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Comms approve equipment rental, leases for golf course

The Lycoming County commissioners unanimously approved one rental and two lease-to-own agreements on behalf of the White Deer Golf Complex Tuesday, which will add 24 golf carts and two different types of riding mowers to the golf course’s fleet of equipment.

A year-long rental agreement with Golf Cart Services Inc. for 24 new carts will cost about $17,265 and was included in White Deer’s 2019 budget. The current set of carts is aging and there aren’t enough of them, said Chris Strand, regional general manager for Billy Casper Golf, the management company for the course.

Daily rentals cost thousands of dollars at a time, so the one-year contract is cheaper in the long run, Strand said. In addition, rental fees paid to White Deer should cover the cost of the agreement, “and then some,” he said.

Also included in the budget, the lawn mowers, one for the green from John Deere and the other for the rough from Toro Groundmaster, are lease-to-own at $13,105 per year over a five-year period, ultimately totaling $65,526.

Although the commissioners were hesitant to approve such a long-term agreement, all three did approve under the provision the county will own the mowers and be able to use them for maintenance of other locations, such as the landfill should the golf course no longer be the county’s property at some point within those five years.

“This isn’t something that just came up – this is something that we’ve been talking about since last fall,” said Commissioner Jack McKernan. “We have to do this with trust in the organization that we hired to give us their best figures. They know this is a crucial year.”

Billy Casper Golf projects success in 2019, Strand said. Commissioner Tony Mussare echoed that optimism.

“Just get some good weather and I’m sure we’re going to be fine,” he said.

He and Strand emphasized that, compared to needing upwards of $100,000 to pay bills and maintain the complex over previous winters, Billy Casper only needed $25,000 this season and got it from the Visitors Bureau rather than from county taxpayer dollars.

While the complex continues to make improvements, cut costs and increase rounds, the county also is investing in projects that have the added benefit of increasing White Deer’s property value, such as the sewer and water line installation project along Route 15.

“We’re taking the corrective steps necessary, just in case,” Mussare said.

While Commissioner Rick Mirabito also voted to approve the above requests, he cautioned against his associates’ optimism.

“The problem is the budget, quite frankly, is illusory. As soon as the weather’s bad, it’s gone,” Mirabito said. “Thank goodness we have a landfill because, otherwise, I wouldn’t have voted for a five-year lease.”

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