The Devine City Council unanimously approved an amended version of its golf course management contract with Devine Golf Group, LLC, and agreed to hire an independent inspector for the clubhouse during the Regular meeting held last Tuesday, March 15.
Council approved entering into a contract with DGG, pending agreed-upon corrections, during a Special meeting on Mar. 1 (see “DGG contract details” in the Mar. 16 edition of The Devine News).
USGA inspection
Jay Dishman addressed Council on behalf of DGG and asked what standards the golf course would be held to in the event of a United States Golf Association inspection.
“If the USGA came in and said ‘hey, you guys need to make these improvements to the course’ just so it’d be, at minimum, playable, then that you guys would do that,” City Attorney Tom Cate explained.
Dishman said DGG was willing work with the USGA to uphold its standards.
“So basically I read it as now as kind of a report card of what’s going on and what we can improve on,” Dishman said.
Cate agreed, and added nobody at the City knows what the standard is, which is why a third party evaluation is needed.
Tree trimming and course maintenance
Council then discussed section 6.0 of the contract regarding alterations to the leased property, including the removal of trees or tree limbs, without written consent from the City.
“We wouldn’t be here to cut down any trees on the golf course without permission,” Dishman. “I think it’s happened in the past and I can see why that’s a concern, but there are daily needs of trimming the trees, uplifting some of those trees. There are currently some overhanging tee boxes and some that are very low coming into the course fairways. I just would like to have a little leeway on that for us to kind of be able to upkeep and trim the trees as needed.”
Cate said he didn’t think it would be difficult to get the City’s written consent.
“You’re not going to trim trees every day,” Cate said.
Dishman agreed, but repeated DGG’s wish to manicure trees as they deem necessary.
District 5 Councilwoman Debbie Randall asked whether sending an email to Interim City Administrator Dora Rodriguez or Public Works Director Rob Flores informing them of DGG’s plan to trim trees would be sufficient, and District 2 Councilwoman Angela Pichardo asked if something could be added to the contract giving DGG permission to trim trees themselves.
Council discussed setting a diameter limit on the size of limbs that could be trimmed, as well as other course maintenance issues that may come up, before ultimately voting unanimously to remove the entire sentence from the contract.
Clubhouse inspection
Mayor Cory Thompson explained the proposal to hire Bryan McNeal, a professional inspector certified applicator with Cactus Property Inspections LLC, to inspect the golf course clubhouse.
Contractor Greco Construction was issued a certificate of substantial completion for the clubhouse in 2021, though punch list items remain to be fixed (see “Sewage backup among problems at newly-renovated golf course clubhouse” in the November 24, 2021 ed. of the News).
“In talking with City Hall, we decided that the best option so that we are fully covered moving forwards is to probably hire a third party inspector who actually does this all the time, like a home inspector or in this case commercial,” Thompson said. “To actually inspect the building for us, to truly go through the fine-toothed comb, to truly go through and check and make sure every single plug and make sure that they’re breakering right when they stick in their little plug to trip the break, make sure that everything is actually working right, because that is not actually what our City inspectors do, per se.”
Thompson explained that Bureau Veritas conducts inspections the same way the City’s auditors do.
“They just start pulling different areas and checking,” Thompson said. “We’re hiring an actual separate one; this person should actually go out and physically go check every single item and make sure it’s actually up to code.”
Council voted unanimously to hire McNeal to inspect the clubhouse and amend the budget for $546.64.
“Really the scope that we’re asking for this person to look at is really the scope of everything that the contractors did while they were there and what is still left to do,” Thompson said. “That is the scope of what we’re asking them to do.”
The archived live stream of the meeting is available on the City website at cityofdevine.org/live-council-meetings/.
A Special meeting was scheduled to be held on press night on Tuesday, Mar. 22.
By Marly Davis
Staff Writer