Published: July 01, 2009 04:44 pm      

Board approves dam repair funds

Editor's note: The Glade Sun offers its condolences to FGCC Board President Charlie Woll, whose wife, Jean, passed away Thursday afternoon following this board meeting. The complete obituary is in today's edition.



During a special called board meeting on June 15, board members approved the $389,000 expenditure to "fix" Dartmoor Dam. This information came as Fairfield Glade Community Club (FGCC) President Charlie Woll opened the monthly board meeting Thursday morning, June 25. Jeff Warren, director of community services, added that the contractor is on schedule with the work, and the fabricator is still working on his part of the repair. The club is still waiting on the final permit from the state's water pollution control department to be able accomplish the needed repair. Three bids were taken for this project.

The president also noted the FGCC library expansion is underway inside the Multi Purpose Building.

General Manager Harvey Hoffman stated the spillway at Lake Dartmoor Dam will also have to undergo a retrofit, and that money has not been appropriated yet. Bids should be received this week.

In other important news, the club's audit committee, Bob Stacy and Nan Sharp, accepted the audit report for the 2008 financials from Coulter and Justus, PC. Later in the meeting, the board unanimously accepted the auditor's report.

President Woll made a plea for all Glade residents with e-mail capability to sign up for e-mail alerts from the club. You can do that by going to the club's Web site, www.fairfieldglade.cc, and clicking on alerts.

Fairfield Glade has a new dog park, and it's being funded strictly through donations. The dog park opened on Saturday, June 20. It's located behind the FGCC administrative office off Peavine Road. The dog park committee was commended by Woll for a very fine job.

Another helpful item the president brought up to Glade residents is the availability of U-CARTS, a meals and transportation service provided by the Upper Cumberland Human Resources Agency (UCHRA). Basically, for a dollar per ride, you can go anywhere in the county. So, it's $1 there and another $1 for the return ride. You must make your reservation at least 48 hours in advance, however. UCHRA has complete information on services offered.

There's another opportunity to eat in the Glade: Cafè Glade will open July 7 in the Community and Conference Center, serving Starbucks Coffee and light lunch/snacks.

GM Hoffman reported the club is $287,000 ahead of last year in its overall financial operations. Much of this has been accomplished by putting several projects on "hard hold" and cutting expenses where possible.

Committees

Long range planning was reported by Bob Diller, who stated the four remaining committee members are meeting weekly, hoping to finish an acceptable plan for the board. "Our hard work does not need to go for naught," said Diller, in relation to the board's rejection of a plan submitted in May. There was some disagreement among committee members whether all had approved the plan to go forward and the board questioned that it was a plan as opposed to just a "report."

A description of the scope of the work the long range planning committee is to provide to the board was read into the minutes of the board meeting by FGCC Vice President Glenn Harper. Interested members may pick up a copy of that description at the FGCC administrative office.

Diller said the current committee sees the development of numerous subcommittees, each handling just one project from start to finish. The committee's proposed plan will project 10 years into the future and will be posted on the Internet in Excel, so most everyone will be able to access it. Diller also said the plan needs to be fluent so it can change when situations change.

ACC May numbers were reported by Ernie Poland.

Single family dwellings — 8 (28 YTD; 47 in 2008)

Under construction — 83

Completed — 31

Miscellaneous projects — 235

Golf committee was reported by Pat Gruet. Handicap flags are six permanent and seven temporary. Approximately 1,100 golfers are registered in the GHIN system. Gruet hopes that number will increase. Chuck Weeks has finished a report on stroke allocation according to USGA guidelines.

A plea is made by this committee to "Please take care of the courses." Gruet reminded everyone course condition is so important when events like the Ladies Invitational, which plays in July, comes to town because so many out-of-county players will be on the courses. Gruet reported that Druid and the Crag are in mint condition; Stonehenge and Dorchester will receive irrigation and tree work; the Brae must have a feasibility study on drainage. "At some point the drainage on the Brae has to be addressed," said Gruet. "The LRP and golf committees should be working very closely."

Styrofoam cups are a $10,000/yr expenditure for the club and they cause extra work and trash on the golf courses. The golf committee has discussed asking players to bring their own thermal reuseable water cups to the courses. In line with this thinking, an eco-friendly water cup will be placed in all goody bags at the upcoming Member-Member Golf Tournament.

Tennis committee — Another beginner tennis class, the "Never-Ever," begins on July 11 at the Tennis Center. The center has just finished the annual Bucky Cantrell tournament and team tennis has finished another session.

Upcoming is a mixed doubles state championship in Chattanooga in August. There will be several teams from Fairfield Glade competing in this competition.

Fire committee was reported by Jim Etzel. Grants are being sought to make sure all Fairfield Glade firefighters are certified initially as Firefighter 1, since that is now a requirement of the state. There are now two certified trainers at Fairfield for the Firefighter 1 course. Etzel thinks the state may require firefighters to be certified through Firefighter 2 next year.

The $1M Shootout held by the Fire Departments Ladies Auxiliary netted the department $2,000. Combined with money from the pancake breakfasts, an equipment van is being purchased for the department this month. They also received a supply of new firehose, which converts 2 1/2" hose to 3" hose. There's some 1,200 feet of hose, but they were only able to convert 650 feet, so far.

Lakes committee was reported by Mark Richie, who thanked Jeff Warren for his tireless work on the Lake Dartmoor dam repair.

Richie pointed out the savings to the club by harvesting minnows for the lakes from the wastewater treatment settling ponds.

Some of the lakes have had weed problems this spring. He encouraged residents to not use chemicals to kill the weeds around their docks. Call Richie for the lakes committee's recommendation regarding weed control.

Apparently lime was not put in the lakes last year, and Richie hopes the club can do that this year, which should help the weed situation. This will be an ongoing subject for the lakes committee this year.

President Woll made a point of thanking all who voluntarily serve on the FGCC board committees for their dedicated service.

Departments:

Controller Regina Welch said she was very pleased with the FGCC staff during the recent audit.

The controller has a request for club members regarding something she's not pleased about, though. When staff members call club members about their accounts, please do not be disrespectful to them. Welch said staff has been dealing, more and more, with disrespectful responses to their calls. "Come to us, (meaning Regina Welch or Harvey Hoffman) if you're not getting everything addressed like you want," Welch emphasized.

The club currently has about 1,600 delinquent accounts on the books, and 808 of those are developer lots. She expects about $650,000 in bad debt for this fiscal year.

Former board member Bob Spencer asked Welch if they could take some of the restricted cash and pay down on the Community Center note. In response, Welch said the board fears the inflation rate will continue to increase and they want to keep the funds available. Note was made that the interest rate on the Community Center is 6.4 percent, while earnings on the club's investments are around 2.5 percent.

Public Safety was reported by Chief Charlie Seiber.

Radar — 22 hours; citations — 5 (2 seatbelt law, 3 speeding, 1 stop sign); arrests — 3 (1 DUI, 1 violation of order of protection; 1 second offense DUI); ambulance calls — 47; vehicle accidents without injury — 8; no accidents with injury; ACC violations — 1.

Fire department news was reported by Chief Howard Robb. Most important in Robb's news was the hope the board would approve the appropriation request ($38,000+) for the building of a new fire tower training facility in the Glade. The department feels this is necessary given the increased certification requirements of the state and the need to keep the Glade's firefighters in the Glade while training. The tower is to be built near the new dog park in the maintenance area. It will be fairly invisible to the passing traffic.

There were two incidents, both on May 15. One at 8 Woodland Ct., a pontoon boat fire; and the other at 433 Lakeview, a system malfunction.

Meetings attended included: three communication meetings, May 5, 12, and 19; one safety meeting, May 4, one fire department committee meeting, May 8; one Fire Department meeting on May 8; and one board meeting, May 28.

Training: May 9, department training; May 12, engineer training; May 19, department make up taining; and May 6, Firefighter 1, 64-hour basic class.

Miscellaneous: May 2, Druid Hills Pool was filled; and on May 4, Dorchester Pool was filled. On May 5, the Crab Orchard water report was delivered.

Community Services, reported by Jeff Warren, reported some good news — odor controls are being installed on seven sewer stations in populated areas. Sewer stations in unpopulated areas will not receive the controls.

Golf was reported by Director Steve Kraft, who said with all the rain, heat and humidity, "Anything golfers can do to help, like fixing divots, ball marks and staying on the cart path, will help the courses."

When the Tennessee Women's Open comes to Stonehenge, July 16-18, Kraft is looking for residents along that golf course who will allow their homes to be used as evacuation homes at each hole in case of rain, etc. If you are willing to be an evacuation home, call Kraft at 484-3711.

The director thanked Dawn Robb and her committee for all their hard work during the $1M Shootout.

He reminded everyone the Member-Member has a "wait list" now, and they do need a few more teams to sign up.

There's a new active military (with a member) rate in place. It's $20 plus tax.

Once again, even in this tough economy, all the golf courses at Fairfield Glade are enjoying about double the state and national averages on the PGA performance track. Even so, the department is 3,200 rounds behind budget and 3,179 behind 2008. During May, paid rounds were 20,000; players serviced were 24,149.

Operations was reported by Director Tommy Lee. The daily average attendance at the Community Center pool was 108; daily average attendance at the gym was 25.

A reduction in expenses in the grounds department has been achieved by expanding the duties of the community center maintenance and some pool attendants to also include maintenance of grounds at Druid pool, mini-golf course, multi-purpose building complex, tennis center, and Dorchester pool and tennis area. This has resulted in a negative variance to the labor costs of the division.

Chef Jerry James is now assuming responsibilities for kitchen operations at Stonehenge. James Weismuller remains an integral part of that operation as well. A new menu will be available in the coming weeks.

Sales continue to be strong in the food and beverage operation with a year-to-date growth rate of 31 percent over 2008 and 13 percent over budget. Results through direct operations have resulted in a positive variance to budget of $65,000 YTD, which is $85,000 better than 2008 numbers.

Recreation's bottom line to date is $19,000 negative to budget, but $14,000 ahead of the 2008 budget for this time frame. Tennis represents nearly 40 percent of the negative variance to budget, with the rest being predominantly maintenance overhead, which is spread over each department.



Other actions of the board:

• Approved Ron Smith as the Lake Sherwood representative to the lakes committee.

• Approved the open burning policy. The new policy does not significantly change the previous policy, it just has language stating that it's permitted to have a backyard/deck cookout, candles on the porch, mosquito repellent flames, and a fire in the backyard and patio open pit equipment.

*Approved $34,359 for a fire training tower to be located behind the power substation.

*Approved main sewer pump station breakers for $7,255. This was an emergency repair and the work has already been done.

*Approved a HVAC unit for Dorchester snack bar. This was an emergency purchase since the air conditioning unit failed there.

During comments from the floor, Gerry Miller asked a question regarding the boundaries of the city of Crossville vs. Fairfield Glade's urban growth plan.

It was explained that the developer of the Food City shopping center initially asked the city to include that area in their urban growth plan. Later the developer withdrew the request.

The Fairfield Glade plan goes from Otter Creek to Drew Howard to Stone Loop in the direction of I-40, and that plan was accepted by the county urban growth planning committee on June 1. It still has to go through a review by the state and vote of approval by the city of Crossville.