Dickinson Park Board approves sale of pro shop inventory

DICKINSON - It took about five minutes for the Dickinson Park Board to unanimously approve the contract of sale of Kevin Bergman’s Heart River Golf Course pro shop inventory at a special meeting held Tuesday morning.

Bergman recently died unexpectedly, so the park district is buying his inventory from his wife, Cindy.

Dickinson Parks and Recreation Director James Kramer said the sale is to close today.

“The sale will be the purchase, basically of all the inventory, personal items and fixtures,” Kramer said.

Cindy Bergman and the park district agreed the total value of the inventory is $161,312.27.

Park Board President Mike Lefor said the park district worked side by side with Cindy Bergman in the process of totaling inventory.

“It took a lot on behalf of a lot of people in a very short time frame, and to get it done in this time frame is awesome,” Lefor said.

The amount owed to Cindy Bergman is to be broken into four payments over the next year.

“The first payment will be (made on the) closing date...and then three equal payments in October, and May and October of next year,” Kramer said.

After the meeting, Kramer said this payment plan was most convenient for both parties.

“It was very helpful for us that she let us do it in payments so that we could pay her as we took in revenue from sales,” Kramer said.

He added gift certificates received from Bergman are to be honored through Oct. 1. Kramer said gift certificates will continue to be available for customers, but they will now be sold by the park district.

“They’ll be different than what he had,” Kramer said after the meeting. “We’ll be working with both of them up to October first, and then we’ll phase hers out.”

He added the park district is planning a grand opening for the pro shop this Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m.

Mickey Jordan, the new pro shop supervisor, is already working for the park district part time until his contract as assistant principal with Dickinson High School is up at the end of June. He begins full time on July 1.

Unlike the situation with Bergman, neither Jordan nor golf pro Tyler Reisenauer will own the pro shop inventory.

“The park district will own and operate the pro shop, as well as the golf course,” Kramer said. “All of the proceeds for the pro shop, inventory and things like that, will stay with the golf course.”

He added the park district plans to continue running the pro shop in this fashion.

“It’s completely different from how we had the arrangement with Kevin,” Kramer said. “Kevin was a private contractor…that was his own business, you know, he just used our space. Now the business will be run by the golf course and the golf course will make the proceeds.”

Kramer added this new system of running Heart River Golf Course should work well for the park district.

“This is just kind of the best situation for the golf courses as far as running it this way, you know; all the revenue generated through the sales of merchandise will be put back into continuing to maintain and operate the golf course,” Kramer said.

Although Bergman covered the duties for both the pro shop and the golf pro positions, those responsibilities are now divided between Reisenauer and Jordan.

“The golf pro is going to concentrate more on golf programming, which would be leagues, lessons, tournaments, where the golf pro shop supervisor is going to concentrate more on the business side of running the pro shop, the staffing, the actual inventory, retail, merchandising, that type of thing, as well as handle the marketing and promotion of the course,” Kramer said. “Tyler would be working with people who would want to take a lesson and get measured for what type or what size of club.”

He said dividing the duties among two different individuals is the best way to handle this situation.

“With the strengths of each of these two, Tyler and Mickey, I think it just fits what we wanted to accomplish a lot better,” Kramer said.

Kramer added the new situation doesn’t change the way services were provided in the past.

“I think people are going to see, and we want them to understand that they’re going to see, the same quality of equipment, the same types of equipment,” Kramer said. “Kevin ran one of the best pro shops in the state and obviously we want to continue that tradition that he built over 20-plus years.”

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