[TSO/ISPF]

Originally Posted by Goldwingnut

Just to be clear on what is in the proposed agreement, the CPI adjustments are on the fees charged by the provider (The Villages Operating Company) of the Reservation Service and the Trail Pass Service that will be charged to the VCCDD/RAD and SLCDD/SLAD ($220K and $7200 annually, respectively), not the residents. This is the software and computer hardware to operate the reservation system and a new service to allow on-line payment of the annual trail fee (and hopefully a reminder system).

This will currently not have an impact on the fees charged the residents for the annual/simi-annual/monthly/daily trail fees. Perhaps down the road trail fees may have to be increased, but that will be due mainly to the increased costs of maintaining the executive courses cause by cart damage/wear and tear.

Over the years cart damage to the courses have increased mainly in the areas around the greens, this was the reason for the recent change in the Reasonable Accommodations policy (it was abused). The executive golf division keeps track of the damages and locations to determine trends.

With respect to the change in the Championship Course Priority Membership policy for Executive Course Trail Fees, a discount is usually given to an entity in return for something of comparable or perceived value. In this case the SLAD/RAD received nothing in return for a significant discount provided (perhaps a holdover from when the developer ran and controlled everything), only reduced revenues. The documents do not state how the Priority Membership fee will be affected; it only states the discount given to the developer will be discounted. How the developer addresses the cost change is up to them. The have several options, they could pay the SLAD/RAD the full fee and either raise the priority fee accordingly or keep it the same, they could remove the Executive Course Trail Fee from the Priority Membership and adjust the cost to the end user or not. Again, how it is addressed on the Priority Membership side is entirely their decision, not the SLAD/RAD.

Executive golf is still free and there are no plans that I am aware of to change that. It is the use of the golf cart that is not free. Walk, most of us could use it.

Some here assume a conspiracy is in play to screw over the residents, there is not. These are contract changes that address continued cost increases that for many years have been ignored, they also are providing an avenue for improvements in the systems to better serve the residents. Improvements however cost and there was no instrument in place to pay for or compensate for the additional costs, with this there will be.

It's not a perfect document, there are issues with the cost and revenue sharing calculations as well as data ownership that will be addressed tomorrow morning.

Is this a good time to discuss improving the online tee time system to a real-time model that allows same day reservations. You cannot make a tee time for the evening wave now that we are off daylight savings time and as I understand it, say you want to play 9 holes in the evening wave time frame, you have to call the championship course the same day to see if you can, and they have no way of knowing until almost 3pm. Why not let people specify 9 or 18 holes when they make reservations online?
It might increase revenue.