(Dec. 31, 2015) Fervent and frequent public dissatisfaction among a majority of Ocean Pines directors led to a change in golf management this year, as Landscapes Unlimited replaced Billy Casper Golf in May.
While the transition initially appeared to run smoothly, by the end of the year the new managers were receiving many of the same complaints as the old ones.
The issue carried over from the previous year, and things reached a boiling point during a meeting last December when Director Sharyn O’Hare came under fire from then-board President Dave Stevens.
O’Hare had been leading an apparent email campaign to try and save Casper.
“We need the golfers to send those emails [of support for Casper] to the directors in the next two weeks,” O’Hare wrote, noting that a special meeting on golf was imminent.
Stevens, meanwhile, accused O’Hare of unethically “rallying the troops,” and said the move gave “the false impression of representing an actual majority.”
Ironically, Stevens had been similarly under fire just a month earlier, when internal emails suggested he had unilaterally fired Casper.
O’Hare labeled Stevens a “bully” in a January Gazette article, and another director, Bill Cordwell, said he was “appalled” by what he saw as personal attacks against O’Hare, going so far as to compare the Stevens administration to “North Korea.”
In February, it was confirmed that the board was in fact making a change. Three potential management companies, including Casper and Landscapes, made pitches on Feb. 14 in Ocean Pines, and a week later, on Feb. 20, the board voted 4-3 to select Landscapes.
“I think Landscapes offered a clear difference in direction from what Casper was pursuing,” Stevens said following a closed meeting. “They believe that they can build the revenues by keeping a stronger balance of members to outside playing. Casper believes, after their experience here, that you can’t.”
O’Hare, speaking for the minority, said she was disappointed by the outcome of the vote.
“I think decisions were made before they walked into the room,” she said. “Nobody’s opinions were changed during the discussion. I’m extremely disturbed about this decision and I think the bottom line is they just felt they needed a change and I absolutely see no logic in that.”
On May 1, Landscapes officially took control of the course, as well as the attached clubhouse and the Tern Grille restaurant. In a peculiar, parallel move, Casper’s entire Ocean Pines team, including PGA Director of Golf John Malinowski and Golf Course Superintendent Rusty McLendon, made the transition to Landscapes along with the course itself.
Director Jack Collins, part of the board selection committee, praised the new management company during the transition.
“I’ve got to tell you, [Landscapes] has been extremely cooperative and very, very motivated to make this transition smooth and well organized, as well as making a promise that this course is going to be one of their top priorities within their organization,” Collins said. “That’s exactly what we wanted to hear as a board.”
While Casper focused the majority of its attention on outside play, Landscapes said the focus of its regime would be the membership of Ocean Pines residents, which had dwindled to less than 200.
Little was heard about the performance of the course, outside of brief monthly updates during board meetings, until October, when Stevens and Collins, two men who voted in favor of Landscapes, openly complained about its lack of transparency.
Stevens, during the Oct. 29 regular board meeting, said he had not seen a draft of the Nebraska-based company’s business plan, which, according to its contract, was due by Oct. 15. He also questioned new Board President Pat Renaud’s judgment in selecting three board liaisons to golf, apparently without the considering of all of the directors.
Those representatives were Renaud, Bill Cordwell and Tom Terry. Of the three, only Renaud voted to select Landscapes over Casper.
The volume went up to 11 during a November board meeting, when several directors erupted into a series of shouting matches that lasted nearly an hour. Once again, golf was at the center of the disagreement, with several directors citing the lack of information by Landscapes and objecting to Renaud’s appointments.
“The question is, does the president have credential appointment power with respect to the management agreement with Landscapes Unlimited to do so on his own?” Director Tom Herrick said. “I think we should have a discussion about that.”
Cordwell leapt to defend the appointments and went on to say others on the board were questioning his integrity. He acknowledged that he had opposed replacing former management company Billy Casper Golf earlier this year, but said he now supported Landscapes.
“They’re our management company now and we’re going to help them succeed,” he said. “There’s just so much hypocrisy going on with this whole thing, and, yes, this whole golf thing has been contentious and it didn’t need to be.”
Collins openly chuckled during Cordwell’s comments, igniting a wave of indignation.
“Can I help you, Mr. Collins?” Cordwell asked. “Because you’re part of this … not one time did you bother to ask me what I thought about this whole process. You didn’t want me there.”
Stevens said he brought his own liaison appointments to the board, and hammered Renaud for not following protocol.
Cordwell and Terry, however, disagreed with that analysis.
“You did not bring anything to the board for our discussion,” Cordwell said. “It was never brought to the board and voted on. Absolutely not.”
Stevens bristled.
“Listen harder,” he said. “I said the appointments were brought to the board and I asked if, without objection, the board approved to this. If I did it wrong, I did it wrong, but that doesn’t mean you do it wrong twice,” he added.
Stevens went on to say the lack of information from Landscapes was starting to mirror the situation with the previous golf management company, which ultimately led to its replacement. Eventually, Renaud stepped in and suggested the board vote on his appointments, resulting in a 4-3 confirmation.
Stevens then motioned for a special meeting with Landscapes and the entire board, which passed 5-2.
Three weeks later, the association released a painstaking seven page, 2,333-word account of a meeting between the three appointed directors and Landscapes. According to the report, the course had 116 members as of September, a decline of several dozen since Landscapes took over. In a business plan discussed during the meeting, the company revealed it hoped to add 10 new members during the next fiscal year.
Operations of the clubhouse were also a matter of discussion, as the company said it was concerned that “mold may be causing unhealthy working conditions in the clubhouse.” Landscapes said several employees had become sick while working there.
Renaud said he was pleased with the meeting overall and attributed the drop in membership to an ongoing, trending decline. He added that the representatives convinced Landscapes to modify its membership growth goals to 32 new members.
“I’m feeling pretty positive about where we’re going,” Renaud said.
Collins, however, said he was surprised by the tone of the document.
“It looked like an adversarial meeting to me,” he said. “It appeared as though there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the overall report. Not being in the room, I don’t know what the tone and tenor was, but it seems as though the [three] reps were not pleased.”
He said he read the first draft of Landscapes’ business plan, calling it “quite detailed and researched.”
“I’d never seen anything like that before, being on the board, so I was impressed by the detail,” he said. “Could it be tweaked? Yeah, it could be. That’s why I was hoping there would be an opportunity for everyone on the board to have some input.”
As for the possibility of the open meeting approved by the board in November, Collins expressed doubt.
“I would like to see the process open up and I would like to see there be a dialogue between all the board members and I think it should be televised,” he said. “I think it should be open to the public and I think the public should be aware of what’s going on.
“I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not,” he added. “I have no idea.”
On the issue of mold in the clubhouse, the Gazette published a story on Dec. 17 suggesting the association was aware of the problem as far back as 2011, when an outside evaluation recommended mold remediation at a price tag of just over $4,000.
It was unclear if the community ever took the suggested steps.
While the transition initially appeared to run smoothly, by the end of the year the new managers were receiving many of the same complaints as the old ones.
The issue carried over from the previous year, and things reached a boiling point during a meeting last December when Director Sharyn O’Hare came under fire from then-board President Dave Stevens.
O’Hare had been leading an apparent email campaign to try and save Casper.
“We need the golfers to send those emails [of support for Casper] to the directors in the next two weeks,” O’Hare wrote, noting that a special meeting on golf was imminent.
Stevens, meanwhile, accused O’Hare of unethically “rallying the troops,” and said the move gave “the false impression of representing an actual majority.”
Ironically, Stevens had been similarly under fire just a month earlier, when internal emails suggested he had unilaterally fired Casper.
O’Hare labeled Stevens a “bully” in a January Gazette article, and another director, Bill Cordwell, said he was “appalled” by what he saw as personal attacks against O’Hare, going so far as to compare the Stevens administration to “North Korea.”
In February, it was confirmed that the board was in fact making a change. Three potential management companies, including Casper and Landscapes, made pitches on Feb. 14 in Ocean Pines, and a week later, on Feb. 20, the board voted 4-3 to select Landscapes.
“I think Landscapes offered a clear difference in direction from what Casper was pursuing,” Stevens said following a closed meeting. “They believe that they can build the revenues by keeping a stronger balance of members to outside playing. Casper believes, after their experience here, that you can’t.”
O’Hare, speaking for the minority, said she was disappointed by the outcome of the vote.
“I think decisions were made before they walked into the room,” she said. “Nobody’s opinions were changed during the discussion. I’m extremely disturbed about this decision and I think the bottom line is they just felt they needed a change and I absolutely see no logic in that.”
On May 1, Landscapes officially took control of the course, as well as the attached clubhouse and the Tern Grille restaurant. In a peculiar, parallel move, Casper’s entire Ocean Pines team, including PGA Director of Golf John Malinowski and Golf Course Superintendent Rusty McLendon, made the transition to Landscapes along with the course itself.
Director Jack Collins, part of the board selection committee, praised the new management company during the transition.
“I’ve got to tell you, [Landscapes] has been extremely cooperative and very, very motivated to make this transition smooth and well organized, as well as making a promise that this course is going to be one of their top priorities within their organization,” Collins said. “That’s exactly what we wanted to hear as a board.”
While Casper focused the majority of its attention on outside play, Landscapes said the focus of its regime would be the membership of Ocean Pines residents, which had dwindled to less than 200.
Little was heard about the performance of the course, outside of brief monthly updates during board meetings, until October, when Stevens and Collins, two men who voted in favor of Landscapes, openly complained about its lack of transparency.
Stevens, during the Oct. 29 regular board meeting, said he had not seen a draft of the Nebraska-based company’s business plan, which, according to its contract, was due by Oct. 15. He also questioned new Board President Pat Renaud’s judgment in selecting three board liaisons to golf, apparently without the considering of all of the directors.
Those representatives were Renaud, Bill Cordwell and Tom Terry. Of the three, only Renaud voted to select Landscapes over Casper.
The volume went up to 11 during a November board meeting, when several directors erupted into a series of shouting matches that lasted nearly an hour. Once again, golf was at the center of the disagreement, with several directors citing the lack of information by Landscapes and objecting to Renaud’s appointments.
“The question is, does the president have credential appointment power with respect to the management agreement with Landscapes Unlimited to do so on his own?” Director Tom Herrick said. “I think we should have a discussion about that.”
Cordwell leapt to defend the appointments and went on to say others on the board were questioning his integrity. He acknowledged that he had opposed replacing former management company Billy Casper Golf earlier this year, but said he now supported Landscapes.
“They’re our management company now and we’re going to help them succeed,” he said. “There’s just so much hypocrisy going on with this whole thing, and, yes, this whole golf thing has been contentious and it didn’t need to be.”
Collins openly chuckled during Cordwell’s comments, igniting a wave of indignation.
“Can I help you, Mr. Collins?” Cordwell asked. “Because you’re part of this … not one time did you bother to ask me what I thought about this whole process. You didn’t want me there.”
Stevens said he brought his own liaison appointments to the board, and hammered Renaud for not following protocol.
Cordwell and Terry, however, disagreed with that analysis.
“You did not bring anything to the board for our discussion,” Cordwell said. “It was never brought to the board and voted on. Absolutely not.”
Stevens bristled.
“Listen harder,” he said. “I said the appointments were brought to the board and I asked if, without objection, the board approved to this. If I did it wrong, I did it wrong, but that doesn’t mean you do it wrong twice,” he added.
Stevens went on to say the lack of information from Landscapes was starting to mirror the situation with the previous golf management company, which ultimately led to its replacement. Eventually, Renaud stepped in and suggested the board vote on his appointments, resulting in a 4-3 confirmation.
Stevens then motioned for a special meeting with Landscapes and the entire board, which passed 5-2.
Three weeks later, the association released a painstaking seven page, 2,333-word account of a meeting between the three appointed directors and Landscapes. According to the report, the course had 116 members as of September, a decline of several dozen since Landscapes took over. In a business plan discussed during the meeting, the company revealed it hoped to add 10 new members during the next fiscal year.
Operations of the clubhouse were also a matter of discussion, as the company said it was concerned that “mold may be causing unhealthy working conditions in the clubhouse.” Landscapes said several employees had become sick while working there.
Renaud said he was pleased with the meeting overall and attributed the drop in membership to an ongoing, trending decline. He added that the representatives convinced Landscapes to modify its membership growth goals to 32 new members.
“I’m feeling pretty positive about where we’re going,” Renaud said.
Collins, however, said he was surprised by the tone of the document.
“It looked like an adversarial meeting to me,” he said. “It appeared as though there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the overall report. Not being in the room, I don’t know what the tone and tenor was, but it seems as though the [three] reps were not pleased.”
He said he read the first draft of Landscapes’ business plan, calling it “quite detailed and researched.”
“I’d never seen anything like that before, being on the board, so I was impressed by the detail,” he said. “Could it be tweaked? Yeah, it could be. That’s why I was hoping there would be an opportunity for everyone on the board to have some input.”
As for the possibility of the open meeting approved by the board in November, Collins expressed doubt.
“I would like to see the process open up and I would like to see there be a dialogue between all the board members and I think it should be televised,” he said. “I think it should be open to the public and I think the public should be aware of what’s going on.
“I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not,” he added. “I have no idea.”
On the issue of mold in the clubhouse, the Gazette published a story on Dec. 17 suggesting the association was aware of the problem as far back as 2011, when an outside evaluation recommended mold remediation at a price tag of just over $4,000.
It was unclear if the community ever took the suggested steps.