The city of Delaware’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board approved the formation of the Hidden Valley Golf Course Working Group Tuesday night.
The group will have its informal organizational meeting at the golf course’s clubhouse, 580 W. William St., 7 p.m. Nov. 29. Councilman Kyle Rohrer, 4th Ward, said the group must follow open meeting laws with meeting minutes recorded.
The group will consist of 11 members including board members, Joshua Bricker and Lucas Ratliff, the city’s Customer Service Liaison Linda Matthews, HVGC Superintendent Khris Kohler and Parks and Natural Resources Director Ted Miller.
“We got a good group of citizens,” Miller said.
Volunteer members from the public are Brian Canavan, vice president of Habitat for Humanity in Columbus; Cindy Sheets, a longtime Delaware resident and six-year course member; Jeff Taylor, who worked at the course for two seasons eight years ago; Edward Schlote, a member of HGVC since he moved to Delaware in 2010; Scott Zagorski, who’s played golf since he was 12 years old and has taken his daughter to Hidden Valley; and Scott Fanok, an associate director of Verizon Enterprize Solutions in Hilliard and who has worked as golf course manager in Athens during the late 1980s.
The city purchased the nine-hole, par-28 course in 1974, according to The Gazette archives. The city invested $50,000 for the first major renovations in decades to the golf course during the off-season before it re-opened in March.
In other business, the 2016 bike plan will need revisions before being recommended to City Council for adoption, Miller said. Columbus-based Santec Consulting Services was hired to create the plan, which outlines $14 million in projects to be implemented over the next decade and has 109 infrastructure and non-infrastructure-related recommendations.
Among them include the city to increase its annual trail maintenance budget to $80,000 from $5,000 and establish an annual capital improvement plan fund for bike projects.
Bricker said he was disappointed to see there was no mention of the city securing a designation as a bike-friendly city from entities such as League of American Bicyclists.
Miller said he would like to see the recommendations prioritized with more realistic budget numbers.
