Jackson County golfing program closed for repairs to greens

Jackson County’s 18-hole Fred Arbanas Golf Course is shut all month and the county will be out far more than $100,000 because another person misapplied lawn substances last fall, killing grass on 95% of the greens at the program, in accordance to paperwork received by The Star.

Employees have been changing harmed sod on the course’s greens with sod hauled in from Colorado, as the county’s possess sod farm was depleted from last year’s renovation of the county’s Par 3 course, according to a memo from Parks + Rec director Michele Newman to County Govt Frank White.

Newman asked for the emergency obtain in March, after exploring that the excessive application of pre-emergent herbicide last fall had killed the grass. The new sod was approximated to value $27,525 and, according to Newman’s memo, the county prepared to agreement with a firm to enable with planning and installation at a price tag of $8,000.

But she mentioned that venture fees could exceed that estimate.

The county introduced on its web page a several months ago that the training course was remaining shut for greens restoration but did not volunteer why the perform was necessary now, at the get started of the golf time when tee occasions are in great demand from customers.

Of greater economic issue is the strike to county revenues, as green’s costs and other buys at the course help guidance other Parks + Rec functions.

Closing the system from April 5 to May well 3 will suggest a loss of an approximated $85,000 in income, county spokeswoman Marshanna Smith claimed.

“It is our parks department’s premier generator of income,” Dan Tarwater, chairman of the county legislature, stated at previous week’s assembly without having allowing on why the renovation was required at this time with an unexpected emergency buy get.

Tarwater claimed that immediately after the new sod greens up and normally takes root, “it’s heading to be far better and stronger” than the decade-old turf it changed.

The A-4 Bentgrass sod was set to arrive in two shipments in refrigerated trucks, Newman reported in her memo to White.

The Colorado provider was picked for the reason that, in addition to the county’s sod farm being depleted, no neighborhood sod farms improve that range, in accordance to an April 5 finance department memo despatched to the 9 county legislators. A-4 Bentgrass was preferred for the greens when the county did a major renovation of the course in 2008 and 2009 for the reason that it supplied “excellent placing surfaces,” then system superintendent Bob McMillin claimed at the time

Tarwater questioned that golfers withhold judgment on the visual appeal of the new greens until eventually the sod has a chance to get proven. He said the new turf was dormant when it was reduce and shipped to the course, which in 1999 was named in honor of the former county legislator and Kansas City Chiefs participant Fred Arbanas.

A champion of the parks system, Arbanas died about the weekend at age 82.