happen to know of all your facilities how many of those percentage-wise have electric carts with GPS attached? I I I can find the number and give it to you. I do not know off the top of my head. I will tell you that we are significantly moving more towards electric carts if the infrastructure is there. Um, and depending on terrain and some other pieces just from ensuring the golf cart can get around. Um, because a lot of our pricing has gotten significantly better over the last few years on electric carts. It's a better experience. Um, but not all of them. I I Mike, maybe in your grouping of golf courses,

it it often it and what we're finding too, the advent of the personal rangefinders has taken a little bit of that desire and that push from the the uh you know the the onboard type products. Um there is a very high cost associated with those that has to get passed through in what you're charging for the carb rental or for the grain fees. So there are other products out there that have kind of taken the place of that. Um, not to say that you can't do internal marketing, you can't do food and beverage orders. There's other features to it. Pace supply is often controlled by those. So, there are a number of items that are beneficial. You just have to kind of weigh the pros and the cons to see if it's really if it's worth the money.

Would you say the minority of your facilities have gas carts? Yeah, I I would say as of today, yes, because there's been a lot of transitioning to electric carts. And again, part of that is from a just a a consumer perspective, but also from a pricing perspective, being the second largest in the space comes with certain advantages that we talked about with procurement benefits. Our pricing on on Yam on Club Car and um a couple of EasyGo is 25 to 35% off um you know retail one-off type places plus different types of financing. So we have these different partnerships that we get to really engage in that allow those opportunities to become much more viable for properties where really there was only one option before and because of that it has grown in popularity. But I will tell you it does come with potential infrastructure. So there's got to be some, you know, if all of a sudden a cart barn can't facilitate the electric the grid and the pull that it takes, you know, it it takes it some time to build that out, but there has been a lot of conversion.

So it's a flexible deal for you guys. Yeah, we we do not one thing that you'll find about Keer Sports is that we are agnostic in a lot of the different things that we do. We do not mean we do not have to go down one singular path for really anything. And that comes from a T- sheet perspective, a point of sale perspective, or a golf cart perspective. Every once again, it kind of goes back to the philosophy of everybody is their own and custom. We want to find what's the best products for the budget for the every all these different pieces for each one of these properties. So, we're agnostic in that approach. Are the majority of your facilities open seven days a week? Yes.

And you guys took a tour of Desert Lakes. So, we were there for the site visit and then um yes, maybe once uh not during the site visit just to kind of look around a little bit. Very good. And anything you saw out there uh would it not fit into the Keer model?

Well, it's a good question. Um no, nothing nothing scares me about that because we're confident in our abilities of being able to ensure that all those pieces are there. Right. We you've done a great job with the irrigation project. You've spent a lot of money on that. The infrastructure is there. You know, I we still have to evaluate the team. We have to understand what their skills are, but the pieces are there. So, growing grass is in theory the easy part, right? It's we can train staff. We can do a lot of these things. And so, I'm not going to sit here and say, "Oh, because you don't look like Chambers Bay or Stream Song or Bandon Dunes that you can't be part of the port." No, it's we're here because this is what we love to do and we see the opportunity there and we see what this community probably wants and we we believe that we're the best custodian to say, "Hey, look, we've done this at so many other places. Here's the trust. The trust is in what we've done. Let us do it here. Even though I know it looks like it's a lot of work, we've done it. We can do it." And it gets us excited.

Thank you. I've got one. This is maybe uh and I may I may need to throw something at Dr. Hernandez as well. Um hopefully she can answer this question. Um so one of the projects that that the the city is looking at is we have to reline a few ponds. How does that interfere with your management? I I'll take a stab at it first. You want to go? I threw I threw a good one at you there. So, but it's Well,

I would I would not I don't think there's any interference. It certainly gives you another another area that we can oversee that we can make sure that that the costs are, you know, there's not cost override that there are elements in that. We've got experts that we can lean on that have done that. I know Mike to pay dues, you have have gone through a whole lining process. Um, so that's nothing new, you know, that that is not, you know, that's just part of a life cycle for a golf course is that that is going to be something that does need to be done. So, we just confer with the experts, get the right opinions, get the right, you know, put it on the right track, and then make sure that along the way it follows those game follows that game plan. And I I'll add to that to say that it's our job to balance the potential closures for a golf course with how we work with whatever construction company is doing that work to figure out the best path for golfers to ensure that a community asset is stays open as much as we possibly can make it stay open. So right now we have over 15 uh renovation projects that are ongoing both from brand new golf courses to golf courses that that are operational today. So we've got a lot of experience and that's just right now. Now, I mean, we've been doing this for 45 years. We've got a lot of experience on how to balance that appropriately. A lot of it's communication, right? If you don't know what's going on and you show up at the golf course and all of a sudden you get to a couple holes and you see that, you know, a couple greens are temporary because there's construction equipment going across, you're going to be frustrated. Well, it's our job to ensure that we're communicating that with our with with the with the community and with our guests. And so we take all of these different pieces that sometimes aren't always thought about to ensure that the community, the golfers, the people that we care about most are are happy and that we're doing the best thing for the property long term. And that's replacing the liners of the ponds and doing it in the most economical way, the most efficient way, and the way that's creating the less problem, the least amount of problems for everybody involved.

Um, just a quick question, Dr. Hernandez. Um, as we've been hearing is we are looking at 30 to 30 to 90day transition periods uh with Grant's contract being up uh June 31st. Am I correct? June 30th. Yeah, June 30th. There's not 31 days. My wife's going to kill me on I apologize. Um so how do how do we transition from that from um GNL golf to the new management company? Yes.

So when when you make the selection if it's tonight or if you table it for another night um we start tomorrow start working with getting the management contract um going go into negotiations and then we'll work with grant the new management company and do the transition. Um, as you can see, all all three companies have a transition plan and it all involves grant and involves the city. So, um, and I think all three 90 days is a good time frame to get going.

Um, how do how do we as as the city, how do we in the event that that we're going to do the maintenance and they're going to manage the golf course, how do we coexist? I mean that is that

that's 100% a contract negotiation on how um really because the golf the golf course affects play and vice versa. You know we affect each other's revenue. Um but we're in it for the same game. You know we still need to make the money. So it's definitely having a Mike will have to be right there with them. The golf superintendent. Um, you know, there's time there's points when Mike probably talks more with the management company than he does with us because it's he's so intertwined with them. So, it's really whatever decisions we make, whether it's the management company or on the city side, it it really has to have a good working relationship between the both of us.

Question Any more questions? No, I can ask at the next thing. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

You can all stay. Can we take a five? Ask the mayor. I'm not in charge. Sorry, Mayor McDonald. Can we take five? You can take a five minute recess. Whatever.

meeting public comment.

Okay, next on the agenda is public comments and I believe that we only have one at this time and that is Scott Frederick. Um, and he's going to speak on the golf course. Uh, Madame Mayor, commissioners, city staff, uh, come to you with a multifaceted interest in this topic. Uh, avid golfer since I was 12 years old, a property owner at our golf course, a retired military member who retired here because of this golf course, the golf course community, and the people of Alagora. Uh, all of that has been in jeopardy the last few years. So, you have very competing interests. I come from a community of competing interests. Pilots who want to fly airplanes until they're not flyable. Maintainers who want to fix airplanes until every one of them is ready. You have a pro shop that wants to let golfers play golf. You have a superintendent and a grounds crew that wants to get the golf course in the best position. Those are very competing interests. The wing at Hollowman solves those problems between operators and maintenance by having one person in charge of that and one person makes a decision. You are the elected officials of this town. You are the one voice that makes a decision. The hardest decision to make as a leader is to turn back when you're on a road that is going a wrong direction. And you guys have that opportunity. I urge you to please put this aside. Do not vote on it tonight. The three experts that have presented this evening and the fourth expert that has ran this pro shop and taught my daughter to play golf for the last three plus decades has told you that you need to have the entire piece of the pie under control of one organization. The bowling alley when last year when you guys vetted that and awarded that contract, you did not tell the end of the mountain gods, please run our bowling alley, but we're going to run the maintenance of your lanes.

That's what we're doing at the golf course. You are telling someone to produce a product that they are not wholly responsible for and I think that is a business flaw. We've had some transparency open forum last week or last year where we started this conversation. A lot of interest was brought up to you the city staff. I have personally sent emails to all of you or previous versions of you uh last year and got a mixed review and most of it was and this is as not me as an individual but as the president of the men's golf association in Alagortua who represents not only these people and the ladies who play our course our membership has gone from 250 plus to less than 180 this year. Why? Because of corks conditions and the what we see is the foreseeable future. Please table this vote. Please kick an RFP out that includes four maintenance. One said they won't do it. The other said, "We absolutely have an alpha and a Bravo. Strongly suggest Bravo." The third said they can do either. This is a short-term solution and bad decisions are made with short time. Continue the contract if you need to kick it out again and bring maintenance under one person that runs this. I hope you make the smart tough decision as our leaders. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. It's time now for the city manager's report. I forgot I hadn't done that. Um I'll keep it brief. Um I just want to talk a little bit about um development in Alagoroto. Um we're doing really well. Um things that have gone through TRC and are getting approved is the new Domino's North that'll be in the fairgrounds subdivision. The new Waterburger is um the plans have come to TRC that will be next to it'll be South White Sands next to Pizza Hut. Um the coat plans we are about to release those. That's the coat building. Um next month's is that how you say it? Ali's Ali's bargain bargain. What is that called? Yes. Um they are opening in big lots. Five below is opening soon and Take Five that is also um in the fairgrounds subdivision. As far as homes building, we are working on Somerset uh the phase two. We're working with the French brothers. That's about 50 to 60 homes. Her most Hermosa dels delo is on its way. It's about 20 lots. Uh Granada subdivision is about 30 to 40 lots. So though we're working on all of those. Um the zoo, I had the pleasure of going to the zoo today. It's pretty awesome. We got a generous donation by Miss Lynn Rice and now we have a brand new reptile learning center. Um we are very grateful for that donation. It looks amazing. It's going to be open to just like the rest of the zoo exhibits. And we if you knew how it was before we needed somebody's staff there. So it's really awesome. And a shout out to White Sands Construction. They did an amazing job on

that work. It really looks awesome. Um Wednesday, if you want to see it, we are open late Wednesday till 9:00. They they did something new this year this summer. And um they are opening late and it's been wildly successful. It started off slow, but people are really enjoying the late night at the zoo. Um Kate, our zoo manager, she will be presenting next meeting on April 14th to talk about more of the stuff that's happening at the zoo. We got a lot of cool things going on, a lot of upgrades and uh we're looking at getting accreditation back. So she'll she Kate and her crew are doing a phenomenal job getting that zoo up and running. So they'll be here next um next meeting. And then just a reminder, the workshop for the subdivision, we're doing two more workshops. It'll be here in the commission chambers. I sent the um email out to you all. I think I even sent invites for Monday. It's optional. Um it's the last workshop we'll have before we bring it to commission um in April. So that's all I got.

All right. Thank you. Um the next on the agenda is remarks and inquiries by the city commissioners.

I have a few. Um, I have a neighbor that lives at 508 the Fifth Street. Um, when they did the sidewalk project, he had an approach that was removed and they put a regular curb and gutter back in. Um, he asked me to see if there was a way we can get that replaced to original standards what he had. Um I also um as most of you guys did get a call from 1801 Oregon. Um I think we really need to revisit that especially since when I went over there and looked at it. I haven't seen the plans but I seen that on the east side of the road there was a lot of curb and gutter that was removed and replaced. So um according to the homeowner they didn't have that water issue and they do now. Um, so I really think we need to revisit that before it becomes an issue. Um, also on the Oregon project, I noticed that there is no business traffic control, so there's no way to know how to get to those businesses that are on Oregon Street. Um, they're suffering pretty good over there. I tried to get to one of them today and couldn't figure out how to really get there easily, especially when they're getting ready to pave and stuff. Um, so I think we I'm pretty sure that the contractor had it in their budget on traffic control. Um, if they didn't on future projects like this, we need to make sure that that is in place. Um, you go to any other town and when they restrict access to businesses, they have signage that say go this way. I mean, most of these guys are small businesses and it's really hurting them. um trash trucks. So this morning 5:00 am I heard a trash truck slamming the

dumpsters. Um I know we have an ordinance. I'm not sure if it fits them, but 5:00 a.m. is ridiculous. Um, if you look at Southwest Disposal's little card that they put out, um, they say that you have to have your can out by 6:30 a.m. I know that a noise ordinance is from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. So, uh, we really need to look at that. And I'm not picking on Southwest. I don't know whose truck it was that I heard this morning. Um, but it's pretty much daily. Um, but 5:00 a.m. is just a little crazy. um especially in the residential area. Um last Friday I came in to finalize my paperwork for my on boarding and as I was standing there a constituent came up to me and said, "Are you the commissioner?" I said, "Yes, sir." Not sure how I knew it was me. Um he started to tell me about his water bill that it went from $74 to $124. Um, I asked him if he had checked for leaks and that kind of stuff and he said he did and I gave him some pointers on how to do that. Um, I asked him to do me a favor and give city staff the opportunity to look at it and he said when he said they're closed. So, his biggest complaint wasn't his water bill jumping. His biggest complaint is that he had nobody to talk to. This was about 10:00 in the morning. Um, I think that's kind of a bad deal that there's nobody to talk to about your water bill, especially when it jumps up that much. Um, he was on foot, so he had to leave and come back um after 1:00. Um, his other complaint was, "When I come back after 1:00, there's going to be a line and I got to sit there and wait." Um, so I think that's something that we really need to address quickly.

Um, that's all I have on this one. Go ahead. I got a text from a constituent uh who was concerned about the trash down on New York Avenue uh overflowing in the cans. And it looks like that got addressed and they sent me another text thanking me that it got addressed. So, thank you Thank you, Parks. I just have one. Uh the weeds on Desert Lakes Road in the ditch. Can we get on that before it gets out of hand?

I saw those this week, too. Yeah, First Street, too. First Street's pretty bad. First Street and White Sands. That first median Anyone else? So, we'll move on to the uh consent agenda. Is there anything that needs to come off?

Item number six. So um at this time uh we will um go for the uh motion on this to leave off item six and um approve item four and five. Move to approve.

Second. Okay. All right. So, Commissioner Robinson um moved uh on the motion and on uh Commi Commissioner Bernett uh second it. So, let's go for the vote. And the vote passes 6. All right. Are you standing for number six? So for Yeah. From number five.

Number six. So okay. I can't count fingers tonight. Okay. Um, Evelyn is going to talk about to consider an act upon adoption and final publication of ordinance 1722 authorizing the delivery of a loan agreement and intercept agreement for 12 million for the construction, equipping, and furnishing of a municipal natatorum. Evelyn Huff,

mayor, commissioners, um, thank you commissioner Hernandez for removing this. we had asked that it be removed um as well beforehand. So, we appreciate that. Um I have Chris Mirhead uh with Mod Rail Sperling who is also here to discuss a little bit about this and how uh New Mexico Finance Authority is pricing it and the um process going forward. So, I figure we'll let Chris talk and then whatever specific questions you have for either of us.

Good evening, mayor, commissioners, uh Chris Mirhead with Model Firm. So where we stand now, this is a the second reading and was here last time or two meetings ago talking about this particular loan and the pledged revenues which is limited to that 1/8 gross receipts tax for the natiatorum. So I think that's all straightforward still consistent with what we discussed last time. Scheduling scheduling wise, the New Mexico Finance Authority is the lender here and they are selling their own bonds uh next Wednesday uh which includes the amount they're going to loan to the city of Alamagordo within that and then we'll know the pricing terms. The preliminary numbers that they've run show about 4.35 net interest cost uh for the 25-year bond. Um it would be prepayable at the 10-year mark. Uh this ordinance delegates to the mayor, city manager or finance director to accept the terms next Wednesday and then we will bring those terms back to you at your meeting on April 14th to present the terms to you. Um but this this does delegate that authority. Um the finance authority, the market's kind of up and down. Obviously the world's a little bit things happening. uh but it's still they feel good about where they are and again over 25 years uh they are borrowing at that AAA rate uh which is the uh best possible credit and passing those uh their bond proceeds borrowed at that rate uh to the city uh that will get the benefit of that and again somewhere in the 4.25 to 4.5 uh net interest cost on the $12 million. Happy to answer any questions about the process. It'll it would close May one and the funds will be available at that time. Um, but the the next big step is the lender taking their steps to sell their bonds.

When are we planning on getting this project started? So, the plans the the most recent plans is the 60%. They're working on getting to the 90% coinciding about the same time as we close on the loan. Um, and so that's we get to that 90%, we do the final reviews thinking that it'll probably be ready to bid the end of the summer, so August, September. Is there do you guys have an engineers estimate or anything on

So they have been instructed many, many, many times by me, it needs to be a $12 million pool. So they need to engineer it to where it is a $12 million pool. And so at the time when they're finished with the set of plans, we'll do the final EOPC. And if it does not come in at 12 million, they are going to have to go in and modify the design to where the EOPC gets to 12 million.

Okay. And so what what is the total dollar amount that is available for this with the 105 and the 12 million? So, at the time when we rededicated the tax, we moved $4 million of fund balance from 105 to the new uh 127, which is specifically for this. Um, and so that was $16 million. Of that $16 million with obviously the $12 million loan, we've spent around a million for the design. There was another 500,000 um that was spent to put all the tie-ins. Since the pool is shifting, we had to shift the plumbing tie-ins. Um, there's been some other small things that come up to about 650,000. So, so far they've spent 1.65 on this. So, that leaves the balance there of about the 2.3. That is really what we're building as the contingency. Again, $12 million pool, leaving the 2.5 as the contingency. So that you know cost overruns another war or you know some situation. Perfect thing would be they design $12 million pool. We put it out to bid. We get it within that range and then that contingency at the end can be used to outfit or you know make any differences. You know we try and limit change orders but they do happen at that time. But that's that's our current process right now.

Okay. So during my selection process, one of the things that kept coming up was the bowling alley and the fiasco at the bowling alley, which everybody has the option to look at the voting record on that. Um, mine was pretty clear and and as you and I are both aware, because I was here during that time as well, that turned into a design, it turned into a design build, it went back to a design, it went back to a design build. We've been very consistent throughout this whole process with the same architect who's done all the conceptual is now doing all of the design. So, we've tried to stay very consistent to avoid situations.

Okay. So, according to this, the people that spoke during my selection process, um I take it that most of them were probably from district 5 or they said they were from district 5. Um and had a serious problem with that with the bowling alley. And this is not I mean it's different but it's not much different. I mean it's $16 million. Um which is a lot of money. Um it's 25 years of financing. Um I just really don't think I can support that. Um I support the pool. I support you know the function of it but $16 million and 25 years of financing is a lot. And um because of the feedback that I got during my selection process, I mean that tells me a big story.

And not to try and change your mind, but to just give you some perspective. Um you know, I know that you watched the commission meetings and were, you know, involved when you weren't on the commission. Um but we did look at as many alternatives as we could to building a new pool. Um we we did try and look at building a cover over the current pool. We at one point got very far into the process of actually acquiring another bubble until we started reaching an an understanding with the environmental department that said you could do what you did before because you were grandfathered in. You can't do that again. I was here.

Yeah. So as you know that was a whole thing. We we did look at multiple different things. When it finally came down to it, we we allocated quite a bit of money. We really had the pool checked out by structural engineers, by experts, and they said that we could not build over the current site, that it would not support it, especially with the situation with the east ditch and and the east wall. So, we did look as many different options as we could to try and utilize the facility that we currently had. when it became clear that that wasn't an option, then we did start down the path of designing something new. Unfortunately, as much as I would love to say that we could save up and and be able to cash fund, at no point we would be able to do that because unfortunately it just keeps getting exponentially more expensive and we would never get up to that threshold. So,

your contingencies right around 14% 15%. Um, yeah. Of a $12 million pool. Yeah, we're at about a little under 20 because I have about two and a half in contingency. That's another is thing that I'm just not really comfortable with is that contingency. I mean, there's just with cost going up and um that that comment I told him I need a $12,000 pool. That concerns me as well.

Well, and and like I said, I've been very very clear. I have multiple times met with the architect and been very clear about this is situation. If we get to the point where the the plans are complete and he does his final EOPC and says this is my probable cost and he says it's $14 million and then we're going to have to go back to the the drawing board and say okay it's going to need to be smaller. It's going to need to be less lanes. It's going to need to be some situation because I will not put it out to bid unless there is an EOPC that says that it will be $12 million. Yeah. See, that's that's another concern I have is that you're going to value engineer it to death and then you get a smaller pool that's not what the people think they voted on because they don't know what they voted on. Um, and then again, we did the wrong thing.

And all I can do is continue to try and do the right thing. But I mean, you got to see where I'm coming from.

I do. And and like I said, I don't expect that I'm going to be able to change your mind. I just wanted to make sure you understood everything that we've done behind it. The other thing is because we are putting this out to bid, it's a competitive bid. It comes to you all for final approval. If it comes to you all for final approval and you're not comfortable with what you're seeing, you don't have to approve it. You can tell us put it back out, take it back for redesign, whatever. At the end of the day, you have the final say on that. We are not awarding a contract without your approval. Let me just mayor and commissioners just to be clear on the process here. Uh and I understand Commissioner Rearen's out today. Uh given this is a a debt of the municipality, it does require a 75% majority of the voters to approve the ordinance. So a simple majority won't approve it. Just so you're all comfortable with what uh the requirement is. So it would take five of the six. Mayor, do you vote or are you a type? I do. Oh, well then you six of the seven. So you would need five of the six here. You would need five of the six here. Yeah. So and if Commissioner Rearen was here.

Is that right? Yeah. I think that's Yeah. A lot of commissioners. Yes. So yes. Yeah. So just if I do support this tonight, I will be very critical of the process from here forward because again the backlash that I received um over the last couple of months. Yeah. And and again that's perfectly understandable. That was a rough process and it continued to be a rough process and it was all balls.

Yeah. And so, you know, we we are trying to go forward and learn from our mistakes. And like I said, we did not go into this with any any sort of ideas other than doing the process exactly. We know this is a big project. Very much. Yeah. And I've done the math in my head. I'm sorry for the confusion. It takes 75% of the the full commission. So, you would need six of the seven voting members to support it. whether it's all six of you tonight, a deferral if you want Commissioner Raren here, but it would take six positive votes.

Could I ask whoever wants to answer of a summary of what had it land at 12 million? What are the what are all the factors at play for that? So, um, when the initial idea came about rededicating the tax and everything, we took the historical numbers. Um, I believe we gave John 10 years of historical numbers. John Archeletta, who is our financial adviser with Bossi Advisors. Um, he, you know, asked for proof of the GRT. We gave him that information. They ran the calculations. They came back and gave us, I believe, six different scenarios, different amounts, different amounts of years. Um, this project doesn't really fit into like a 30-year time frame because most pools don't have a 30-year lifespan. So, um, you know, we stayed more in the 2025. I think we did 11, we did 12, we did 16. We looked at several different figures. Um and we brought that to the commission and said okay you know where does everybody feel comfortable with this we did that in conjunction with conceptual design submitts um from ASA architects who's handling the design of it. So we kind of did a package thing of okay this is the con this is the concept and everything and these are the different debt packages that we could have and so the commission at that point in time felt comfortable with the 12 million felt comfortable with the 25 years.

Thank you. At this time at the 60% drawings um is what size is the pool? Is it a Olympic size pool or is it smaller? It it is not an Olympic size pool. How many lanes are you guys at? I can't remember how many or 10 lanes. Eight or 10 lanes. Yeah. Enough for us to have small. So, it could be used for competition. It can be used for competition. Yes, we made sure that it would be competition approved. Have you guys looked at any fee schedules or anything for the pool? No, that has not been discussed. Okay. Because that's another concern that I got too is can can we use it?

Yeah. And and obviously that's your guys's decision because you as the commission set the fee schedule. So that would be another option that would come to you as well. Okay. And when do you think you'll be at 90%. They want to be at 90% by the beginning of May and then do the final finishing touches in that June May June July time frame.

Okay. So um at this time do we want to table it for um a person here to you know the other commissioner to come or I would make a motion to table this matter for another meeting. Do we have a second? Second.

I second. So, it has been motioned by Commissioner Baxter and second by Commissioner Tapley to um postpone the vote tonight for a later date. Do we have a vote next meeting or Sure.

could be. I would just say let me republish it so that that if you're going to defer, which is obviously 100% fine. It's your call. Just put it in that you're going to consider it at X date. we've run a publication that you're considering it tonight. So, you're all square for tonight to consider it, which you are. Uh, but if you're looking at uh April 14th, is that the then Oh, we have we have plenty of time. So, if that's if that's next meeting, yes, we can get that in the paper. April 14th.

Okay. And uh it's up for the vote. and it passes six to zero.

Great. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is consider and act upon the award of the RFP 20260001 golf course management and operation services to the one of the following qualified vendors maximum golf American golf and keer golf management. Uh Belinda here. Commissioners, Dr. Hernandez, um this is our we've had all of our presentations this evening and uh we've talked about this for about the last year and so I ask that you guys choose our next management company.

Can I ask a question? Sure. uh could you explain the narrative on how the RFP went out and uh how we selected the bids for that?

So the RFP was developed uh we had lots of input um both uh based on what is lacking in our current contracts um things that we wanted to make sure that was in there. Um, lots of other golf courses and vendors were um, I shouldn't say vendors, lots of other golf courses were consulted and we reviewed their RFPs that they had put out uh, to and and we spoke to other golf courses to find what uh, worked for them, what they didn't like, what they wish they would have put in into their RFPs. Uh, it took us several months to build that. Um, and then it uh was submitted. Some uh management companies contacted us and wanted us to be wanted to be on the list to make sure they got the chance to bid on it. Um, and then it was published nationwide so that anybody could bid on it so everybody had an opportunity. Um, I don't recall how many people were on the review committee. Uh but there was a variety of people and we had uh also an outside person who's unrelated to the city or any but is a golf professional uh from outside of the city also was part of that review committee.

Can I ask about how we settled on scope and how we arrang how we arrived at the different options for this evening? Uh again it was based on what our directive was was to go out for an RFP for the management of the pro shop and the restaurant. Uh the scope of work again was based on the things that we wanted to see happen at the golf course. uh things that the improvements that we wanted to see uh and again based on what we learned from other golf courses who had put out RFPs and the things that they said you really should have this in there, you shouldn't have this in there. Uh this is what's worked for us. This was what hasn't worked for us. So we consulted with lots of other folks. Um, we also took a lot of things from our own town hall meetings that we had and just input that we've received from phone calls and things from golfers, uh, one-on-one uh, communications. Uh, so we put we tried to build the whole thing around those.

And as far as maintenance inclusion, how did that go down?

So maintenance inclusion was not put in there. I I don't know if you received the emails regarding all of that. Um the maintenance was not included because we have uh put several million dollars into our new irrigation system. We've put a lot of time and money into the training and developing of our own workforce. Uh we also have a lot of things. We're going to be tearying up the course a little bit again in the probably near future with the relining of the ponds on the back nine. Um so there's there's a lot that goes into that. Uh the golf course is just finally to a point where we're we've put a lot of money into getting the products and developing the things that we need to develop and now we're at that point where we're putting seed in the ground to get the grass going again. Um so I think at the end of this year there's going to be a much bigger mark difference. Um you know as everybody knows last year we tore up the entire course because we put in a new irrigation system and so we lost a lot of grass. there was, you know, downtime on watering and and just obviously the all the trenching that happened just to put the new system in.

I guess my question is why is one of the proposals why does that contain an option A and B for inclusion or not included? I can't speak for the people who put in uh the they put in what they put in. Uh I don't have any control over who uh submits a proposal. Uh we specifically laid out in the RFP that it was for just the management of the pro shop and the restaurant. And at the time that was the commission's direction to go out for um a management company for the um pro shop and the restaurant.

Yeah. But I asked for you to send it out two ways with and without. That was that was well after the the that was before we we were still in writing of the RFP when I Yeah. But that but the commission decision as a whole you as one commissioner told me after the fact. No, I told you in public. Yes. But the but your one and that wasn't I understand but it never came to us as an option is what I'm saying after I asked. But you could have put it as an option and then I brought it back to you letting you know that I didn't that because I don't think it was just you. I can't remember. Somebody else asked it that we were not going to put that in as an option at this point. However, if that's the commission direction, we could.

Do you understand why I have these questions after the presentations this evening? Having not watched the presentations. I I I can I can assume yes, but I didn't watch the presentations. So, so what would it take to Again, I'll ask um can anybody answer that question for me? Can you repeat that question?

Uh based on the presentations this evening, uh maintenance inclusion or not seems to be a big factor for all three of these vendors and how they would stage their approach to our situation with this. Um, and I saw one vendor who put in an option and one and two that didn't. So, I'm just curious on the scope. Um, do we do we have uh an idea as to why that is?

So, we could not once the RFP went out, we could not speak to any of the the potential biders. Um, so as Belinda says, why they put it in there? I I don't know if they spoke to somebody from the golf course. I that's not a question that we can answer, but you're free to ask any of the three companies. I believe all three are still here. Yes. In the event that

in the event that we don't vote on this tonight and uh or say we do vote on this and we want to include maintenance, does that have to go back out for RFP or can we include it ourselves? You're the commission. Um I would think we would have to go back out so that to ensure that all bids are equal to because of the the same reason that one included it as a must the others were may. So to ensure that the bidding is equal and fair consistent it would have to go back out.

And in the event that we send it back out for RFP how long are we looking at? The minimum that we are allowed to do is 14 days, but we also have to rewrite the RFP to add that in. So, yeah, that'll take a little bit of time. So, we're looking at 30 days before it goes out. 45 days if it's just a simple I mean, I guess it depends on the direction. If it's a simple just adding the maintenance piece back in there, I think it's cost consideration. We would have to make sure we meet the paper deadlines because but I don't think it would be 30 days. You said it would be less than 30 days or less.

Yeah, if it's a simple if the direction is simple for the maintenance. Yeah. I I just have one concern and maybe Stephanie can help with this is all of this was grant funded and we're going to be turning if we send it out the maintenance out, we'll be turning things that we received grant funding for to build and develop over to a third party. And I'm not sure where that falls into things. So because there's there's rules.

Yeah. Well, I mean, if we can ask one of the uh potential contractors that work actually work for other municipalities and how that funding works with them uh through the city that did their grants stop coming in because you guys took over the maintenance aspect or I think if we're going to ask Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. I mean, any of them are willing to answer the question. I I'm not aware of that ever happening. Same with us. We don't recall that happening. Please come up. Are you asking about future grants or the grant that we just existing grants?

The grants that we've already spent. Is that what you're asking? Go ahead. So, for the the state money that's already been spent, it's it's fine. and it would stay a city asset and then we can enter into a contract for somebody to keep that. We would not as a city be able to sell it for 10 years, but obviously that's not what we're talking about. That's not even that's really not even an option for us anyway. So, right. Yeah. Because there's all sorts of things on the deeds and stuff like that. But in terms of there's no issue with the money that's been put into the irrigation system that it has to be managed only by the city and future grants.

The future grants so it would be something we would have to disclose if it was something that we submitted to the legislature and said you know hey we're asking for capital outlay funding for this. We would have to disclose that it was under a management agreement, but it would still become our asset. What about equipment that we bought? The equipment that we bought, if we bought equipment with that, we would have to do a lease agreement. We could lease the equipment because it would still have to stay in our name. Yeah. As long as we remain owners on all of it, it's

Yeah. it. As long as it stays a city asset and is not disposed of in the 10-year time frame, we're fine. Could I request a summary of any financial impact that the city will face if we table this or go out for RFP for maintenance inclusion? So, I guess the direct what is the direction to table this go out for RFP? I I I Well, first I'm I'm wanting to make sure that if we do this, I I think we will table, but if we go back out for RFP, I would like to know what our financial ramifications are for that

as a city. I think the question would be more for Daryl is you see the direction we're going here. We would we don't I I think we need to include uh maintenance. So, what do we need to do? Do we need to table this? Do we need to give direction to go out to RFP again?

So, I mean, both of those options are available to you guys. You guys, if we're you have a majority here, you have a full quorum. Um, not a full quorum, but you have a quorum. So, if you want Commissioner Rearen to be a part of that conversation, then I would suggest you table it so that way you can have a full a full body. Um, but you do have enough members here uh that you guys can take an action item. So, if that action item is to go out for RFP to include maintenance of the golf course, then you guys are well within your ability to do that tonight. Um, so it's it's it's honestly how the commission or whoever's making the motion is choosing at the time. Do we want to table this?

No. So, I would move that uh we go out for RFP to include uh complete maintenance and operations of the golf course. I'll make that as a motion. I'll second. Okay. The motion has been made by Commissioner Hernandez and seconded by Commissioner Bernett. And u at this time we will need to vote.

Is the direction understood? Just to make sure. Okay. I do want to say thank y'all for coming out and presenting. Sorry we couldn't get you guys an answer tonight, but I do appreciate it's a there's a lot of information, a lot for us to think about. I can tell you that for sure. Commissioner Tapley. I'm thinking past bedtime.

And the vote passes 6. So, are you going to require a another full set of presentations? No, I don't think so. Well, I guess it really depends on if there's more companies that bid. Are you only uh qualifying three biders or are you qualifying as many as We took the top three. There was five, right? That four. Well, there was there was five that put in. There was five that showed up but four that put in and we picked the top three. Okay. And one didn't qualify basically.

Okay. So I I would say just if there was any other uh potential management companies other than these three obviously we've already heard their presentation. Uh I would say just to hear the other ones. Can you can you put it out? I mean, just maybe with the three that you have here and say, "Can you adjust your proposal to I I wouldn't Yeah, I I mean, I'm just don't I don't know what the I think I start over.

Yeah. You know, because because it's going out for a new RFP, we have brand new parameters. Um even if it's just a slight addition to adding the maintenance just to make sure that we're fair we're fair and above board with everything. Um I I would not limit it to just the three that made the top score here. And how uh and how does that affect our 90 our 60 to 90 day transition period and June 30th.

So we cannot go back out. We cannot extend GNL golf anymore. We are we've already asked for from the state to extend it a year over what was allowed just because we made the argument of the golf course being in the condition and the transition to a new management contract. So, you're closing in on that. Um, I I think all the three companies here said that more time is better, but I think they also said that they can do it within the time a shorter time frame.

The earliest we could advertise it is not this Saturday, but next Saturday. That would be with a rewrite of the RFP language to include maintenance that would have to get done like absolutely as soon as possible. Is that just a subsection that needs to be added?

Yeah, because I mean all of the rest of the language is there. So, we would just need to have the RFP language for for the maintenance part. Um, and then this one we we advertised it twice. Um, and then we did the mandatory walkthrough and then we gave them additional time obviously after the mandatory walkthrough because we wanted everybody have time to put their proposals together. Um, you know, and so then if you're not looking to have presentations, then that can be, you know, a little bit quicker because then we're just bringing proposals and not trying to, you know, let people coordinate travel and everything like that. Um, but I think I mean 30 days at least.

Can I ask what an option for maintenance would look like? Whether or not they wanted to throw two proposals. I'd like to ask everybody in the commission how they feel about that. So, like a bid alternate, I think, is that what you're saying? So, have it with or a bid alternate without? Is that what you're asking? the companies could choose to include or not include and I' I'd be open for any any input. Okay. Thank you. So, just just so I'm clear, um I'm looking at a calendar here. Uh Evelyn, I apologize. Um you're telling me this is going to go back out on the 4th of April

and then it will be out for how long? 14 days is the minimum. Okay. So that we would have uh it would end on the 25th of April. We would open the bids on the 27th and then we would see it uh on the first commission meeting on the 12th which is during budget after budget. Budget's the week the first week of May. The fourth and fourth through the eth is budget. Yeah. Mhm. So we the first we would see this would be on the 12th and we would have a 45day transition period.

You you can call a special meeting some at some point or we can put it in with the budget week. Get it a week sooner. It it could go on one of those budget meetings. There's no reason that that couldn't have a voting item on it. We just have to make it a special meeting instead of a hearing. Mhm. I'm just trying to I'm just trying to make it to where uh everything I'm hearing is 60 90 days is a good transition period if we want to be successful and we're kind of

the other option is if you had another person who could operate. It can't be G&L Golf because of the the procurement restriction, but you could enter into a professional service agreement with another entity to serve as an interim if if that was an option.

Okay. it it is an option because you you most likely would be talking about 60 days even if you're assuming maybe $10,000 a month or or some amount like that. You would be under the professional services procurement threshold. So, I mean, it's possible an interim solution could be procured without having to go out to bid if it looked like the transition time frame was not going to work because

if I is it would it be appropriate for me just to get a nod, you know, the a couple of head nods at 45 days is the bare minimum that would work as a transitioning. I I I think that's for a full transition though, the 60 to 90 days. Yeah. I mean, we can have that partial the main part of the transition done and then work through that the rest of it. Can I have one of the guys come up that is Yeah, you can just have one or two and and just kind to be fair, I would ask all three. I mean, just I apologize. Ask all three president.

The the premise of 45day transition is absolutely possible. The only thing I want to bring to the attention is the contracting period. Okay. So if we were to be let's just say on the 12th as you mentioned was the selection point at that point we'd then have to go through a negotiation process which with the municipality in our you know experience takes a couple of weeks. Um and usually the municipality does not want us to be engaged heavily at that point in time until we feel that there's a really good point and this point is going to get get signed. So I would just say that it does get a little hairy as long as the contracting period goes quickly. 45 days is is doable, but just remember that contracting period in there. Okay, that was with Kimper.

Um, I'm Paul Balon with American Golf. A suggestion would be ask the proposers to include a management contract, one that they have already entered into with another municipality and the city could view that and decide if that's something that they would want to enter into. It would shorten that contracting period um that my colleague has talked about. Um, the other thing I do want to bring to everyone's attention here is two of the three bids have been publicly published. So, everybody knows what two of the three have bid. So, um, I would respectfully ask that the third bid be published and then, you know, and sort of full disclosure of of you know, what we're all been talking about here today. Um and then you know we're all sort of on a level playing field when we go out you know to the response um the subsequent response from the reissue. Thank you

Brian Menace Maximum Golf. Um you know we're we're ready to do whatever we have to do. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Next on the agenda, item number eight, consider and act upon appointing three board members to the Otto County Solid Waste Authority OCSWA board. And you're not David Nunley, but

I'm not. He got out of it tonight. So, you get me instead. Um, mayor, commissioners, this is uh the Otto County Solid Waste Board, also known as the Landfill Board. Uh the landfill board meets usually once a year. Hold on real quick. Let let that clear out.

We're going to be empty.

I know. It's fine. Nobody's here for the landfill board. I mean, come on, guys. All right. So, the landfill board meets once to twice a year. Um, in conjunction with the Green Tree Lincoln County Board. This is the oversight for the combined effort that we have at the landfill. We are the operating manager. So as the operating entity we get five seats on the board. Historically those have gone to the city manager, the director who oversees the operations and then three members of the commission. So um last year and previous years it was uh the mayor Susan Payne, it was commissioner Sharon McDonald and commissioner Josh Ren. Obviously with Susan leaving the commission that left a vacancy and then historically when we've had one vacancy we've just gone ahead and reappointed the three commission seats again. So at this point um I do need to let you know the meeting for this year is on Thursday at 6:00. Um, so if you're interested, if you want to be one of the people on the board, you can either attend the meeting on Thursday at six o'clock or also you have the ability to give your proxy, um, which I have the forms here. So if you do get appointed and you can't make Thursday at 6, you can fill out the proxy form

this Thursday. This Thursday at 6 o'clock at Deadly School. I'm going to recommmit. Okay, awesome. And you can always sign up your person who's not here. I sign up Josh Reen and Josh won't be here. He won't. I won't. I was going to do it, but I won't be here either. I'm You can proxy. I'll I'll do it. But Okay. So, we have mayor Mayor Prom is out of town. We won't be able to get his proxy. We can get it over the phone, I think.

Okay. Um, so we have the mayor, the mayor Prom and Commissioner Bernett. Great. We just need a motion and we'll be good to go. So, moved. Second. Okay. So, it's been moved and moved by Commissioner Robinson, second by Were you the one that moved it? I I second it. You second it. Okay. Um motion by Commissioner Robinson, second by um Commissioner Hernandez.

So we go for the vote. It is officially 5 to 11. It's going to be an early morning. It said, was it? Yeah, someone didn't vote. I voted. I thought I did.

I voted. So for the record it will be 6 and that will be reflected on the minutes with commissioner and voting. Yes. Yeah.

So it's officially 6. Okay. Um so uh I am appointing uh appointments to boards and committees. And so on the airport advisory board, uh there's two upcoming vacancies for applications who live in either the county or city limits due to the expiring term of Eric um worshing

worshing on May 28th, 2026 and Emanuel Gonzalez Jr. on May 28 uh 26. A new application by Emanuel Gonzalez Jr. was uh received. Mr. Gonzalez Jr. currently serves as the chair of the airport uh advisory board. If reappointed, uh this would be his seventh term on the board. And so if there is no objections, uh we can reappoint or I will reappoint um Mr. Gonzalez Jr. to the airport board. Are we okay? Okay. Uh the second is Parks and Recreation Board. one upcoming vacancy due to the expiring term of Lori Armstrong on May 28th, 2026. A new application by Mrs. Armstrong was received. Mrs. Armstrong currently serves as the chair of the board. If reappointed, this will be her fourth term on the Parks and Recreation Board. So, if there are no objections, we will reappoint um Mrs. uh Lori Armstrong to the Parks and Recreation Board. Uh there's also an opening on the airport zoning board. Uh that um current vacancy for an applicant who lives in the city limits and the other two is the Elma Bora public library board. Uh one current vacancy for the uh county appointed uh representative and uh for the senior volunteer program advisory council. Uh there remains five current vacancies for applicants who live within the city limits. And if there's nothing else, uh then we need a motion for

I'll make a motion to Okay, it's been motioned by Commissioner Bernett and second by Commissioner um Tapley that we adjourn. the vote and it passes 6. We are adjourned.