I know that a lot has
happened since early Friday morning as we took possession of the Quail Valley
Country Club. I also know a lot of people have many questions about what is
happening. So, I thought I would try to answer some of them for you and you can
pass this on to others,
The first question is about memberships. All
memberships of any kind ceased Friday. There are no Life Memberships, Life Cart
Memberships, Corporate Memberships, Social memberships, or any other
memberships. We purchased the assets of the Club and none of the liabilities or
commitments made by them. With it being a City owned facility now, it becomes
publicly owned and therefore no longer private in any way. We have made
arrangements for the Swim Team to use the pool for their events and practices
for the rest of this season. The pool will not be open to the public or
any other individuals. It is open under a special use arrangements for
organized swim activities only. We did not want to make those kids suffer the
consequences of this action or have to make any other arrangements.
The second question is what will happen next. We
plan to have film crews on the entire facility Monday and Tuesday filming the
current condition of the grounds. We have already filmed the club house
facility. We will fly the area and take movies of the facility from the air.
These will be part of our evidence as we go forward and have to make a
presentation at an appeal which we expect them to file quickly. The procedure
we just went through gave us the ability to put our $3.1 million into the Court Registry
so we could take possession. The next step takes place if and when they file
their appeal to County Court. We will continue to try to negotiate with them to
avoid this.
We have closed the facility down completely, but
expect to have the La Quinta Golf Course open by the 3rd for play. We do not
know when we can get any other part of the Clubhouse open. All of the personal
property such as furniture, fixtures, and equipment were not part of the
Eminent Domain proceedings. We did offer to purchase them for a reasonable
price but were unable to negotiate a reasonable price so they will be removing
these beginning Monday. Once they remove all they intend to remove, we
can assess what we have to replace and move forward to do so. Needless to
say, that will take some time and we will not hurry into anything without doing
our homework. Short range plans are to get the grill, ladies locker room, and
the mens locker room open as quickly as we can. Food may be up and running as
well. We will be limited at that facility for a while as well. We will have
staff on board to handle any of these items. We are negotiating a contract for
carts and should have that in place by the 3rd for those needing to rent
carts.
As soon as Tuesday we should have a small army
of workers on the grounds. They will be mowing every piece of ground we have.
End to end, side to side on La Quinta, El Dorado, The Executive, Par 3 and all
other grounds. They will be mowing, edging cart paths, trimming trees, putting
sand in bunkers on La Quinta, killing fire ants, operating the sprinkler
systems on all courses, and we will dress up the holes along 1092 and
Cartwright with sand in the bunkers and do the cosmetic things that will give
us our "curb appeal" again as people travel though the
neighborhood and City. We will continue to look at how we can get at least 9 of
the El Dorado holes back to some sort of playable condition. We are looking at
doing that with the 9 holes that were part of the original El Dorado course.
Needless to say, that is going to take much more time since it has gone to
weeds and ant hills. Probably no sooner than 90 days depending on a lot of
factors.
Tuesday night we will establish an Ordinance
setting temporary fees. It will take two readings so the final reading will not
be until July 7th. The new fee structure will then go into effect July 9th. As
I said before, there are no levels of membership anymore. Until we have a
management company in place we will offer a single fee for golf, a fee for
private carts, and a fee for rental carts. That fee will be established Tuesday
night. There will be no way to charge people other than cash or credit
card. We are going to come up with some ways to allow people to pay for
those in advance so we don't have to deal with this on an individual basis each
time people play. Once we have had an opportunity to really look at fees, we
will have the ability to have annual fees, monthly fees, daily fees, monthly
cart fees, daily cart fees, senior and youth discounts, residents of MC will
pay less than non-residents, etc. We have begun to contact other Municipal Golf
Courses to find out what they are doing so we can be competitive and fair
to everyone who wants to use the facility.
I know this may not have answered all the
questions, but hope it has most. As I told someone yesterday, this is your
facility now as tax payers. I hope you use it, encourage others to use it,
bring your friends, take houses off the market now, and treat it like you do
your own home.
Give us a little time and we will make you proud
of your neighborhood and our City. The Council appreciates all the support and
encouragement we have received from people all over the City and even outside
our City. My phone and email address have been ringing off the wall with
encouraging comments. We are on the way to being what we once were. I will keep
you as informed as I can.
Related stories. The High Price of Neglect
Editor's Note: In my work I am involved in many transition efforts. There can often be a phalanx of people who come in the first day and assume control of the business. While the same kind of thing is happening in this instance, much of what would be taken over in a normal buy out of a business are records, customer lists, and the continuance of the ongoing operation as seamlessly as possible by just continuing to do business as it was being done and transitioning behind the scenes. That is not possible here because those things are personal property and are being removed by the owner or returned to the companies from which they are leased. While the City continues to negotiate with the former owners, it takes two sides to negotiate. From the individuals I have spoken with, most would rather have Missouri City make a new start. From the Future Group's perspective, Missouri City has its priorities in order.
For a 5-page summary of how a landowner might respond (See: The Texas Landowner’s Bill of Rights). . . Based on prior experience with this owner, he will likely fight. Missouri City expects and is prepared for that contingency.
Photos taken by Jim Young on Friday and include Mayor Owen, Assistant City Manager Bill Atkinson, Public Works Director Scott Elmer and Quail Valley Country Club employees on the premise.
