April 13 1994
Free Press Files
Two hurdles have been cleared towards building a new 18th hole for the Fernie Golf and Country Club, president Ken Dicken announced at the club’s annual general meeting on the weekend.
The golf club signed a land swap deal last October giving School District #1 a chunk of the golf course land to build a new high school.
In return the club will get $1.1 million from the school board once the B.C. Attorney General’s office gives official notice that the land deal has been approved.
Dicken announced that the long-awaited Ministry of Education approval has been given.
Approval has been given by the facilities branch of the Ministry of Education, confirmed School District #1 chairperson Evelyn Cutts in an interview. But before the deal is finalized it must be authorized by the Attorney General’s office and the school district hasn’t had that confirmed yet on paper, she said.
The club’s agreement with the school board states that part of that sum will go towards paying for a serviced road for the school.
The local Agricultural Land Reserve Board has approved removing the land changing hands from the ALR, Dicken said. An ALR hearing on April 28 in Kelowna should be a “rubberstamp”, completing the process, he added.
Once the club receives notice the land has been removed from the ALR after the Kelowna hearing, $75,000 will be borrowed from the bank to finish seeding and construction of the new 18th hole. It will probably be a year before golfers can play the new hole, said Dicken.
When questioned about the club’s future plans, Dicken said the things the club will do depends on how much the road to the new high school costs. The road will likely be built a year form this fall, he said.
The Club’s priorities are to service the school as agreed and replace the 18th hole.
After completing the 18th hole, the maintenance shed must be moved. The next priority is the clubhouse, if any money is left over, said treasurer Gus Twamley.
The current clubhouse is on the school property. Dicken said the club does not have to be off the land for 19 months after receiving the money from the school board.
“Hopefully by then we will have something started. If not we’ll have to go into a trailer in the interim or something of that sort.”
A financial statement given to members at the meeting shows that the club had an operating loss of $5,515 for 1993 compared to net earnings of $41,457 for 1992.
The loss is due to three factors, said Twamley. In 1992 the club received more than $15,000 in grant money from the government. Membership dues were down last summer and expenses for maintaining the greens were up due to a wet summer and a fungus on the grass which required extra money for herbicides.
The golf course opened last weekend under sunny skies. Men’s Opening Day is April 23 (match play starts that day) and Ladies Opening Day is May 3.
For more great stories that ran in The Free Press in the past 115 years http://issuu.com/thefreepress/docs/115_the_free_press/1