By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
The city should spend some money on the San Felipe Springs Golf Course, especially on its antiquated irrigation system, golf course commission members recently told the city council.
Eddie Ochoa, San Felipe Golf Course superintendent, spoke to the Del Rio City Council during its meeting Sept. 28 to present a recommendation from the city’s San Felipe Springs Golf Course Commission.
“I’m very proud to be presenting the commission’s recommendation. I was previously on the commission, and the recommendation from the commission is very simple: We would like to invest the current money that we have available in the current nine holes, and in the future, basically develop a plan of action so that we can look in the future funding and affordability to proceed forward with the other nine holes, and that’s the recommendation from the commission,” Ochoa told the council.
The council heard the recommendation from Ochoa after a presentation from a consultant whom the city had hired to develop a series of possible future plans for the golf course, including the construction of a further nine holes.
Councilman Jim DeReus, who also sits on the golf course commission, spoke about the recommendation as well.
“As Mr. Ochoa said, we’ve spent a lot of time on this. Initially, (the golf course master plan consultants) came up with six or eight different plans. We had narrowed it down. We had specifically requested the economic impact data. (Part of the master plan) talks about the potential economic impact,” DeReus said.
“It’s really hard to quantify those other things, because some people might come to town and spend a night. Some people come for just a day trip. Some people might buy gas in town to get home. Some people might not have to, but there’s a lot of potentials there,” the councilman added.
DeReus continued, “I don’t remember the exact number, but somewhere around $1 million is what we still have left from the COs (certificates of obligation) that we had done to initially purchase (the golf course) that we can (still) use.”
“At a minimum, as mentioned, (we’d like) to start upgrading the irrigation system because if we don’t, things are going to continue to fail, and then the golf course is going to be in even worse condition. What we would like to do is continue down the road of getting to an actual, buildable plan, because the document in front of us is more on the notional side,” DeReus said.
“We couldn’t actually get a contractor to come in and start building tomorrow, so we would need to go through that process, and maybe we decide not to, but in my mind, this is an investment similar to the process of getting a second international bridge. Right now, we really don’t need a second international bridge. The volume is getting there, but it’s not quite there yet. But the process to get to where we can build takes a long time, and you have to put all that groundwork in, lay that foundation, so when it’s actually time, and you’re ready to build, you can,” he added
“(That money) has been in the kitty for over five years, and we need to proceed forward with improvements to the current nine holes,” Ochoa added.
“We’re recommending to use the $1 million to fix what we have, versus the renovation plan, which is what (the consultant) had come up with,” DeReus interjected.
“We need to fix what we have. It’s a beautiful site. You don’t find golf courses like that in the state of Texas. It’s a tourist attraction,” Ochoa added.
The council took no action after listening to the recommendation.
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