City Hall.

Don't even attack them on the shoulder.

We need to tell him Jeff.

Jeff, we ready, bro?

We good.

All right.

We'll go get started then.

Welcome everybody to the September 4th meeting of the City Council Business and Community Affairs Committee.

Today we have two items on the agenda.

The first being a presentation and discussion regarding the Westwood Master Plan.

I'll be uh Mr.

Jason Olsen is here to give us a presentation.

So I'm going to turn it over to you.

Jason Olson, Director of Parks and Recreation.

It's been about it's been a little over a year.

We engaged uh GSB.

We put actually our RFP out for uh Westwood Master Plan to talk about what the future of the park would look like.

And this was mainly to focus on the golf course, the tennis area.

Uh GSB, uh, which is out of Oklahoma City, they were the architect that was selected.

Uh we have gone through a full process of this and um uh went through a steering committee, uh, worked with them for about a year uh off and on, and then uh ultimately went through part board.

We have presented this to council one time, but we uh just wanted to come through here.

We got a little cut short that night, so we just want to come here to do a little bit more in-depth discussion, and that was with the consultant.

Uh I think there's some stuff that I can clear up on.

There was questions about on our own the the kind of a viewpoint of programming and where things might lie uh and how we would um develop a business plan and a programming plan if this ever did come to fruition.

Uh so first picture here right now is this is Westwood as a as it currently is right now, satellite picture right there.

Uh we do have the floodway and the 100-year floodplain uh that was highlighted right through there.

That is Markle Creek.

Uh that kind of highlights right there.

And uh we do take a lot of water off of the airport, and uh that kind of eventually goes to our irrigation pond that's right there.

Uh we do have an irrigation pump house that that does eventually pump that out.

Uh we even filter and and uh somewhat pump some chemicals in there to kind of take out the negative stuff that would affect the golf course to kind of get it uh better where where it would more add nutrients and and things the golf course that the grass would need.

Uh and we do a pretty decent job in the past uh few years of keeping everything off of the the water system, but but the pond is starting to get a little old and it's starting to silt, so it does need a little bit of work.

Uh not to mention the the early 2000s is the last time that the Westwood, the golf course as a the course itself, not any of the buildings there, had a a uh capital improvement plan.

It was about a two million dollar project and went through there and re um changed some of the holes, we did some of the irrigation around there.

Uh your lifespan on any irrigation systems max is somewhere around 20 to 25 years.

So we're we're hitting the end of a life on there, and if anybody knows a lot about golf courses, the golf course lives and breeze off of its irrigation.

Uh and uh when you talk start talking about greens, certain greens, if they do die at a certain point, it either takes a long time to grow them back or it's about about a two to three hundred thousand dollars per green to get get the bent grass um shipped in to replace that.

So uh it is a living, breathing animal, very expensive to to uh maintain and um keep looking good.

We have a skeleton crew out there that keeps the golf course looking really really good for what what we got and uh big thing is to us we have about 35,000 rounds that go through there a year.

We like to uh take a lot of pride in being a very affordable option.

Um sometimes when people start thinking about golf and tennis and the things that are associated with that.

Sometimes um not everybody financially can afford that.

That's what's perfect about uh uh a concept of a municipal course or Westwood.

We want to make sure that everybody, no matter your your age, demographics, uh where you live, how much money you make, or what part of Talian.

Westwood's a great place for you to come and learn and play golf.

Our our green fees for kids are about seven dollars, and um, that's very affordable.

If you start talking about uh adults with cart, you're right right around uh $50 if you don't want to walk.

So also very affordable.

This is to give you a kind of comparison um trails, which is private and owe you uh well over $100 to play 18 holes.

So we want to make sure we maintain that and uh the affordability and also have a good product to provide to our public.

Uh when you start looking at the older infrastructure, especially our golf uh clubhouse, it's over 50 years old.

Uh it was designed at the same time of Oklahoma City golf courses by the same architect.

They all had the same form shape look.

Uh Oklahoma City is now, they don't have any of the old clubhouses left or renovating their last clubhouse.

So we're we're we're getting to that point where we're like the last of a dying breed here in the metro area, and it's not necessarily something that's to brag about.

So kind of want to go over uh as we worked with our steering group, and that was our main input we got from the public.

Uh our part board appointed the steering group.

So usually when we do a master plan, uh we do a uh a system where where the the council member in that ward nominate somebody along with the the park director.

Uh then we also let uh the user groups nominate somebody and along with the park board, and then we ended up with seven people that that we think was a pretty well-rounded group that had a lot of input on it.

This is the final uh design that we got back in through them.