WS Chronicle

Forsyth County commissioners are set to vote on a contract for Tanglewood Park Championship Golf Course renovations that didn’t meet the county’s minority subcontractor goals.

The golf course renovations are part of the voter-approved 2016 county bond referendum. The project, which has a $2.45 million budget, had four bids. The lowest bidder, NMP Golf Construction Corp. of Vermont, didn’t meet the North Carolina license requirement. So the staff recommendation is to go with Wadsworth Golf Construction Co. The Illinois-based company was the second lowest bidder at $1.95 million. Since the bid came in low enough, staff added additional work to the project, which mostly involves tree removal on various courses, that increased the contract to $2.2 million.

None of the bidders, which only included one North Carolina company, met the county’s Minority/Woman Business Enterprise (M/WBE) goal of 10 percent. Wadsworth did have the highest M/WBE rate of 8.18 percent. The county’s M/WBE committee, which is composed of high-ranking county staff, found the company met the requirement for good-faith efforts on recruiting minority subcontractors.

Jerry Bates, city/county purchasing director, said that the specialized nature of golf course construction made it difficult to meet the minority participation goal.

County Commissioner Everette Witherspoon said, while he was glad it was close to the goal, he felt the company could’ve gotten at least 10 percent. He once again said the county should considering raising its good-faith standards.

“When it comes to the qualifications and the standards to meet good-faith efforts, we need to look at should we raise them and can we raise them,” said Witherspoon.

M/WBE standards are set by state statute and changing them requires a local act passed by the General Assembly. This is what the City of Winston-Salem did. While the county requires 50 points of good-faith efforts, the city requires 112 points. The city also has a M/WBE division that helps recruit minority subcontractors.  Last fiscal year the city’s M/WBE participation was twice that of the county’s. The county is in talks about possibly contracting with the city for M/WBE services.

Tanglewood’s Championship Golf Course is the most popular of its three golf courses. (other two are Reynolds and Par 3 courses  at Triad Park and Horizons Park.) Construction is expected to begin in May and last into September. It’s expected the course will be completely shut down for most of that time. The work on the course will include sand bunker renovations, irrigation and cart path improvements, tree removal and converting the course to Bermuda grass, a drought resistant grass that’s easier to maintain.