Four residents interested in forming a Friends of the Golf Course volunteer group to maintain and run the Valley of the Eagles golf course as a recreation facility after its sale met Wednesday.
Those in attendance discussed forming a volunteer group to maintain and run the facility supported by user fees if the sale were to go through.
“We could get plenty of volunteers, but we would still have to have paid seasonal staff,” Tom Heywood said. The group discussed the potential to seek grant funding, increase marketing to cruise ships and decrease fees by diversifying user groups.
“You could start a Friends of the Golf Course, but until the land is sold we won’t have a purpose,” Tomi Scovill said.
Meeting minutes from February list next steps as obtaining an itemized list of assets that would come with the property and to identify users and funding sources.
The group said they need to see an itemized list of Jones’ assets that would come with the property and identify interested volunteers.
Owners Stan Jones, 87, and his wife Kathy Pardee-Jones listed the golf course for sale several years ago, asking $1.6 million for 150 acres of land.
In February, Tom Morphet organized a meeting rallying community efforts to keep the golf course for public use post sale.
At that time, Takshanuk Watershed Council director Meredith Pochardt said the organization might be interested in purchasing the land in partnership with The Conservation Fund, an environmental preservation non-profit.
The Conservation Fund could advance the money if they could be paid back within two years, Pochardt said in February. Land purchase through The Conservation Fund would require a deed restriction on the property that would mean future development, such as subdivisions, would have to be negotiated.
Morphet and Pochardt did not attend Wednesday’s meeting.
Friends of the Golf Course will meet again in April, when Jones, Pochardt and Morphet are back in Haines, the date to be determined.