Course manager wins reprieve

By CARY DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2000

ZEPHYRHILLS -- The City Council Monday night decided to give the manager of the city's golf course another chance to make required improvements to the course and the clubhouse, but the board made it clear it will not tolerate any more delays or excuses.

The council voted 4-1 to require Nancy Lester to put $50,000 in an escrow account before the council's Feb. 28 council meeting. The board also specified that Lester must use the money to plant new Bermuda grass on the greens, tees and approaches and to make improvements to the clubhouse by June 30.

If she fails to deposit the money, or if she doesn't meet the deadline for completing the work, the city would begin proceedings to terminate Lester's lease at the golf course.

A divided City Council voted 11 months ago to give Lester a 30-year extension on her lease, with the understanding that she would make good on her promise to finish the improvements to the golf course by last September.

She didn't do the work, she has said numerous times, because her golf course superintendent and his assistant quit without warning during the growing season last summer. Then, in August, Lester's husband died.

The city allowed Lester to skip four monthly lease payments late last year, provided she use the money she saved in rent to make improvements to the clubhouse. Permitting problems have prevented her from beginning the renovations, she has said.

"There have been a lot of promises made by (Lester) in the past, and a lot of those promises just don't seem to come to fruition," City Attorney Tom McAlvanah said Monday.

The city sent Lester a letter in December informing her that she was in default of her lease. She has since tried to make two lease payments, but the city refused her checks because, McAlvanah wrote earlier this month, "Acceptance of rent with knowledge of breach can be construed as a waiver of that breach."

Lester, 58, has run the city-owned golf course, which abuts the Zephyrhills Municipal Airport, since 1988. She pays the city about $40,000 per year to operate the par-68, 18-hole layout.

After Monday night's vote, Council President Elizabeth Geiger said: "That was a great stretch of my compassion, because I sincerely hoped we would not be in the position we're in tonight."

Councilman Alan Brenia cast the lone vote against giving Lester another chance, arguing that the city should terminate the lease immediately.

An employee who answered the phone at the golf course Tuesday said that Lester would have no comment.

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