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Judge-Executive Huston Wells addresses the crowd at the Duckers Lake Golf Resort clubhouse. (Ben Mackin | State Journal)
The view from the green on the 18th hole at Duckers Lake Golf Resort. (Ben Mackin | State Journal)
Duckers Lake Golf Resort clubhouse. (Ben Mackin | State Journal)
The view from the green on the 18th hole at Duckers Lake Golf Resort. (Ben Mackin | State Journal)
A crowd of almost 100 people packed into the former Duckers Lake Golf Resort clubhouse on Sunday afternoon to discuss the future of the links after it was purchased by Franklin County in October.
"This is an opportunity that you don't always get, especially from a government standpoint of shaping the future," Judge-Executive Huston Wells said to the assembled crowd. "We are very fortunate and very thankful that all of you are here today and as part of this process we can all move forward together."
Duckers Lake Golf Resort clubhouse. (Ben Mackin | State Journal)
The semi-private 18-hole course in the county's 2nd District was originally developed in 1995 by real estate builder William "Bill" Pulliam III. Along with the course, he also built up several housing developments such as The Village at Duckers Lake, Buena Vista Estates and The Condos at Duckers.
Whitaker Bank acquired the property in 2015 who leased it to Lexington-based Man O' War Golf. It remained open until 2017 and has been shutdown ever since.
The county purchased the 130-acre property from the bank for $850,000 which is quite a deal when compared to its listed value of $1.35 million on Franklin County PVA website.
For comparison Wells noted to the crowd that when the county bought Lakeview Park in 1992, which is also around 130 acres, it cost $1.2 million.
He also reiterated during the meeting that the event was the start of a long discussion on what to do with the park.
"What we're going to do today is start the process," Wells stated. "The process is going to be your voices, your thoughts, your ideas."
Judge-Executive Huston Wells addresses the crowd at the Duckers Lake Golf Resort clubhouse. (Ben Mackin | State Journal)
After his initial speech, Wells took comments and questions from the crowd. Many of those who spoke owned houses surrounding the links. They noted that whatever happens to the property, they wanted to make sure it was well maintained.
In the years since the course ceased operations, many of the surrounding homeowners have either been mowing the holes directly adjacent to their properties or pooling money and paying someone for its upkeep.
"Thankfully everyone on our side of the street, for the last two or three years, we've been paying Carl Smither, the guy who works out of the maintenance shed, to mow number 18," said resident Scott Shannon. "I know that the folks that live on the other side of the street, they pay him to mow number eight and nine. It is amazing to see when you go around this whole golf course to see how good of shape it really is in."
Some of the ideas for what to do with the property, consisted of reopening the links as an 18-hole course, making it a multi-use recreation area, complete with trails for biking and running and disc golf.
3rd District Magistrate and Judge-Executive-elect Michael Mueller said that he is excited that the county purchased the property but that there were several items that needed to be attended to before a final decision on the Duckers Lake property was reached.
"The meeting was a little premature, I feel," said Mueller, who was in attendance. "The park committee needs to sit down and get Lakeview Park moving. We are in the final stages of negotiating a contractor for the design build part of Lakeview and once we get that paper signed, we can start looking at this. With a new court too. Here we are with only a month left of this fiscal court. So there is not a whole lot going on right now."
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"This is an opportunity that you don't always get, especially from a government standpoint of shaping the future," Judge-Executive Huston Wells said to the assembled crowd. "We are very fortunate and very thankful that all of you are here today and as part of this process we can all move forward together."
Together? What? Huston is in denial…suffering from premature exclamation! Listen to what County Judge Executive Michael Mueller said! He is our future.
Huston and Mayor Bill May colluded with Matt Bevin, a rogue one-term Republican governor, to demolish our Convention Center for no good reason. These guys should not be trusted with anything to do with “opportunities” of government “shaping the future” in our community again! That ship has sailed! Say goodbye, Huston, it’s Mueller time!
And that is a whole lotta yard to mow! The last thing that Frankfort needs is another golf course to maintain and lose money on. How much did our golf courses make last year?
Who was governor when the decision was made to tear down the Caputal Plaza?
Gov. Matt Bevin, and his Finance Secretary Jim Landrum…they made the unilateral decision to demolish the tower, and then after the fact, decided to include the Convention Center, for no good stated reason. Within 6 months after that announcement, the Center was on the ground, well before anything else was demolished. They did so without any legislative authority, because they did not use public money to do it. It was all part of a P3 scheme with CRM Construction LLC, that included demolition of the whole plaza (except the hotel) and construction of the new office building, which the state is now leasing from CRM for 30 years (a real sweetheart deal for CRM!). The state will have the option to purchase the Mayo Underwood Building at the end of the lease agreement in 30+ years.
The previous Governor Steve Beshear, had no intention to demolish the Convention Center as his administration had just had a 50+ year new roof installed neat the end of his term.
Old politicians careers , coming to an end , reminds me of this poem;
Twilight is refracted and reflected
Even tide is a disguise
By the time we see the burn.
It is easy to fool red state people, they will eat anything!
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