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Rhinelander City Council to consider future of Northwood Golf Course

By Eileen Persike | EDITOR

RHINELANDER – Should Rhinelander’s Northwood Golf Course continue to be run by a contracted management group, be brought back in as a city department, leased, or sold?

Those are among the options the Rhinelander Common Council will be debating in 2025. A lengthy discussion about the city’s municipal golf course took place at the Nov. 11 council meeting, which followed the release of a report from an ad hoc golf course committee.

The ad hoc committee was formed about a year ago and was tasked with investigating perceived issues related to the municipal golf course and offering recommendations to the city.

The golf course opened in 1989 and for decades was run as a city department. Then the city chose to hire management companies, currently using Oliphant Golf Management.

The committee recommended three things to the city. First, it suggests having the course appraised, which it said would be a “very common sense first step in the future” of the course.

Secondly, it recommends bringing the golf course back as a city department, without a management company.

City Administrator Patrick Reagan noted he spoke with city finance director Wendi Bixby and human resources manager Rachel Pearson and both agreed the additional workload associated with returning the golf course to a city department would be of no issue.

“If it is determined that the course is not showing meaningful financial improvement, the sale of the course should be investigated and considered,” the committee stated in a memo to the common council.

And finally, the committee noted a formal capital improvement plan should be developed, which would include buildings, equipment and a schedule of improvements for the course itself.

Council weighs in

The contract with Oliphant expires at the end of 2024, and the council was presented with a new three-year contract with the company at a cost of $94,500 annually. Alderman Tom Barnett suggested extending the contract instead for one year and advocated for selling the property.

“I have yet to see any kind of payback on it,” Barnett said of Northwood. “I think it used to be a good asset to the city. I do not think it is anymore. We have been putting money out toward that golf course year after year after year to not see much in return, if anything. I talked to the finance director and if we were to sell the golf course, it would go back on the tax roll, which would effectively decrease the taxes on our constituents. We would also not have to be borrowing money at this point. And there’s a lot of other benefits that go toward it if a private owner owns it.”

Alderman David Holt said he is also in favor of giving the council a year to discuss it.

“If it were sold it doesn’t go away; it’s still there and is still an asset to the city even if it’s not run by the city,” Holt said. The one caveat that I would add to this, because I’m getting a little bit of déjà vu here, is that there needs to be follow through on that discussion … but we need to have it figured out. We can’t kick that can down the road over and over again. That doesn’t mean I’m in favor of selling it. But we want it to be transparent. Subsidizing an asset that’s not profitable or not making any money is not something unheard of for municipalities either.”

Contingencies

After the council voted to have Reagan seek a one-year contract with Oliphant, city attorney Steve Sorenson spoke about stipulations that were agreed to when the land was donated to the city. Namely, if the property is not used as a golf course, it goes back to the previous owner. This, he said, is why they city did not try to sell the golf course five years ago.

“The interesting thing with that is the company that previously owned the golf course has changed its identity about four times,” Sorenson said. “The last time we had this conversation, which is about five years ago, the discussion that I had with their legal counsel was, they weren’t interested in giving up their right to the property.”

As a possible way around the contingencies, Mayor Kristopher Hanus suggested leasing the golf course completely, exchanging all aspects of the course for an annual rent check.

“That might be something that fills the warranty deed issue, as well as takes the risk away from the city and has a cash revenue,” Hanus said. “The drawback is depending on how you do that, what shape the property is in whenever the lease is up.”

But selling the golf course is something Hanus cautioned against.

“The other thing I would put in is it’s no secret I came from a bigger city,” Hanus said. “You won’t see Rhinelander having a 1,000 acre parcel of green space ever again. If it’s sold, that doesn’t happen. Any major city would die to have something like that in a developed city. So just something to keep in mind, if you do sell this.”

The one-year contract option with Oliphant to manage the course will be on a December agenda. A tentative plan was announced that will offer work sessions for city residents and council members throughout 2025 to discuss the fate of the golf course in 2026 and beyond.