New Oak Meadows leaders aim to make '05 switch seamless

At the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve, a new management team will take over at Oak Meadows Golf Course.

It's the goal of the DuPage County Forest Preserve District to ensure that no one notices.

Oak Meadows in Addison is the only district-owned course where golf operations as well as food and beverage services are contracted out to private companies.

District officials believe they can increase revenues by running those programs in-house and will do so starting in 2005.

The district is confident it can achieve a seamless transition but the changes will require some logistical fancy footwork, Golf Operations Director Douglas Kelly said Tuesday.

The district needs to hire a golf pro and a chef plus line up a small army of wait staff and golf course employees.

"It looks like a Herculean task," Commissioner Wallace Brown of Downers Grove said.

Golf operations administrators are hopeful they can hire a number of current workers.

"We intend to offer the same service if not better," Kelly said. "We hope to keep a majority of staff so that someone who comes in Jan. 5 will have the same food, the same menu and hopefully same waitress and they've had for years."

One quirk is that the food service contract will change hands Dec. 31 when the course is hosting New Year's Eve festivities.

Handling that payroll with separate employers, "will be a juggling act in itself," Kelly said.

Conservative estimates indicate that the district could gain between $220,000 and $267,000 a year by taking over golf operations now handled by Mike Buros Enterprises.

By assuming control of food services, now run by Hamlet Catering Co., the forest preserve hopes to net an additional $270,000 to $370,000.

Those additional dollars should be useful. The golf courses are not turning a profit so far this year, Kelly said.

Source: Chicago Daily Herald