The City Keeps it on the Fairways

The City of Cold Lake and the Cold Lake Golf & Country Club held a public meeting on Sunday, July 10^th to discuss issues with the course, what’s being done to solve problems and plans going forward.

“We’ve got some work to do,” Mayor Copeland said there was some preliminary discussions about enhancing the golf course by putting some capital money into it. Other improvements include fixing the bridge on the 9^th hole so people can start crossing the water. We hope to have that in place for the month of August. We should have the irrigation system, with a steam pipe from the reservoir, in place by beginning of August.”

“We’ve had some expenditures at the golf course this year, unfortunately the dam blew and what was allowed back in the 1960-70’s is not necessarily allowed in 2016. We have to work with the Province for approvals, so it does take a bit of time.”

Mayor of Cold Lake Craig Copeland says the meeting went very well, there was a lot of passionate people in attendance and the City will stay in the golf business. “The feedback from everybody, in term of should the City be in the business of golf? And everybody, overwhelmingly, wanted us to stay with the course.” There was around 80 people in attendance, says the Mayor, who also noted there was nothing but rave reviews for the golf pro and turf manager.

“We gave an update with where we are at with the whole irrigation problem,” which the course is working hard on fixing.  “They wanted the maintenance part of the course improved, they felt that some of the conditions of the course could be improved. We’ll look at that further.” Mayor Copeland said it was a positive meeting, “the message sent by the golfers was steady the course and [that the City] should take in operating the golf course.” Mayor Copeland would also like to point out that the Wing Commander picks up a portion of the cost to run the course and it’s not just on the City’s wallet. “Some great recommendations came out (of the meeting) that City staff took note on.”

The City is committed to the course for 2016, “eventually what will happen is Kevin (Nagoya) will bring it back to Council probably early fall for some debate. We’ll have a couple of decisions to make; are we going to continue operating the golf course? And for the long term?”