Lawn care goof closes Kansas City golf course for a month and will cost the county
Jackson County’s 18-hole Fred Arbanas Golf Course is closed all month and the county will be out more than $100,000 because someone misapplied lawn chemicals last fall, killing grass on 95% of the greens at the course, according to documents obtained by The Star.
Workers have been replacing damaged sod on the course’s greens with sod hauled in from Colorado, as the county’s own sod farm was depleted from last year’s renovation of the county’s Par 3 course, according to a memo from Parks + Rec director Michele Newman to County Executive Frank White.
Newman requested the emergency purchase in March, after discovering that the excessive application of pre-emergent herbicide last fall had killed the grass. The new sod was estimated to cost $27,525 and, according to Newman’s memo, the county planned to contract with a company to help with preparation and installation at a cost of $8,000.
But she noted that project costs could exceed that estimate.
The county announced on its website a few weeks ago that the course was being closed for greens restoration but did not volunteer why the work was needed now, at the start of the golf season when tee times are in great demand.
Of bigger financial concern is the hit to county revenues, as green’s fees and other purchases at the course help support other Parks + Rec activities.
Closing the course from April 5 to May 3 will mean a loss of an estimated $85,000 in revenue, county spokeswoman Marshanna Smith said.
“It is our parks department’s largest generator of revenue,” Dan Tarwater, chairman of the county legislature, explained at last week’s meeting without letting on why the renovation was needed at this time with an emergency purchase order.
Tarwater said that after the new sod greens up and takes root, “it’s going to be better and stronger” than the decade-old turf it replaced.
The A-4 Bentgrass sod was set to arrive in two shipments in refrigerated trucks, Newman said in her memo to White.
The Colorado supplier was chosen because, in addition to the county’s sod farm being depleted, no local sod farms grow that variety, according to an April 5 finance department memo sent to the nine county legislators. A-4 Bentgrass was chosen for the greens when the county did a major renovation of the course in 2008 and 2009 because it provided “excellent putting surfaces,” then course superintendent Bob McMillin said at the time
Tarwater asked that golfers withhold judgment on the appearance of the new greens until the sod has a chance to get established. He said the new turf was dormant when it was cut and delivered to the course, which in 1999 was named in honor of the former county legislator and Kansas City Chiefs player Fred Arbanas.
A champion of the parks system, Arbanas died over the weekend at age 82.
This story was originally published April 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
